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Team Builder. We need it back.

The JigSAW··323 votes·8,553 views

Simply put, we have two options if we want to do a normal game of PVP:

  1. Sit in Draft Mode all day while people look up stats and summoner information to ban their best champions or whomever is the most OP at the time, and then after a 15 minute queue and a 5 minute pick/ban phase, somebody dodges and it repeats over and over. Last night I had three games in Draft and spent at least 35 minutes waiting to play the games, not including the actual pick/ban phase and loading screen. I got my primary one out of three times.

  2. Go blind pick and hope you can type your lane quicker than the other people. Even then, it doesn't mean someone won't go into that lane anyway.

I've never seen the logic behind removing Team Builder as it cured the toxicity of solo queue substantially, it granted you 100% chance of role and champion and it allowed you to kick out anybody who seemed trollish (aka, zilean jungle or skarner adc!) and the new champ select is actually far worse than Team Builder. It is as if you guys went out of your way to make a product worse than three years ago, and I'm unsure why this was considered a good idea.

Instead of another disastrous solo queue, can we just have our team builder mode back for blind picks? Choose champ, choose role, choose mastery/runes and skin and off we go. Whatever you had planned for solo queue, Team Builder will be better anyway if Champ Select and Dynamic Queue are any indicators.

BRING BACK TEAM BUILDER! We really would appreciate having a legitimate blind pick option. LeeSin

128 Comments

Spuky44 votes

I agree, sometimes I just want to log in to have fun playing LoL, Teambuilder gave me that option. I could log in to play a champ in a certain role. I didn't care if my teammates had off meta picks and usually my teammates didn't mind if my pick was off meta. It was just FUN. Please Riot bring it back!!!!

Jbels25 votes

The dodging problem could be solved as easily as just ACTUALLY PUNISHING DODGERS. I'm sorry Rito, but 5 minutes of wait time is not a disincentive to dodging. It's encouragement. It basically says to people "Oh yeah you can dodge, no big deal, it's just 5 minutes, fuck it"

You know what a 30 minute dodge penalty says to people? Right off the bat? "Dodge. I dare you. See you in a half hour"

DarkRitual4 votes

Or just lengthen the dodge timer reset. 5 min for once is fine, but being able to do it so often is the issue.

Hatsuma6 votes

A dodge should count as a loss. If you refuse to play the current game, that's called conceding.

MVDuneCats2 votes

But if we're talking about Team Builder, that means we're talking about Normals. There's no down side to having it "count as a loss". There's no league points. No promotional series. At worst, you lose a bit of MMR.

Very Hard Engage9 votes

dodging is too necessary, if anything we need more stable team mates with whom we can be matched with again and again in order to give good viable partners/teams. i can assure you, im not sticking around if the teams are

(us) TahmKench top, Ahri me mid, Ezreal + Karma bot, Khazix jungle.

im sorry but this team has no initiation and is going to be dominated by

(them) Ekko top, Zed mid, Lucian + Nautilus bot, Shyvana jungle

i find 3 or 4 members with "XxSUX" (just a generic clan tag) next to their name tag and i searched their names on naopgg and i find someone well below my league, say silver 1, im dodging on the spot because i already know were going up against some plat premade instead and going to get rekt.

so yes, thank you for your 14th game of nidalee with 2wins + 12losses. really, thank you, it was so great of you to pick this champion again blindly first pick in ranked. thank you for playing your 8th game with BUDDYS NAME HERE and having a 25% win rate together. its ranked, so why not, keep doing it.

you dont have to play meta, but you cant be throwing the game away doing whatever it is you want to do. you people outright bring the wrong mindset into ranked and i have the right to choose not to play with you.

yosephX127 votes

I've got a good solution for you. You had mentioned "we need more stable team mates with whom we can be matched with again and again". Riot is encouraging you to play with friends. Find people you enjoy playing with/win with. Find those people and group up, and BINGO, you now have more stable team mates with whom you can match up with again and again. It's not that complicated.

Very Hard Engage1 votes

it is that complicated when every game im being matched with a 2, 3, or 4man premade every game of which i despise every last one of them for making terrible decisions or ignore anyone not named part of their group.

in addition they're supposedly placed accurately, im improving and climbing, i can never take them with me so i will forever limit myself to 50% win rate if i play with others.

the only person im comfortable queuing up with is my twin of which we take both carry roles and we have a staggeringly high win rate together, we obv communicate and work well together. the only 2 games we lost were when we were paired with 3 mans and they outright ignored us and our decisions, good luck carrying a game without your carries.....

ranked is not a place for dynamic queue. how about you take your 4 friends and make a ranked team together, see how this works both ways. i dont get stuck with you or your friends, and i dont have to waste your time by dodging. ez pz.

yosephX124 votes

I play solo. It doesn't bother me getting teamed up with premades. I was just simply suggesting that if you have an issue with the premades, get a premade of your own. Do that and you won't have anything else to worry about.

