The change from Position Select to Position Preference

... is a step in the wrong direction.

It's probably no secret at all that any sort of fill (be it Autofill or just pick Fill in Position Select) you'll end up as Support in ~99% of all cases.

Now, keep in mind that I'm by now a Support Main, who transitioned from the Jungle because of 2 reasons: first, to win a game, you need all 5 players to know what they do, including the Support. And second, Queue Timers gone down for me from about 3 minutes to mere seconds (and that in Silver Elo).

My main concern is, that this change in the system will split Champion Select even further from what it is already, namely those who pick MainRole+Mid for the sake of getting their Main role and those who pick Support+X as that will then likely be a 100% Support position for them.

Allowing people to say they may chose one role they are weakest on (or which they simply don't want to play) is a highly dangerous step, considering there is that Support position that most ppl shy away from because "no dmg". I'm not even joking when I say I've seen 4 assassins being picked and then they tell me in Champ Select we need a Tank Support.

People seem not realizing that Supports don't have much money, we're on a budget and need to be very efficient with our Gold. We don't have many tank stats throughout the game (unless we were pre-nerf Ulting Alistar). Plans on gutting support item options like Locket doesn't help the situation either. All we provide is Vision, CC, and peel/herassment for our carries until we eventually.

Now, combining both the steadily worsing situation (including the plans for preseason) for Support Players and the planned introduction of Position Preference will probably change the dynamic of Champ Select very heavily - and I'm meaning this in a negative manner. There was always an imbalance between roles and damage is just one factor of oh so many, but that stat is what most people sadly only care for. I've never seen an ADC saying in post game lobby "Hey, I used more wards than the enemy ADC".

What I hope to see for the game is, that there are changes in a way, to make all roles (including Support) feel more important. Supports can land all their hooks, stuns and Exhaust on the right people but barely ever do others realize it. Instead, if a CC'd target dies due to it, all credit usually goes to the killer.

Well, this kinda drifted away a bit on why I see Supports in a bad position in Ranked play, but explaining why a certain role feels undesireable and thus not pickworthy is pretty much the point why Position Preference is a bad thing considering there's exactly 1 role most people don't want to play.

Of course some people might come and say something like "oh, but that's a good thing, because I hate playing Top and don't want to autofilled there". Sure, you might be right on that, but don't worry, unless to say not-Support once the system hits live, expect to be the next Thresh Main.

Just my 2 cents on that topic.