tahm kench is ridiculous

• literally impossible to trade with/poke in lane after level 2
• literally impossible to all-in without insta-popping him
• literally impossible to all-in any of his allies
• literally impossible to prevent flank when against him
• flank range is greater than caitlyn, pantheon, and TF ults, and he brings someone with him + gets a damage steroid
• stacks don't disappear all at once, they decay one by one
• highest base melee range in the game, equal with riven's ulted attack range
• insanely tanky while having tank-busting damage
• has poke
• has cc
• consistent, high power curve all game long

Where is the counterplay? If we spend cc on him, his carries free hit all fight long. If we somehow slog our way past him and the other front liners, and somehow get cc and damage on his carries, he can pull them out for free (à la Kalista R). Can't get a pick on him due to his e. Can't fight extended skirmishes against him without effectively getting Skarner ulted. He can duel front liners and back line carries alike when on equal footing.

This guy's kit is another egregiously bloated (no pun intended) one, and at this point the new champions don't add anything meaningful to the game. Besides revenue--and a couple weeks of furious, unabated, and shameless abuse, that is. Right up until the nerf. It's the same old story that I've seen over and over in my five years with the game.

I've said it many times before, but this is another bad product of riot's top-down champion design; that is, they think of a "cool concept" and try to create a kit to fit the theme. That leads to poor, irreversible balancing decisions early on, and the irrevocable creation of core mechanics that play poorly with the rest of the game. When handling such a delicate matter as introducing an entirely new champion to the game, it is imperative to take the bottom-up design approach: design the kit and mechanics and balance them with respect to the game, keeping in mind what exactly the kit will add to gameplay while not upsetting balance too greatly. Only after you've got a working, proven set of mechanics and numbers do you come up with a cool theme to fit the kit into.