Some Misconceptions About Statistics
I've watched people going back and forth over Win Rates, Play Rates, Ban Rates, and this one guy who was convinced anyone cared about Skin Rates. (The rate at which champions obtained skins.) It gets really very confusing for a lot of people, and then we get to have fun debates over why one is more important than the other, or why some things should matter more than others. While some stats do actually matter, when gauging the viability of a champion, most of it is just nonsensical manure someone has found on a site that makes them feel like they've proven something... much like a college student who has learned that using google to bullshit for papers is the way to pass.
Let's break it down into a simple context:
Ban Rate > Win Rate Why do people bring up Ban Rates of certain champions, more than their Win Rate? Because when the Ban Rate of a champion far exceeds their actual win rate, it simply means that the players would rather waste a ban they could use against a viable target, than play against something that's bullshit. Some champions are so stupid that, even if most people do poorly with that champion, no one wants to play against it.
Pick Rates The Pick Rate, or Play Rate, is nothing more than how popular and trendy a champion is. Dyrus proved this at the end of Season 1 by spam laughing as he dominated the entire field with Singed... one of the least popular champions at the time, and considered unviable by most. When a champion has a decent Win Rate, but a low Pick Rate, there is absolutely nothing wrong here. It simply means the champion isn't overly popular, but seems to hold it's own when it IS picked.
Win Rates This is argued to be one of the most important statistics that people cite. When a champion has a very high win rate it tends to lean towards the idea that there may be something wrong with the champion. The perfect concept would float right at 50%, and when you consider the sheer number of games played during any given day... a % point or two is actually a large deviation. You see, however, a lot of people try to claim that a slightly low Win Rate makes a champion less than viable, despite the fact that in the hands of someone DECENT with said champion it becomes a stupidly broken force of nature.
Just because most people suck with a champion with a decent skill ceiling, does not mean the champion is fine.
Rankings I don't know how many times I have to point this out, but there are websites where you can buy Plat or Diamond accounts for 20 bucks. They tend to only have 20-30 champions, but hey, free rank, right? I actually only know two people who only have one account, most everyone on my friends list having 3-5. All of that said, there really isn't much someone's rank means. A lot of people claim "Well that's how good the player is," whereas that's occasionally true, these are the same people you see raging in games from ARAM to Nexus Blitz because their actual control over their champion can be pisspoor, even if they perform fairly well in the slow paced Rift. It's far easier to handle situations in a stagnant, team oriented environment.
Once you hit Challenger, your rank really -does- mean something, as those guys are seriously good players. Having run into a few over the years, I can honestly say 99.9999% of you are roughly 99.9999% worse than they are. We all are. Get over yourself. Varied rank opinions of champions, mechanics, etc are valid for their level of play.
Skin Rates This one also comes with a tin foil hat.