Very Hard Engage1 votes

which is a pointless effort to do in ranked someone ends up carrying, someone ends up feeding, either way ill never know my true rank skill level.

you want to play with friends, take it to NORMALS.

Hatsuma2 votes

And letting people dodge whenever they get a matchup they don't like is a reflection of true rank skill level?

As it stands, I could, say, dodge every game that doesn't end up with me as Zed mid. Sure it might take a little longer, but I could grind it out. Is that fair?

You think this doesn't happen? I can show you reddit posts of diamond+ level players who literally just dodge every time their main is pick/banned by someone else.

Very Hard Engage4 votes

and how did they end up in diamond.... by dodging.... you can play every single game, but i, the person who knows better, that my odds are sub 50% of winning... will dodge this game, and take -3lp over -15lp.

i want everyone playing their best, im just doing what i believe will give me at least a 50% chance at winning the game. ill tolerate a lot of things, but not first pick auto lock teemo support. ya know?

i can accept someone being an adc main and picking an AD on whom they have as low as 45% win rate. but the moment they pick blue build ezreal which has only worked out 35% of the time for them, with 50games on it, BUH BYE.

SpecterVonBaren5 votes

5 minutes is just what you get if you dodge once in like a day (Maybe in two days) if you do more then you end up with 15 minute punishment and I assume it goes higher since I've never dodged more than twice back to back (And have dodged like... twice in the last year).

Troll for Trump4 votes

Yes, but you need to dodge the trolls in ranked so that would cause problems..

MetalGearTeemu2 votes

Off meta picks aren't trolling, remember that "troll" got to your bracket.

Troll for Trump1 votes

I have never won. With a troll. Ever.

MetalGearTeemu2 votes

that's prolly because you consider those off meta picks trolls. One of the worst beatings I ever saw a bot lane take was a Blitz/Darius lane.

Start flaming them during selection and you'll never see what they can do.

Troll for Trump1 votes

I play illaoi, do Zed Top, even did TF support once.

But I can tell when they're trolling because they blatantly say so.

"Oh you banned ekko, I'm picking Talon because he was your pick intent and building him like Tank Ekko because F U"

MetalGearTeemu1 votes

Now we're getting to the meat of the matter. Did you in fact ban a character he requested you didn't? Did you in fact troll him first?

Troll for Trump1 votes

Previous Patch(ekko Op) patch he wanted to play Ekko and I banned it. He proceeded to pick Talon and troll around with it.

Firstly, banning Ekko won't really affect gameplay that much, no need to ruin the game even more. No need to do a random build. No need to be an asshole about it. This is ALSO the community that's so high and proud about "no retaliating nomatter what mute and move on". So yeah he shouldn't retaliate either.

Had another game where someone was pickintenting J4, and when another guy banned Yi, he had a huge tantrum.

Have also had my champ banned several time even with pick intent. But I don't flip out about it.

You do realize that there is way more than one instance of this happening.

I want to play Zed top? Blam, Zed Banned. But I just pick something else, because I don't flip out about that kind of small thing, and have some huge grudge against the rest of the team and try to ruin the game.

MetalGearTeemu1 votes

So you basically ignored his reasonable request and banned it because fuck teamwork right? and then you're angry that he didn't work with the team?

I'm just curious where you think both of you being snots somehow pushes the blame on him?

Any time one of these posts comes up, it always seems like the guy making the post feeds into what he gets.

Troll for Trump1 votes

I knew it.

YOu're one of those white knights who SEES one small problem, then you ONLY focus on the problem with a single minded attitude, ignores the rest of the posts, and tries to antagonize everyone that disagrees.

Ekko was broken at that time, it was unlikely for 4th pick to get Ekko in the previous patch(87% BR I think; Pick or Ban)

It doesn't matter if I started it. You don't add fuel to the fire, you don't troll more.

You have a team that has apanth ADC? If you don't like it, dodge, don't do some "He's goin Panth ADC, Guess ima go Ap Trist Support".

And this is but one example, which was my fault. Pretty much every other one wasn't mine.

MetalGearTeemu1 votes

"its ok for me to ignore my teammates wishes but not for them to ignore mine".

gotcha. You reap what you sew friend.

