Thoughts on sanguine blade: creates too much pressure on the opposing team for a single item
I think the idea of sanguine blade is kind of cool, an item built for dueling, but so far, from what I've seen it hasn't been very healthy for the way my games have been turning out. I believe, in it's current state, this item will simply replace the Spear of Shojin, being far too valuable and impactful on a select handful of champions that are already very good at dueling and split pushing, and cause a power spike that there is currently no answer for.
First, man disadvantage. If a player on one team builds sanguine blade, the defending team MUST always answer the split with 2 or more people or the item gives far too many stats for the person to lose a 1v1 unless they are drastically behind. This also means the defending team must always give up towers, or simply fight every objective at a disadvantage of at least 3v4. Even if the defending team tries to force an objective with 5 people vs 4, unless they can win the fight and take the objective quickly, the stats given by the Sanguine Blade make towers fall very quickly, even if the fight is won, they are likely to lose 2 towers in 30 seconds.
Second, I believe this heavily limits other champs ability to split push, I'm worried this will basically make top lane / jungle devolve into simply "whoever can build sanguine first / get the most out of it" such as jax, fiora, tryn, YI, and then split to win, severely limiting the options of champs who can be picked to respond, because I don't see a good way of beating that many free stats, unless you can also benefit from the item. (if you can't beat him, join him mentality) This also severely limits who in a game can split push as well. If your ap mid is ahead, but the opposing top builds a sanguine blade... well they either need to be able to over power the 1v1 or they're permanently on the defensive and the weapon gives lifesteal as well to make it even more oppressive.
Unless a corresponding defensive item is going to exist that somehow counters the sanguine blade, I do not believe it is very healthy for the team based nature of league. Every single game i've seen it in it has decided how the entire enemy team must play in order to combat that item.
I believe, as it currently stands, sanguine blade puts too much pressure on the opposing team to either change their entire metric of play to answer it, or on the opposing laner to be able to build the item (if they can) or have no corresponding answer for the sheer amount of stats it gives.