Pre-season is just days away from launch, and the new BE system sounds like a complete diaster

So I decided to read the Preseason Update FAQ in-depth, and I encourage everyone to do the same: https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012640908-Preseason-Update-FAQ

Some of the changes taking place sound very good, like never having to spend IP on runes ever again. However, when I really think about some of the other announced changes, I am becoming increasingly worried about how they will affect my ability to complete my champion collection, and I am especially concerned about the BE cost for mastery 6 and 7.

I have been playing since season 5, and there are a handful of 4800 and 6300 champions I have yet to purchase. For the most part, the champions remaining in the store are ones I have little interest in learning to play. Riot is trying to paint a picture that the new system is better for the player base, but there is one thing that is very alarming from the FAQ:

Will we receive blue essence after every game?

No. The new rewards system is all designed around champion shards (which can be turned into blue essence) dropping whenever you level up.

This is very disconcerting, especially since it appears that players who play the most will get hit the hardest:

At any level, this will vary depending on how many games you've won with the First Win of the Day bonus (which will soon give bonus XP) active. If you play two games per day, and win one each time, it will actually only take 10 games to level up even at the hardest part of the curve.

When reading the FAQ, FWOTD will give bonus XP instead of free currency to purchase things with. All of the following games will give less experience, and the only time you gain any currency is when you level up. This seems to be in the form of champion shards, and anyone who has bought mystery champion shards in the shop knows that the system can be very unfair, which is why Riot is adding in a "bad luck protection" to help us out:

We've designed the system so it's not overly-reliant on luck. You can get multiple champion shards whenever you level up, and if you get a low priced champion shard like Ashe, it will come with other shards to bring up the total value of the capsule. The capsules are balanced like this so that everyone will get close to the same value from hitting any given level, so luck won't make a difference to how quickly you can unlock champions.

Unfortunately, I'm still not feeling great about this new system. I can gain more currency from League by playing one Co-op vs. AI match a day to farm the FWOTD experience than I could by grinding out games like in the current system. Then the only way to gain BE is to disenchant the champion shards that my leveling capsule gives me. At the end of the day, I feel like we will be getting far less currency than with the current system. The worst thing is that the players who play the most will get the least, as the FAQ implies that it will take TEN first win of the day missions to level up at the highest peak of the leveling curve, as can be read above. That is far too long to go without earning currency, and this honestly sounds like a way to starve higher level players of currency so that they will be forced to use RP to buy brand new champions as they are released instead of having hundreds of thousands of currency stored up to do so.

This also raises the question that the limited time BE store is really a trap to get players with crazy amounts of IP to spend it all, only to be left with a very slow currency farm in the new system which would result in having to buy more RP if you want newer content immediately. Let's take a look at some content that will be available in the limited time BE store and the prices for them:

1,500 BE - Mystery icon box (guaranteed to be an icon you don't already own) 2,000 BE - Chromas (includes all chromas that have been available for at least six months) 2,500 BE - “Mystery Mini” Icons Box (exclusive to the special BE store) 3,950 BE - Mystery Champions (guaranteed to be a champion you don't already own) 4,900 BE - Mystery ward skin box (guaranteed to be a ward skin you don't already own) 6,000 BE – Essence Collector ward skin (Exclusive to the special BE store) 6,000 BE - Rune ward skin (exclusive to the special BE store) 50,000 BE - "Make it Rain" emote (exclusive to the special BE store) 50,000 BE and up - Gemstones (First one costs 50,000, second costs 75,000, third costs 100,000. Limited to three per account during the special BE store sale) 75,000 BE - “Money Bags” emote (exclusive to the special BE store) 150,000 BE - URFWick skin (now exclusive to the special BE store)

If farming BE is as slow and painful from level 150 onward as it seems from reading the FAQ, then sinking all your currency into this content is a huge trap. The more I look at the article and the more I work it out, the more it seems like this is just a ploy to increase sales in the store for champions using RP instead of free currency.

I haven't even gotten to the worst part yet, take a look at this:

In the current system, for example, disenchanting a champ shard will get you about a third of the BE you need to buy a champ at that shard's tier. In the new system it'll get you 20% of the way there.

So we only receive currency from disenchanting champion shards, which we can only get from capsules when we level up, but also the disenchant values of the shards are being decreased. We get 1/3 of the unlock value now, but we will only get 1/5 of the unlock value after preseason rolls out. That means you would need to disenchant 5 champion shards of one tier (450, 1350, 3150, etc) in order to purchase one champion at that tier's price.

Take a look at one more way we're being screwed:

Will upgrading to champion mastery 6 & 7 still cost the same amount of blue essence?

The price will be scaled up by 6.5—the same amount we're scaling up all your existing BE. So it will "cost" the same in the new system, but the numbers will be higher across the board.

The price of upgrading to level 6 and 7 mastery is going to be scaled up 650%. This means that mastery 6 will cost 3,250 BE and mastery 7 will cost 3,900 BE. The combined cost for both upgrades is 7,150 BE, more than the most expensive champions in the store. That is completely outrageous, especially considering the rate that we will be gaining BE under the new system. I cannot fathom how many months of leveling after 150 it will take to farm enough BE to purchase a brand new champion and then have enough to upgrade to 6 and then 7 mastery.

It's clearly obvious that Riot has been getting us hyped for a system that works better for their sales and their bank accounts than it does the general player base. I am deeply unsatisfied with these changes, and I hope that in the very near future that Riot will realize that we will not be happy with how the new system unfolds and will find a way to repair it. Personally, I don't see any reason to change the currencies we have already: Keep IP and BE separate, and continue to give us IP after each match. Unrestrict the level cap, but don't make us jump through hoops and hurdles just to earn free currency in order to unlock the content we want.

tl;dr the new currency system is going to be total bullshit.

EDIT: Added information on how we're getting screwed by the change in disenchant value.