Troll for Trump1 votes

You're STILL ignoring the rest of the post. I ignored one person, it was by accident. He ignored the entire team, on purpose

ahferroin72 votes

It goes up to 15 after the first few, the penalty can take months to reset, and it carries over between queues (so if you dodge in blind pick, you can't go into DQ or ARAM either).

Stars Shaper11 votes

I really don't know what to add. Team Builder is the perfect tool for Normals and I've never minded the wait.

Gregor Gysi8 votes

Nah. Teambuilder get's easily outclassed by DynQ normal:

  • you keep talking about the champion select time, but it seems that you totally forgot how long it took to get a Teambuilder game started -> if you started a lobby you better have support and adc - otherwise you are going to wait for 10 minutes until you get a support. Who will of course leave before you get an ADC - and vice versa.
  • no bans. I am not a great fan of many bans, but those that we have are definetely needed. Unless you'd really enjoy having a tank Ekko mirror matchup all the time
  • less luck dependent. In Teambuilder there is so much luck involved as you could get countered or counter the opponent without anything you could do. League + dice is not something that I do enjoy, not even in normals.

We don't need team builder. Rest in peace, but rest, please.

JimmyNtheKudos4 votes

No matter how fast dynamic Q is, the mere fact that there's a high chance I won't be able to get the role/champ I want, will always make it much more time consuming than whatever time you had to wait for TB.

i.e. dynamicQ+game time = 30-45 mins, TB queue time ~20 mins

The JigSAW2 votes

Sorry but this is completely inaccurate.

Team Builder would have a game, in general, for me launched within five minutes max and I picked who joined, who stayed, and who got the boot. I also had my champ guaranteed and my role guaranteed. With this new crap, I can't even guarantee I want to play whatever game awaits me.

  • Patience is a virtue, because anybody in there queuing as a support was usually a support main or good at it, not somebody "punished' to support because their main role was taken and they are more than happy to take it out in the game on you. In other words, supports in T.B WANT to support.

  • Bans are fine for ranked and tryhards but I like fighting anybody and everybody. How else are you going to learn how to improve?

  • Luck dependant, sure, I'll give you that. I just had a game where I was Janna top vs Sion. Nobody gave me a chance in hell at it. However, I know my champ and I know a lot about mechanics. The game ended with me 5/0 winning lane and game and kicking his rear end... why? I knew his abilities, my abilities, his ranges, my ranges. It wasn't even a troll game as much as I wanted to test my limits with certain champions... Champ Select is really the death of all that.

The best part is, you need no dodge punishments because in Team Builder people could leave if they did not like the team and you'd wait maybe 10 seconds for a new person? In dyna queue its 15 minutes down the drain at least because you need to re-queue, re-ban, re-pick, and hope to hell nobody dodges.

Coke used to push New Coke with the idea you have about DynaQ. It failed, miserably, and Coca Cola had the sense to actually admit failure, pull it, and give the people what they wanted.

Team Builder needs to be resurrected and if anything, champ select needs to rest in peace.

Gregor Gysi5 votes

[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=b5IJd7cE,comment-id=000c0001,timestamp=2016-04-29T03:10:20.022+0000)

Sorry but this is completely inaccurate.

Team Builder would have a game, in general, for me launched within five minutes max and I picked who joined, who stayed, and who got the boot. I also had my champ guaranteed and my role guaranteed. With this new crap, I can't even guarantee I want to play whatever game awaits me.

Well. What should I say, in my experience (and that of my friends) this is simply not true. Also, we rarely wanted to play <that specific champion> no matter which matchup. Unless you are one of those who enjoyed playing Tank Ekko top and the like because then I can see why you dislike dynQ.

[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=b5IJd7cE,comment-id=000c0001,timestamp=2016-04-29T03:10:20.022+0000)

  • Patience is a virtue, because anybody in there queuing as a support was usually a support main or good at it, not somebody "punished' to support because their main role was taken and they are more than happy to take it out in the game on you. In other words, supports in T.B WANT to support.

Honestly, everyone who takes support as second pick in dynQ ATM wants to support. If you don't want to support then you take mid 2nd, easy.

[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=b5IJd7cE,comment-id=000c0001,timestamp=2016-04-29T03:10:20.022+0000)

  • Bans are fine for ranked and tryhards but I like fighting anybody and everybody. How else are you going to learn how to improve?

Well, personally I'd dislike playing against 4.20 weedwick. But well, if you disagree with that then that's fine. That simply means that we are different people with different tastes. But I can't see how fighting a weedwick helps me improve more than a usual T1 jungler.

