So about bans...

Let me start by saying that I really enjoy the new layout of the champion select in that it looks beautiful and we get to select our lanes pre-queue. I think however everybody agrees that there are still quirks to be worked out: randomly deciding to make it so players must lock in, the duration/inability to lock in your pre-pick champ, and the banning process.

"But isn't the banning process better now? I mean it's not just one person on each team choosing bans, there's more democracy!"

I agree, it's better, but I don't think it's the best it can be. I still think the whole process of banning champs one at a time is incredibly slow, inefficient, and highly infuriating. Furthermore, it seems to ignore one of the qualities the development of this game has: constantly creating new champions. We have an absurd number of champions with really no sign of Riot slowing down there, therefore we get an increasingly ineffective ban ratio (something like 1 ban for every 20+ champs?). One might say to just increase the number of bans, but I think I have a better idea.

My solution: have each player have an editable ban list of champions that they can access on their profile. When players enter champion select the game will see the most common champions on each player's ban list and effectively ban 10% (percentage due to increasing number of champions) of the champions (I think 12 champions bans is more than okay with this game considering the number of champions.) So what this means is that all players are happy because we get rid of champions nobody wants to deal with, we get an effective number of bans without having to increase the duration of the already lengthy ban process, and we actually just streamline the champion select by having a ban process that is democratic and quick.

So to be clear, let's take an example like this: League of Legends currently has 129 champions, therefore 12 champions are on each ban list (soon to be 13). Player A: Tahm Kench, Soraka, Graves, Fiora, Dr. Mundo, Udyr, Kindred, Corki, Leblanc, Fizz, Olaf, Zac Player B: Tahm Kench, Soraka, Graves, Fiora, Kindred, Corki, Zac, Ryze, Gangplank, Nidalee, Poppy, Zed ... Player I: Tahm Kench, Soraka, Graves, Kindred, Corki, Zac, Ryze, Poppy, Zed, Twisted Fate, Miss Fortune, Lee sin Player J: Tahm Kench, Graves, Fiora, Kindred, Corki, Zac, Ryze, Poppy, Twisted Fate, Gangplank, Xin Zhao, Lee sin

Ban List Votes (pretending we included players C-H): Tahm Kench - 100% Soraka - 80% Graves - 100% Fiora - 80% Dr. Mundo - 30% Udyr - 20% Kindred - 20% Corki - 100% Leblanc - 10% Fizz - 10% Olaf - 10% Zac - 40% Ryze - 50% Gangplank - 50% Nidalee - 10% Poppy - 30% Zed - 10% Twisted Fate - 50% Miss Fortune - 10% Lee Sin - 10% Xin Zhao - 10%

So the bold champions would be banned since most players included them on their ban lists. Ties would be left to lottery (which is probably the main discussion point on how to deal with ties). Highest priority of ban is given to the champions with the highest percentages of commonality amongst players.

I think this is a better ban system than the one currently in place. Some of you might even think that 12 champions is too much, but even that can be left to discussion. I think it streamlines the process and would probably make champion select much less frustrating and time consuming. What are your thoughts on the solution I provided?