Ban rates, win rates, meta shifts, and group psychology.

Anyone who frequently reads my posts knows that I'm a Morgana OTP and not particularly happy about the current ban rates. However, I'm not just here to talk about Morgana. I'm here to talk about the balance issues in this game and what seems to be a lack of understanding by the general community as well as Riot games.

I want to start off this discussion with Hecarim.

Here are the most recent Hecarim updates from the lol wiki:

V9.6 Rampage Rampage NEW EFFECT: Now deals 10% increased damage per stack. Hecarim ElderwoodCircle Elderwood Hecarim BUG FIX: Recall no longer uses the base skin's recall audio. V9.4 Rampage Rampage Mana cost reduced to 28 / 31 / 34 / 37 / 40 from 32 / 34 / 36 / 38 / 40. Devastating Charge Devastating Charge Cooldown reduced to 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 / 16 seconds from 24 / 22 / 20 / 18 / 16.

None of these are particularly huge buffs. They didn't just catapult Hecarim from garbage to overpowered.

So let's consider for a second what happened to Hecarim as well as the meta and the player base:

• Jungle exp was nerfed substantially in season 9 which led to a jungle meta shift favoring skirmishers and gankers

• Hecarim was given two slight buffs in near consecutive patches.

• Players saw that Hecarim was buffed in two near consecutive patches and said to themselves, "Wow, Hecarim might be awesome now!"

• Players picked Hecarim

• Players saw that Hecarim could run people over pretty easily and started banning the champion because his pick rate went up. In reality his in-game performance probably only increased MARGINALLY.

• Conqueror is still broken on everyone just delete the rune please.

So basically Hecarim is not really that strong. He's picked more because he showed up in the patch notes often, he happens to favor the current jungle meta, and his ban rate has gone up as a result of his pick rate.

Now let's consider Morgana

Here are the 9.5 Morgana changes:

V9.5 - Visual Update General Title changed to the Fallen from Fallen Angel. Complete visual upgrade across all skins. New artwork for Morgana OriginalCircle Original Morgana, Morgana BlackthornCircle Blackthorn Morgana, Morgana ExiledCircle Exiled Morgana, Morgana BladeMistressCircle Blade Mistress Morgana, and Morgana SinfulSucculenceCircle Sinful Succulence Morgana. Tweaked artwork for Morgana GhostBrideCircle Ghost Bride Morgana, Morgana LunarWraithCircle Lunar Wraith Morgana, Morgana BewitchingCircle Bewitching Morgana, and Morgana VictoriousCircle Victorious Morgana. New voice over. New lore. Stats Base attack damage increased to 56 from 55.46. Base armor reduced to 25 from 25.384. Base health increased to 560 from 559.48. Base mana reduced to 340 from 340.8. Base movement speed reduced to 330 from 335. Tormented Shadow Tormented Shadow Renamed to Tormented Shadow from Tormented Soil. Minimum base damage reduced to 12 / 24 / 36 / 48 / 60 from 16 / 32 / 48 / 64 / 80. Minimum AP ratio reduced to 16% AP from 22% AP. Bonus damage increased to 0% − 170% (based on target's missing health) from 0% − 50% (based on target's missing health). Maximum base damage increased to 32.4 / 64.8 / 97.2 / 129.6 / 162 from 24 / 48 / 72 / 96 / 120. Maximum AP ratio increased to 43% AP from 33% AP. Black Shield Black Shield BUG FIX: No longer blocks IllaoiSquare Illaoi's Test of Spirit Test of Spirit from grabbing the spirit. Soul Shackles Soul Shackles NEW EFFECT: Now grants 5 / 30 / 55% bonus movement speed towards enemies that are shackled. New ability icon.

As you can see pretty marginal update and some numbers rounding. There's some movement speed on her ult and a slight HP damage scaling on her W.

So what happened to Morgana?

• You came out with a full visual update to Morgana with some minor gameplay changes.
• Morgana was always a popular champion with a good pick rate and medium ban rate.
• Players anticipated Morgana's pick rate spike and began banning the champion more.
• Morgana's win rate increased marginally because of the unnecessary buffs you gave her.
• Players saw that Morgana is banned and picked in every game and responded by saying, "WHAT AN OVERPOWERED CHAMPION."
• Morgana plays the exact same way she has always played for the past 10 years.
• You buffed adcs insanely hard, including Vayne.
• This caused a meta shift towards ADCs which is a meta shift and general buff to enchanters and utility champions
• Morgana mid combined with an enchanter support makes ADCs ridiculous.

So what happened to Morgana? Her pick and ban rate went up due to the rework. Her win rate mid went up because of the adc meta shift allowing utility mids to be stronger. You'll notice that anyone who is a good roamer or high utility mid currently has a very high win rate. For example, Annie is a ridiculous champion who can roam bot constantly to get her ADC ahead.

It actually just blows my mind that we're still even banning Yasuo. The champion is situationally good and is garbage for like the first 30 minutes of the game. But he's banned every single game because of group psychology. Yet, Riot seems to understand this and is not nerfing him. Why don't they understand it for other champions?

I'll even throw a bone to Zed mains. Zed had a good win rate. Players don't like Zed and they saw he got buffed in the patch notes. OMG ZED BUFFS WTF BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN. In reality Zed's in game performance probably didn't increase much at all.

Actually I don't want to be one of those people who just complains so in this edit I'm even going to provide some solutions:

• You can balance jungle champions by decreasing the value of scuttle and increasing jungle camp exp so that a gank meta isn't the only valid strategy.

• You can revert the Morgana rework that she didn't need and just let us keep the new visuals.

• You can delete conqueror.

• You can nerf late game hyper carries. Vayne, Master yi, Jax, Jinx, Twitch, and so forth are all absurd champions with the support of Morgana and similar characters.

• You can let people ward more frequently early.

I could add more if necessary.