[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=b5IJd7cE,comment-id=000c0001,timestamp=2016-04-29T03:10:20.022+0000)

  • Luck dependant, sure, I'll give you that. I just had a game where I was Janna top vs Sion. Nobody gave me a chance in hell at it. However, I know my champ and I know a lot about mechanics. The game ended with me 5/0 winning lane and game and kicking his rear end... why? I knew his abilities, my abilities, his ranges, my ranges. It wasn't even a troll game as much as I wanted to test my limits with certain champions... Champ Select is really the death of all that.

Yea, if there is a huge difference in skill between you and your opponent then it doesn't matter what you pick anyways. But that really doesn't adress my point. Assuming you are equal in skill (granted, Teambuilder's matchmaking sucked, so that's a bold assumption) and you are getting hard countered you probably won't have a fun lane.

[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=b5IJd7cE,comment-id=000c0001,timestamp=2016-04-29T03:10:20.022+0000)

The best part is, you need no dodge punishments because in Team Builder people could leave if they did not like the team and you'd wait maybe 10 seconds for a new person? In dyna queue its 15 minutes down the drain at least because you need to re-queue, re-ban, re-pick, and hope to hell nobody dodges.

Yea, GL getting a support when you have Teemo mid (source: I love Teemo mid and every single support would dodge the game when they saw it - estimated Q time: 30 minutes+ or no Queue at all if it's too late in the night). But again, your personal experience and mine seem to differ greatly. In dynQ people can't just dodge because they'd have to suffer the penalty. So I can happily pick unusual stuff.

[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=b5IJd7cE,comment-id=000c0001,timestamp=2016-04-29T03:10:20.022+0000)

Coke used to push New Coke with the idea you have about DynaQ. It failed, miserably, and Coca Cola had the sense to actually admit failure, pull it, and give the people what they wanted.

Team Builder needs to be resurrected and if anything, champ select needs to rest in peace.

dynQ is a great success to me, as long as it stays in normals. It's the best of Teambuilder and draft pick combined with practically no drawbacks - again, in my experience. The only bad thing about it is that it replaces soloQ. It's simply not fit for a competetive queue as it's obviously made for playing with your friends.

wastamelonz7 votes

You think Riot would actually listen to a good idea that should be in the game? [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Linthe6 votes

Agreeing 100%. Upvoted.

Jeddy0176 votes

What I miss most about Teambuilder is just playing the champs I want to play without having to deal with all the BS. If I want to play Garen,I could play Garen. I don't have to worry about him getting banned or picked away from me. I don't have to worry about fighting with others for the role I intend to play him in (blind pick/old draft) or deal with the chance of not getting that role (new champ select). This is a smaller nitpick, but I didn't have to worry about counterpicking or being counterpicked. That's why I liked Teambuilder & Dominion,I could pick any champs I wanted. If I just wanted to play Nami a bunch of games,I could.

I play this game for the champs, not for positions like Top or Support.

Makes me wish there was a game mode that let us pick them champs, but randomize the position we play them in.

Chrissxy19893 votes

so much this!

if i want to play a champ with a high pick/ban rate (mabye even in a contested role) i pretty much cant play that champ at all right now. shouldnt it be our decision to make if we want to (potentially) wait 10 min for our match to start?

Father Cthulhu2 votes

This exactly... There's so many times this season that I've wanted to practice a specific champion, yet they get banned or picked away from me...

Occams Raiser4 votes

The only down side to the Team builder is on the company side. Since they will never tell you what that is, you will never get an answer to this. I also think TB was perfect for normals. You could get what you wanted and you didnt have to play in any team comp you didnt want to. Whoops! just found a drawback. TB meant you werent forced to play with teemo on your team.

OneSmoothDude4 votes

I've never seen the logic behind removing Team Builder

Queue times. That's not the only reason, but it is a big enough reason that there don't need to be any other reasons.

Splitting the unranked playerbase between the new champ select (which is already having a hard enough time) and all its roles, draft pick, and the even MORE restrictive Team Builder would have been too much.

The new champ select is more similar to Team Builder than it is to draft pick, and the new champ select solves a lot of the problems that Team Builder itself solved. Not all of them, clearly, but that's how compromises work.

tl;dr--Not only would it would be somewhat redundant to have both TB and the NCS, but both would be crippled by queue times.

Mike170322 votes

{quoted}

Queue times. That's not the only reason, but it is a big enough reason that there don't need to be any other reasons.

