Pantheon has a 100 % presence in worlds

Qiyana also has similarly high stats in worlds, not quite 100% pick ban but close. But its OK, shes not OP or overloaded she's actually weak b/c she has a low solo Q winrate ;)

champion is overpowered =/= champion is badly designed

Hes the only good snowball toplaner. Aatrox was the last until he got gutted to high hell.

Pantheon is annoying mostly mid lane, because E blocks spells and mages dont have mobility to flank him. IMHO E's damage reduction should scale (ex: 50-100% at level 5) That way Pantheon can either go offensive or defensive and has to prioritize while being playable in different roles. Ex: Maxing E for panth support, having more burst but less def mid and top etc.

I'm really confused on how Pantheon has that high of a ban rate.

He's a good champion, but I never thought he'd reach the point of pro-play bannable.

Hope he doesn't get the Akali treatment just because of pro play.

Champion -> Has Global-ish Mobility Ultimate/Ability and a Half Decent Kit -> Pro Play All-Star Until Nerfed

I don't know what patch they are playing on. New and reworked champs are always OP. Riot seems to do this on purpose.

We are in a short duration game meta and he's an early game champion with high map presence because of his ultimate and can engage fights with crowd control.

Of course you are going to see him, for all the same reasons we saw Lee Sin so much in the past.

There are more than a few champions than can counter him by going around his E. The only glaring issue with Pantheon is that if you are not one of those champions and he trades with a W, fall back on E then Q at a distance you don't get to trade back with him at all. However, I've seen several champions just absolute 1v1 him in lane easily including Fiora, Udyr, and Maokai.

Fiora especially, you can W Riposte Pantheons W and then side step Q his E. I can't say how popular any of those champions are right now though as I haven't been watching Worlds this year. I used to watch more when they would give stats and builds, but since the system has been over simplified with new runes and they don't make that data easily accessible from the main site I don't have as much interest.

if riot would start to make patches that only apply for pro play, the game would be sooooo much better honestly.

and its not that big of a deal for pros anyways, they are used to playing 1-2 patches behind.

but as always that would make sense and would make the game better. and thats not something riot wants.

Pantheon's problem is that his old playstyle of point and click qs was replaced with his new playstyle of point and click empowered Ws at level 1.

His Q became a skillshot but he now has a LUDICROUSLY strong ability in his new E.

It's what Riot wants. It's why the buff/nerf like they do lately. They could give a shit about the integrity of the game or themselves, as long as they can have a hand in whos in worlds.

Gragas, kaisa, xayah, quiana, GP and akali are nearly as present, it's quite absurd howmany clearly OP picks exist this worlds.