The game is too stale. Here's why
Personally I'm getting very bored with how the game is being played these days, at the top level at least. LCS seems to be an absolute snoozefest, at least compared to S3-S4 series, with its theatre of literally 15-20 champions. While I will agree that pros are playing to win and not to have fun, I question Riot's ability to address that. I find it hard to disagree that if the pick pool was larger, you'd have a larger audience.
Here's my take on reasons behind this:
1.Number of bans vs. number of champions.
How come this is completely being ignored? Such a simple change and a needed one since 6 bans were made for what, 80 champs iirc? I can't even recall any statement on this since, like a year ago? You can't really have much diversity in picks when there are 6 bans and that's it. Is that a marketing move - to overproduce champs and keep the bans number so you can't ban 'em all out and they get more highlight in pro games?
2. mobility creep
What seems like a common sense, is much worse than you think. It's escalating like an avalanche. They screwed up so hard they can't stop it. Point of no return. You thought Lucian and Yasuo were cancer? LOL RIGHT. Here's Azir, Gnar & Kalista. Good luck picking gapcloserless melee, unless it's Reignover's Olaf. Not to say these dudes had much fun before these new releases, but now they are wrecked by Kalista, Janna or Azir straight off the bat champ select, because you just can't ban 'em all (see no. 1).
3. "burst" creep/tanks becoming obsolete Champions like Kalista simply offer no counterplay to a melee rather than just flash on top of her and 100-0 her. While I think Kalista needs to be tuned, sadly this is valid for most of the matches, you have to blow the carry up asap, be it mage or marksman. It's all about the damage now, not just mobility, if you can't do both you're not hitting the mark.
Tanks are outclassed by tanky mobile bruisers like Irelia and Renekton, again cutting a chunk of champions off the pool. Tanks aren't exciting enough to watch? 20 champions per LCS day isn't exciting either.
4. balancing changes for 'trash' picks vs. 'godtier' picks
Take a look at the last few patches and see who is really being changed and who's not. You've got lovetap buffs to Galio, Eve and Naut, a BM(no clue how else would you call that kind of a change) buff to Shen, and you've got an OLAF'd Warwick. There is a couple of solid changes over the past 3 or so patches, like Sion's resurrection and Hec/Sej changes but really that's it. Riot, you are essentially reinforcing the concept of "trash" picks staying in the "trash" zone - rather than quickly identifying problematic champions who simply bring everything to the table (hey Lissandra, Jarvan) and heavily nerfing them. You pretend to be looking at unpopular picks and lovetap 'em. Often times your buffs land on already strong picks like Nidalee. Sure, she needed help, so she can be played everywhere...
The 5.2 patch proved it once more with the DFG being removed and Ahri getting instant buffs while Morde, Veigar and co. will have to wait. Why was it so hard to wait a patch or two to put their changes in the cycle? Oh right, cause "Noone really plays them, so there's no point in putting much effort into addressing that". Guess what, this is a vicious cycle. This is why noone WILL play them... Hell, it took you a YEAR to make any changes to Garen, and even then, your change was off the mark as he still blows - not only because of his kit and retarded ult cooldown(!6th highest! base in the game )) BUT ALSO because you overplayed the mobility aspect of your game. Darius? Volibear? Same thing. AND they'll have to wait in the cellar 'till Gnar & Renekton get all their changes.
Riot, Lovetapping Skarner's cooldowns won't work by itself. Picks that are great at everything need a nerfstab as well. Not a nerftap. And they need it faster.
I just want the game to be more fun and exciting to both play and watch. It almost looks like Starcraft 2 nowadays, cookie cutter staple $%$! every game.
