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Riot's biggest blunder of World 2019.

Arcane Azmadi·11/6/2019, 1:13:43 AM·33 votes·12,665 views

OK, while Worlds 2019 has certainly been one of the best from a meta perspective, with a very wide variety of champions seeing play (99 out of 145 champions have been picked or banned) and nothing notably horrible like the infamous Juggernaut patch of 2015, there has been ONE big standout problem, like a zit on a supermodel's face, and that is (obviously) Pantheon.

According to lol.gamepedia, Pantheon has a 100% pick/ban rate across all 117 games of Worlds so far- banned 116 times, picked once (he won, although the K/D/A wasn't that amazing). Such a universal ban rate pretty much telegraphs that Pantheon is so utterly broken on the Worlds patch that the teams know that, if left unbanned, he WILL 100% be picked, and there are either no counters for him, or so few counters that if they let the opponents choose him they'll simply ban the counters to make him unstoppable (otherwise at least ONE team would have left him open to counterpick him).

This means that Pantheon has arguably been one of the most game-warping champions in pro-LoL history without even having been played. Why? Simple: every single team who gets red side only gets 2 bans in the first ban phase, because EVERY one of them MUST first ban Pantheon. And every single one of them HAS. It's been automatic- blue side bans, then basically gets to ban again because red automatically bans Pantheon without even thinking about it. Bans are valuable, so it can't just be a case of teams being too lazy to work out how to deal with him- these are the top players in the world, and if not one of them has worked out a proper counter to Pantheon, instead just choosing to forfeit 1/5 of their bans in half of their games, there is no counter to Pantheon.

In all honesty, once it became blatantly apparent that Pantheon would never again be allowed to be picked in this Worlds (by the end of Group Stage at least), Riot should have just disabled him to remove the handicap from red side teams. Clearly he's so utterly broken that he shouldn't have been allowed to be played at Worlds, because every pro team has reached a consensus that he won't be played at Worlds. So soon after his relaunch, its baffling that Riot allowed him to be played on the most important competitive patch of the year. Again, this has been a pretty damn good Worlds patch, which just makes the Pantheon blunder stand out all the more.

36 Comments

ViperVenom11/6/2019, 7:20:40 AM21 votes

95% of reworks are broken af. The design team that used to build champions that were balanced is long gone. We have these new apes that wanna "break boundaries".

CLG Rampage11/6/2019, 9:30:54 AM10 votes

I think he's banned for the fact that he can flex into 4 roles and possibly even all 5 if a team wants to get crazy. So even if someone does have a strategy to shut down Panth in say, toplane, they can just flex him mid or jungle. It's not worth trying to counter him because he can escape your counter and then you are just left with a subpar pick. Easier to ban him away than deal with him flexing into any role to escape a bad matchup.

But yeah this is still pretty wack, nerf panth plz

floo11/6/2019, 9:13:59 AM8 votes

I just hope they will adress him in any kind of way.

His Q as long range poke, especially with passive up feels so strong, but can be sidestepped. I hate that they kept his W the same way.. why not make it point and click and aoe stun, but dodgable with blinks for example. Take that with a grain of salt though. E is probably the biggest reason next to his ult. Total invulnerability is just so broken if you can negate any damage of a trade or gank. The combo of all 3 in an all-in is just beyond toxic. R.. well it's pro play, so any kind of mobility ult is of high value here, more than in soloQ at least.

AdamrCc11/6/2019, 3:32:30 AM4 votes

The Pantheon rework may just become a historical moment due to this.

Yfrappefort11/6/2019, 7:07:59 AM4 votes

Pantheon should have just been disabled for World imo. I completely agree with you there. Almost 100% ban rate should be pretty obvious. He just wasted a ban slot every draft.

Taliban Zilean11/6/2019, 12:47:03 PM4 votes

Loving that wind wall on steroids he has...

BrokenRayquaza11/6/2019, 1:37:05 PM3 votes

"You have faced gods, but now you must face, a man"

IronyAndSublime11/6/2019, 5:10:43 PM3 votes

Remember when old Darius was banned from pro-play entirely because of how strong he was?

Infernape11/6/2019, 7:33:06 AM3 votes

Much like juggernaut update Morde.

hshtagniemehrcdu11/6/2019, 8:26:48 AM2 votes

Remember the Gangplank/Mordekaiser buffs? That was the same situation, just worse as it were two champions that needed to be banned.

In fact, these two were so broken, that they never lost a game, despite being both picked in the same match on different teams on one occasion.

Saezio11/6/2019, 11:25:19 AM2 votes

Problem is, Panth was so fresh that teams didn't get to practice against him that well. Also, he could be played in 4 roles. And in the worlds stage you would rather simply spend a ban on him than risk losing the draft because he is a quadraflex

Tayzzer11/6/2019, 5:26:10 PM2 votes

Are you a new fan then? There are pretty much always red side must bans, and imo thats fine.

DorkunedAuras11/6/2019, 11:40:20 PM1 votes

You must be new to watching. Yes, Pantheon is a problem, but I've yet to see a Worlds that doesn't have a champion at 100% pick/ban, if not more than one. Fuck, Kassadin was 100% pick/ban for seasons, plural. I don't think Pantheon's going to stand out as anything particularly notable in the long term. If anything, the biggest issue was that picking ADC was "Kai'Sa, Xayah or just a mage or some shit idfk"

Tr4shB4NSYST3M11/7/2019, 4:07:31 PM1 votes

So yes, pantheon has clearly been shown in draft to be the highest priority of any champ in this worlds. BUT the only time he was let through was play ins, and didnt even look that imactful that game but won because of throws.

Im very curious about scrims, my main guess is that in scrims midlaners/junglers have been picking panth and just taking over games, he is super strong early/mid game and this has been a bit of an early/mid game focused meta.

Bonesaw11/7/2019, 6:05:03 PM1 votes

My pantheon has 0% winrate in Solo Q in all the game that I played. I think you should be quiet and remove this non sense post.

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

Arcane Azmadi11/10/2019, 3:23:05 PM1 votes

FINAL RESULT: And exactly as predicted, in all 3 of the Grand Final games the red side team automatically HAD to first ban Pantheon instantly without even contemplating an alternative- giving Pantheon an unmatched 100% pick/ban ratio in this Worlds, and with only ONE pick (and despite what some people have said in this thread, NO champ has ever been THIS conclusively banned in Worlds before, EVER). This meant that in 2 of their 3 losses G2 only got 4 bans, on top of the automatic disadvantage of FPX getting to pick first. I'm not saying the result might have been different if they hadn't had to forfeit a ban to Pantheon, but if they had been able to, say, ban out Tian's Lee Sin they MIGHT have been able to put up a better fight.

iLLp11/10/2019, 3:28:25 PM1 votes

kassadin was worse back in his prime