Splitting the unranked playerbase between the new champ select (which is already having a hard enough time) and all its roles, draft pick, and the even MORE restrictive Team Builder would have been too much.

The new champ select is more similar to Team Builder than it is to draft pick, and the new champ select solves a lot of the problems that Team Builder itself solved. Not all of them, clearly, but that's how compromises work.

tl;dr--Not only would it would be somewhat redundant to have both TB and the NCS, but both would be crippled by queue times.

Exactly, so you remove the new system for unranked play and only have teambuilder. No reason to have both.

OneSmoothDude1 votes

Well if we have to choose between a queue that emulates the system that is used for ranked, and a queue that fills a completely different and much less widely useful purpose, I think the choice would be obvious as to which one should be picked, no?

Mike170324 votes

Teambuilder needs to come back for unranked, because it was far better than the current draft system for that game mode.

We don't need the current system for unranked games, and they don't need to have a ban phase.

Jungle Lux God4 votes

Team Builder should replace Blind Pick if it comes back.

Adding Team Builder would increase queue times for all three modes by splitting up the playerbase between all three queues. If you weren't happy waiting for a 15 minute queue with a 5 minute ban phase then you'd certainly not be happy waiting 20 minutes to queue into a team and wait another 10 minutes waiting for a support to finish the team. Unless you really wanted to play support of course, which people obviously aren't happy about in the new Champion Select either.

Personally, I used Team Builder to guarantee my role and to play off-meta champions without having to worry about having to call my role. New Champion Select does both better. Just this past Sunday I got to play 3 games on jungle Morgana in the span of around 3 hours including champ select. In Team Builder I MIGHT get to play one game in that time frame. In particular I remember queueing up for jungle Lux after Runeglaive was released and had to wait close to 20-30 minutes to find a game, and I wasn't about to try and queue up for another game.

SettDownShutUp3 votes

YES, Yes. All of my yes. In my face. Please.

AATTRROOXX2 votes

I'd just like to get my teambuilder icons that they promised 4 months ago and haven't given any indication that they will be released anytime soon.

S H A Y C 02 votes

team builder makes more sense than normal draft...i mean if the idea is to just play whoever for fun, then what the shit is normal draft? bans only make sense if its some sort of competitive mode...if its for giggles, then let the ridiculousness begin

Chrissxy19891 votes

i do understand, why some people would want a draftmode that doesnt impact their ranked stats. that way they can "practice for ranked". if you only had blindpick (or TB) in normals, you would have to face those 2 must ban champs too often.

but why cant they exchange blindpick for TB? i never understood why riot didnt do that. maybe add an option to queue for multiple roles/champs for those who want to play different stuff or want to change their champ according to the teamcomb. i dont see a real downside to this option

Riprox2 votes

{quoted}

i do understand, why some people would want a draftmode that doesnt impact their ranked stats. that way they can "practice for ranked". if you only had blindpick (or TB) in normals, you would have to face those 2 must ban champs too often.

but why cant they exchange blindpick for TB? i never understood why riot didnt do that. maybe add an option to queue for multiple roles/champs for those who want to play different stuff or want to change their champ according to the teamcomb. i dont see a real downside to this option

Well my friend, you just (kinda) described DynamicQueue..... It's planned to come to blind pick too by the end of the season

Theft2 votes

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

AbyssionKnight2 votes

The issue with teambuilder is that it doesn't work in a draft format really. I personally think the solution would have been you pick your role, two or three champions you want to play, same team builder team set up, and you can see peoples pick intent. Find people you like, then find a match, pick ban happens, and based on bans, the you move down the persons pick intent tier. Might be a little complicated, but it'd work.

At the very least, TB should be in normals again. Seems like the only reason they removed it was so that on release they could brag about the popularity of Dynamic Queue.

SkyBlade792 votes

" hope you can type your lane quicker than the other people"

Just copy-paste, I do. It's kind of cheating. But other than that, yeah, I agree with you completely. I miss Team Builder, but I'm enjoying dynamic more than I expected to. Something that people completely overlook is that Team Builder has the exact same problem that Dynamic Queue has; there were a ton of 3 and 4 man teams.

Aikata2 votes

I miss Team Builder so much. I don't play League anymore because its gone. Every time I want to play I just think of getting stuck in my secondary for 5 games (support) and going through an annoying pick-ban phase or having to fight for my role in standard blind.

I love to play League casually, but I don't have the time or energy to try to get my favorite role with my favorite champs unsuccessfully three games straight for three hours. It just isn't fun. I'd rather wait 20-30 minutes with my role locked in.

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