URF: Let's talk about it
Riot brought back URF in all it's previous glory and I (for once in my brief time playing League) am happy for its return. It's so satisfying to ban out a champion I just don't think is fun and then proceed to play all my favorite spammy champions and experiment with all the crazy bullshit League has to offer for 15-20 mins (Be it full AP Nasus, on-hit AP Ziggs or hell, full AP Malphite - always a crowd pleaser) and then move on to the next game, be it some solo queue, a TFT game or two, or just taking a break from League to get back to my daily life.
This hasn't always been the case. Ever since Riot removed URF from the lineup and gave us All Random URF, I've been extremely disappointed by it and grew to hold a high amount of disdain for the game mode - so much so that I likened it to ARAM. ARAM and ARURF shared a lot of the same things - you queue up for a game, wait for about 10-30 seconds to see if the lobby takes, then you wait for the next 60 seconds before you found out just how royally fucked you were. ARURF sucked on so many levels and I swore it off as I felt like it brought out the absolute worst in me. It created such an insane level of salt that I had to avoid it, or else I felt like I was marring my soul. Even when my friends would try and convince me to join them for some shenanigans, I had to say no.
URF is - safe to say - much different. There is much more agency in the game on the part of the players. You have the option to say "Nope, I do NOT want to face this today" and ban out a champion. Then you have the option to pick what you want to play the game out with and make a gameplan with your runes. Sure you might still get so ridiculously screwed but at the end of the day, you are the architect of your own fate and your demise. I heavily prefer this to All Random where nothing is in your control beyond your runes. It's just not fun. It's a coinflip of "who has the most OP shit, well guess we just get to enjoy anal for the next 20 mins."
Riot's biggest mistake wasn't creating URF. Riot's biggest mistake was giving into the community and letting the game mode overstay its welcome. Next time, Riot, stick to your timeline, and don't extend the game mode's lifetime on the live servers. Let it be what it was meant to be - a treat, a retreat from the typical game on Summoner's Rift and a chance to try ridiculous bullshit that you can't win with normally on the Rift. When it's time to go, it's time to go. Sure we're all going to wish it could stay longer, but we both know what would happen. People would burn out, and Ranked Queues would suffer as a result.
To conclude, retire ARURF, give us back regular URF and stick to its limited lifetime on live servers - even if we beg for it to stay just a little bit longer. Problem solved.