Just a Thought: This Years Worldchampionship

Phat Danny·Oct 25, 2015·15 votes·1,713 views

I have been watching professional League since the start of season 2. All world championships so far have been amazing, but this year it seems off. I feel like the fact that Morde and Gangplank have 100% pick/bann is a good indication of why. What takes away from the game, in my opinion, is the ability of teams to counter each others individual playstyles during pick and bann. I feel like must-pick/banns ruins an important aspect of counterplay which has been present before (i.e. Zed).

Also this years world showed that some glitches still exist.

(I hope next year it will be more balanced. Just a thought....

19 Comments

LuggOct 25, 201511 votes

This was hands down the worst Worlds due to the beyond horrible game balance.

Riot totally screwed the pooch changing the meta right before Worlds.

ModCaptainMårvelousOct 25, 20152 votes

And yet it's still had more diverse picks than any season before it.

LuggOct 26, 20151 votes

Because no one knew what would be strong in actual competitive play since Riot completely changed the meta. Teams were just guessing on what might be strong, not due to any parity at all.

ModCaptainMårvelousOct 26, 20151 votes

...Are you serious right now?

The best teams in the world >guessing< what's strong on a patch? A patch they had months to play on?

LuggOct 26, 20151 votes

They played scrims, not real games. Most scrims only last 20-25 minutes, so they don't get to see what champs can do late game.

Death VizierOct 26, 20151 votes

Just because they are the best teams in the world doesn't mean a thing if you can't practice which champs are good counters or which works in your strat. As I said before this isn't solo que. What might work there won't work within the team if they don't play around it. The best teams in the world are the best because they get to prove it in tourneys and try out picks, as weird as they may be, against strong opponents who have thigns to lose. Scrims aren't a good judge of that. For instance, TSM was doing really well in scrims. Really well. Forcing opponents to surrender at 20. You could see that in their game play at groups. They literally had each game before 20 minutes. Practice made them perfect at 20 and before BUT look at their post 20 minutes. They had NO clue what to do. They ran around like solo que. No objective control no plan. It was a mess.

Don't put these teams on a pedestal. They have to practice. This isn't a game where teams are magically gifted. They need to build synergy with each champ.

Death VizierOct 25, 20154 votes

Horrible balance possibly? But I think it was the fact that this was rolled out RIGHT before worlds after the tourneys were over. Basically everyone had to switch metas... in the off season. Who the hell are they supposed to practice with and test it. Scrims? I heard scrims end with a surrender or teams don't play to their full potential. You can't balance something weeks before it launches, RIOT you cray. The reason for the bans are because no one has time to really find an answer to morde and GP and not only that, they didnt have time to prep for it. Poor poor choice. One thing to note though is, with this patch changing everything, we saw which teams were really mechanically gifted and macro heavy. The ability to adapt is this years patch highlight despite the common bans, we had we're picks like zac, ashe, kennen, hec. I mean any potential to snowball the top lane.

Teams either chose to pick champs in other lanes to complement the top. ie ashe stun, kennen stun. Or they chose to pick a mid utility.

OR be SKT pick a carry in every lane. Who the hell can you target now? There are counter picks but players don't know how to master EVERY champ so its really messed up this worlds with top heavy bruisers.

LuggOct 26, 20153 votes

Great post, totally agree.

TheNameIsJohnnyOct 25, 20157 votes

RIOT should change to 5 BANS instead of 3

High5Oct 25, 20151 votes

No. If they could've used all 6 bans, it would've been fine. 100% Mord / GP bans was destructive to the select phase and overall game.

ModCaptainMårvelousOct 25, 20157 votes

I just want to point out that compared to last year and S3, we've seen more diverse picks and larger champion pools than any season before this one. If anything, Season 4 was the absolute worst in terms of balance because of how stifled and stringent everything was.

The bugs I'll give you but balance this year has still been better than S3 and S4 (Maybe even S2 in some aspects).

High5Oct 25, 20151 votes

Cool. Champion diversity hasn't made for good games though. Two 3-0s this weekend was awful to watch. SKT is likely to sweep in the finals too.

YCitizenSnipsYOct 25, 20152 votes

Nothing awful in that, the better team won and balance is far from what decided those series. It seems like you only enjoy a good game of league when the team you like is winning,

ModCaptainMårvelousOct 25, 20152 votes

And that has nothing to do with balance, that's a drastic skill difference in pro players. Riot could make the game perfectly balanced and even then Korean players would likely be far above others.

qetzelOct 25, 20154 votes

This happened last year too. Zilean and Alistar were must pick/ban. One or two champions are almost always significantly better than the rest.

The Yetii RiderOct 25, 20153 votes

I agree, the fact that teams only have 4 bans (arguably 3 because Elise is just that destructive) is really detracting from the strategy of the pick/ban phase.

High5Oct 25, 20151 votes

Yeah, stared off ok. Quarters and Semis have been terrible though. Finals are a given. I'll do a cartwheel for every game Koo wins.