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Meddler On Worlds 2018 - ''No champions should be 100% pick/ban, or very close to it''

Sir Rouge·10/3/2018, 4:08:25 PM·135 votes·41,450 views

Please stop lying to us.

  • Refused to further nerf Akali, even though they knew she would be a problem. Pretty much P/B status at worlds.
  • Refused to further nerf Kai'sa, even though they knew she would be a problem. Pretty much P/B status at worlds.
  • Refused to nerf Alistar, even though they knew he would be a problem. Pretty much P/B status at worlds.

To quote Meddler on Alistar: ''- Pro: Conclusion was we'd need to nerf him, Braum and Rakan all meaningfully (otherwise just pushing play onto the other two). Don't feel he's that out of line and don't want to disrupt state of support too much either. Do like that he tends to force conflict as well.

  • Regular play: Haven't discussed Alistar as much in that context in the last couple of patches. Will be one of the champs talked about when we do 8.20 planning, not sure if that means changes or not yet.''

Aka: ehh, he's P/B, but ''do like that he tends to force conflict''. You chose ''big plays'' over integrity.

These champions are problematic in soloq and pro play. It was a no brainer to nerf them. Even in 8.20, it looks like NONE of them are going to be nerfed according to Meddler's post from today!

155 Comments

Fízz v210/3/2018, 4:17:31 PM55 votes

forgot

  • not nerfing urgot despite his 100% p/b rate recently

and

  • buffing aatrox before worlds OMEGALUL
RiotRiot MapleNectar10/4/2018, 7:34:38 PM47 votes

Akali - Our nerf in 8.17 hit pretty hard - scaling exponentially with MMR (on that patch she dropped ~0.5% at low MMR all the way up to 2.6% at high MMR). We hadn't seen any pro play with the nerfs, and also believe that there are counters to Akali that hadn't yet been picked up much (Zil, Veigar, maybe even Renekton as we've been watching in KR solo queue as examples). Nerfing her blindly even further seemed incorrect given her live performance.

Kai'sa was already making it through a lot of ban phases in playoffs/regional qualifiers meaning that pros were willing to play against her. We'd nerfed her on 8.18, nerfed several supports frequently picked to keep her safe in lane phase, and buffed some pretty strong lanes against her.

Meddler already touched on Alistar.

When it comes to balancing for pro play, a question you always need to be asking is "ok so who's next?". If we had swung hard and nerfed Urgot and Aatrox on 8.19, the likely result is that folks like Cho, Ornn, and Sion raise in priority. Nerf Graves, Camille, Olaf, you see more Gragas, Sej, and Trundle. Nerf Kai'sa, Varus, you see more Ezreal Trist, and Xayah (and Rakan as a result of their synergy).

Everything is a tradeoff at the end of the day, and this year we opted for the strategy of buffing more of the counters to the champs at the top as a means of bringing the highest presence and lower presence champs closer to parity rather than just replacing the current top picks with the next in lane champs in the middle.

This is kind of glossing over a pretty large topic, but hope it sheds some light.

yeulx10/3/2018, 4:15:23 PM32 votes

That is true.. instead Riot would rather nerf champions like Ahri and nami.. over things like graves jax.. and graves does need a nerf since hes a very oppressive champion atm

Rexxiee10/3/2018, 6:38:50 PM18 votes

balance team is incompetent, simple as that.

It needs to be replaced.

SnugglePuggle9410/3/2018, 5:50:31 PM16 votes

They do that meanwhile they nerf Ahri (probably warranted) and Nami (not warranted).

The balance team just keeps me shaking my head every dang time they bring out a change or buff/nerf.

[slayer-jinx-unamused]

Nea10410/3/2018, 11:06:38 PM12 votes

Besides he doesn't have a reputation anymore, problem about Alistar and some other supports aren't them themselves; it's all about other champs doing too much freaking damage in a too short time, and Alistar's engage is strong because of that.

They need to fix their entire game, not a couple of supports.

But they won't: they haven't realized what was going on this entire season, and the game has fallen to pieces not accidentally.

ZackTheWaffleMan10/3/2018, 8:18:08 PM11 votes

boards: "rito stop balancing against pro play" also boards: this post

Unstoppable Monk10/3/2018, 5:48:20 PM10 votes

0% pick/ban Yorick. There's no way to play him in the professional scene anymore with such a severe change.

Never thought I'd have to boycott worlds, LMAO.

chipndip110/3/2018, 9:26:05 PM9 votes

Akali has been losing most matches in Worlds

Akali is SO HOT10/3/2018, 7:10:37 PM8 votes

I think a possible reason they didn't give Akali additional nerfs is because of her performance in pro play. Although she is banned most of the time, when she is picked she doesn't do very well. In most of the games she has been played in she has either lost or has only had a small impact in the games she's won compared to other mid laners. Her pick/ban status isn't really comparable to a few years ago when GP and Morde were 100% pick/ban and were destroying almost all of the games they were in.

the protohuman10/4/2018, 10:06:55 AM5 votes

Meddler is recently playing Alistar alot so they aren't nerfing it. XD