champion diversity

LoL champ diversity is a joke. 2016 WCS had only 57 champs pick/ban in 77 games, with only 45 picked more than once. That's like ~34% of the pool picked more than once, and only ~44% of the pool picked/banned at all.

2015 WCS was 74 pick/ban, 59 with 1+ picks in 73 games. Don't forget GP/Morde both ~70 bans; GP 100% pick/ban/win rate.

Let that sink in. This year, there were fewer champions picked overall than there were champions picked MORE THAN ONCE last year. And last year was the Juggernauts disaster to boot. The pool is getting bigger but diversity is shrinking.

Compare this to DotA 2--I forget if 2014 or 2015 TI (equivalent of WCS in LoL), but literally every hero was used except 1.

Too many champions occupy similar niches to each other within their classes, so at any given time only like 1/3rd of the pool is at nominal effectiveness and there's no reason to pick anything else (unless you want to have fun or are a one-trick). For every meta champ, there are roughly 2 other champs that fill pretty much the same role, but worse. This is what happens when you try to balance for a centre-clustered system instead of making champions counter each other.

Then again, with items just being stat sticks with mathematically correct/incorrect combinations and zero skill involved in item usage (RIP QSS and Muramana), there's always going to be an elite core of "meta champions" that work best with the current items. To quote an old boards post, "Fire your fucking kiddy balance team."

The balancing has gotten so bad that even pros have become self-aware. Bjerg literally saying on stream, "Guys idk what it would take for X Champion to be viable again, but no matter how bad a champ's kit is, Riot can make them viable by breaking their numbers. That's just the sad truth."

also the 2016 wcs final/ro8 bracket draw was also a joke. rox/skt was an infinitely better series than ssg/skt and shouldve been the final.

bye