10 Champion Ban Phase HEAVILY Favors Red Side
So for everyone who's not been watching the LCS, let me give a somewhat brief summary as to how the 10 champion pick/ban phase has been working in pro play.
The way it works is that Blue Side still gets first ban and first pick. Pretty nice. The two teams ban six champs (alternating each ban) to start. Blue gets first pick, red gets 2 & 3, blue gets 4 & 5, and red gets 6. Then the second ban phase starts, where both teams ban four more champs. But that ban phase starts with red team, and then red team also gets the first pick afterwards for pick 7. Then blue team gets picks 8 & 9 like usual, and red team gets last pick as well.
Don't get me wrong, I like where this format is going. But this gives red side way too much power.
For one as the second ban phase is about to start, Red side gets a back to back pick and ban in a row. This can effectively let red side take away two powerful champs from blue team.
Not only that, but red side still gets the first pick after the last bans as well, giving them the picks before and after the second ban phase.
We can already see competitively that Red side is overpowered in pick, as the C9 v TSM finals each team picked red in every single game. Why? Because they want to get the most power they possibly can, and red side gets the most impact in the pick/ban phase.
Something about it needs to be changed. The best idea that comes to my mind would be to have the second ban phase start after pick 5, before red gets to take both picks 6 & 7. This would force the bans earlier on Red, and I feel that would make things more even in the pick/ban phase. Plus it'd make more sense logically too, half the picks would happen before the 2nd ban phase and half the picks would happen afterwards.
Also fyi for anyone about to argue, "Well this is how DotA and/or (insert any other game here) does it," 1) I don't care, and 2) I don't even know if this is the way other games do it, and if you're wondering why I don't know that see reason 1 again. This is League of Legends, a superior game by all rights, and to even suggest that we should conform to what another game does, especially since it too would be doing it wrong should they follow this system as well.