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RANKED Solo/Duo Queue: Allow picks on Mastery 5 or higher only?

o TripleM o·1/20/2017, 6:39:08 PM·3 votes·1,578 views

Dear Riot,

I am getting tired of people picking champs because they "hard-counter" another champ in their assigned lane and yet they have no idea how to play that champ. Upon checking their match history (after they fail abysmally, letting their lane opponent snowball) it is found that they haven't played that champ in the last 20 matches. Neither does the champ show up in their "In Progress" list. Who knows if they've even played the champ AT ALL before, much less this season.

When this happens it creates an almost insurmountable deficit for your team and is a HUGE handicap. It would almost be better that you were without the player in question, instead playing 4v5 because then at least you'd understand the situation and could prevent it snowballing out of control so quickly.

So why not require that summoners reach at least Mastery Level 5 on a champ before allowing them to select that champ in Ranked Solo Queue?

Some might argue that this would break bans, but my answer is that the ban phase can stay status quo. Allow the ban phase to show possible bans for all champs owned by the other team, not only those they've reached Mastery 5 on. Or better yet just list all champs in every ban phase.

Obviously people shouldn't be picking champs they're not familiar with, but it is happening. And from what I am seeing recently it is happening a lot. IMHO it is akin to trolling and is very unsportsmanlike.

15 Comments

Deep Terror Nami1/20/2017, 6:43:57 PM7 votes

Playing Ranked requires owning 16 or more champions, due to the number of picks and bans in Draft (will be 20 when there are 10 bans).

This means you'd need 16(20) or more champions at Mastery 5 to play Ranked. I had one at level 5 for the majority of last season; guess I was ruining Ranked? Mastery shows you play a champion frequently, not that you're good at it.

Not That H0le1/20/2017, 6:44:30 PM5 votes

Mastery means nothing, it just shows how long you've played that champion, doesn't say anything about skill.

Dabrick011/20/2017, 6:45:48 PM3 votes

The average player trying to do ranked does not have mastery 5 on more than a few champs. I believe that they should have some experience with a champ, but mastery 5 is too much to ask for.

The players at the highest levels of ranked have played for so long that they have a good mastery on about every champ that they can play. Where I am, I like to counterpick. Maybe I'll pick Annie to counter someone.

Overall, I play a wide range of champs. I may main Yasuo, but I don't spam him in all my games. Sometimes I'll pick something to counterpick or shake it up.

Ranked is different, but still it would not work. I think that a player should not jump into ranked with a champ they've never played, but that can't be enforced.

Aptest1/20/2017, 7:12:27 PM1 votes

I think that ranked is ultimately a game mode, and because of that mainly it needs to be playable. you want to put a huge speed bump on people to bring new champions into ranked. so if i like ranked, you want me to play A LOT in less fun (for me) game modes in order to bring my champion to the game mode i enjoy. basically you want me to have to grind every time there's a new champion i want to play. I prefer my game modes to be available and accessible, and to not be an OTP because i like to do different things. I'm willing to pay with the occasional game with a player who is not experienced with his champion.

Please go to other games forums and see how grind feels like in WOT or any of them other games.