A weird idea about blue side advantage issue
DISCLAIMER: This idea is an half provocation, and isn't mean to be taken as entirely and extremely serious, as it just popped while I was wandering around some reddit/twitter, so I thought that I would put it here as spurt for discussion more than anything else
**Premise ** It is extremely clear that blue side team has generally an advantage in LoL. Even if it is not something huge, it is definitively noticeable, especially if we take as reference some high level play when the smallest differences can end up in hugely different results. There are small differences in the map itself that could give a slight advantage to a team, of course, but the main advantage is another. it is not a new or an unknown thing either, eh. Basically almost every game/activity that involves some strategy in it, for how much they can be balanced to give both/all the sides an even playing field, ends up give a slight advantage to the one that moves first White's advantage in chess is a well-known and maybe one of the most debated thing in Chess and more in general in Game Theory
How does White's advantage thing is present in LoL? You know the answer, it's in the Pick and Ban phase
Let's analyze it for a second (B will indicate blue team, R will indicate red team Certainly you know the P&B sequence in LoL: BAN (B)- ban (R)- ban(B)- ban(R)-ban (B)-ban (R) PICK (B) -pick(R)-pick(R)-pick(B)-pick(B)-pick(R)-pick(R)-pick(B)-pick(B)- PICK(R)
Why did I underline three moments in capital? You can imagine it, those represent the three crucial moment in pick and ban phase that can give an advantage to a team. The first ban is always an advantage for the blue team, because it can either serve as its original purpose to eliminate the treat of a champ that the team doesn't want to face (which would be pretty neutrall all in all as red side bans can do the same) , but can especially serve as a way to manipulate the red side bans. Given how in LoL there is a situation wherevarious meta where a limited number of champs are seen as the optimal choices in a certain role, the fact that blue team ban first can enormously shape the course of red team bans because it can narrow down the pool of "competitively avaliable" champs in certain critical roles and thus can force the red team to make difficult choices that can lead them to leave open to the blue team that has the first pick some champs that in a perfect scenario red team would have not wanted to give to the blue team
The first pick advantage for blue team is obvious, and I don't need to explain it as blue can pick the champ that is the strongest available in theory - and because of meta not every champ has the same value obvously . The last pick advantage is obvious too, because of the concept of the counter pick, where you can have the last word on pick and ban and eventually disrupt the enemy team strategy once you have most of the team comp strategic info unveiled at the time of the last pick with a move that the enmy can't answer
The Problem
Having said so, what is the issue then? Well, there are two issues here The first is, the numerical disparity of the advantage given to either team. With the actual pick and ban structure, Blue side team has TWO advantages (First ban, First pick) while Red side team has ONE advantage (Last pick). If any advantage would be worth equally, it is clear how blue gains the upper hand here But, coming to the second issue, the fact is that not all the advantages are worth the same here! First pick advantage worth more than the others, because it is the only advantage THAT IS NOT SITUATIONAL. First ban and last pick can be an advantage for a team, but they aren't necessarily it in every game. If you read the description above, blue side first ban advantage could be used simply in a neutral way to eliminate power picks or picks that the team do not want to face becoming basically not an advantage anymore and becoming a neutral thing; last pick equally could be pretty much irrelevant as coming to the time of the last pick you can't always have the possibility to disrupt blue side team strategies of their comp because of how the rest of the pick and ban selection has unraveled, not having the possibility to counter the enemy with it First pick advantage is more powerful than the other two, especially when put in synergy with the first ban advantage because of the reasons stated above
You could argue that an easy and popular soluction would to increase the numbers of bans to 5 for both teams, so to eliminate first ban advantage. you know, there are more than enough OP champs and so little bans, etc,etc,etc... the issue here is that increasing the number of bans for both teams would simply NOT eliminate the first ban advantage. The crossbar would just be passed over to the next strongest champions once more OP champs are banned than in the actual situation,but the dynamic would be pretty much the same. Blue side team can still manipulate red side bans and get the upper hand in synergy with first pick advantage?
The Weird Idea
So, how can this inequality that give blue side team an advantage be resolved, or more realistically mitigated?
Here it comes the weird idea: MAKE THE NUMBER OF BANS ASYMMETRICAL BETWEEN THE TWO TEAMS!!!
Basically, you give an uneven number of bans to the two teams, so that you break the conjunction of first pick and first ban advantage, and try to redistribute more evenly the advantage between the teams
For example, you could give an extra ban to the blue team and the first pick to the read team so that it would become: BAN (B, "weak",situational)-ban (R)-ban(B)-ban(R)-ban(B)-ban(R)-ban(B) PICK(R, "strong", non situational)- pick(B)-pick(B)-pick (R)-pick(R)-pick(B)-pick(B)-pick(R)-pick(R)-PICK(B, "weak", situational)
In this situation, you would give blue side TWO advantages, but red side even if it gets one advantage would get the STRONGEST advantage of all of them, and without the synergy with the first ban advantage that make the first pick advantage even stronger now It could be argued that a bigger number of bans for blue could represent a further advantage becoming a fourth, "weak", situational advantage and it is indeed a legit concern
You can legitimately think that you could get better results with an alternative set up with red banning first and blue picking first, so that red get the three weak advantages and blue get the strongest one, or you could even change the pick order in a way that the order of advantages get different
For example after the bans uneven like in the first example with blue banning first and having more bans , in pick phase you could do a different order like PICK(R)- pick(R)-pick(B)-pick(B)-pick(R)-pick (B)-pick(R)-pick(B)-pick(B)-PICK(R)
With the result that blue would have the two advantages in the ban phase and the red the two advantages in pick phase, with red having the strongest one and blue the second strongest one (or vice versa if you swap ban and pick priority with red banning first)
Basically, you can come up with many different solutions eventually, but all would be possible revolving around the idea of an uneven number of bans
Summary
TL; DR A way to reduce or change the dynamics that give actually to the blue side team a relevant advantage could be to move away from the pretense that every team must be get equal tools pre-game which paradoxically and hypocritically give blue team the advantage, and a system to ensure that without fundamentally breaking the play phase itself (some people suggested changes to the rift amnd especially red jungle to favour red side team which is frankly something that would be really difficult to balance and frankly would be something I'd despise) is to "break" the theoretical equality of P&B phase to actually have a wider range of solutions and approaches to make it more balanced than what actually is
P.S. It is very late night here so I apologize in advance for typos, mispelling and if I'll basically make mistakes in writing those pick and ban orders of the example that could confound you while you read it
P.P.S. Thank you for reading till this point :D
