Why a second play test team of average player elo level is necessary
I feel I should start out with a disclaimer. What I'm advocating here is not so much a team that tests for primary balance so much as a team who can pinpoint low-elo stompers. This is indeed a necessary thing in League and I will break it down now in a series of points. I also feel it is worth mentioning that this in no way is a request because of my rank. I'm pretty content at the level of play that I'm at and do not stress over whether I climb or not since I know why I can't climb and it is primarily due to my lack of skill and nothing to do with the issues I am addressing here.
The first point I want to make here is that finding and identifying low-elo stompers before they go live will prevent people who don't actually have the skill to climb from basically boosting their way to elo's they don't deserve to be in. There have been many champions that fell in to this category at one point or another and usually get nerfed to oblivion so that they rarely see any actual play past certain elos. Yi seems to be the poster child of this category. I'm not against players finding strong champions to get them on the path to climbing beyond their current rank but at the same time, low-elo stompers make the game unenjoyable for those who spend a lot of time at low elos. People who generally abuse these champions will almost always hit a wall in their climb and get put in bad situations that make the match not fun for their entire team when their lack of actual game knowledge and skill becomes apparent. These champions become a crutch for players and they forget to actually learn the game mechanics since they don't realize there are still areas in which they can improve due to the nature of the champions they abuse.
The second point is it will add another level of concrete data in identifying over-tuned champions. Like I said at the start, a low elo tester team should not be the primary balance deciders, but if data shows consistency between low and high elo players that a champion is just doing way to much when in the game then it will be easier to figure out what should be redefined before the champion is launched. Usually we have to wait several weeks sometimes even months before these issues can be identified in new/reworked champions, for instance Kog Maw. Having teams at multiple levels should be able to identify these problems much sooner, or even before the champion makes it to live servers.
A third reason is it just gives more overall testing in general, sure this reason doesn't necessarily require it to be a team that sits at the average player base rank, but it does support the idea of an additional team overall. The opportunity to have more people testing can never be a bad thing as long as they uphold the non-disclosure policies that are paramount to testing teams. I think much of the flack that the balance team unjustly receives comes more from the concept of just not enough testing teams in general.
The final reason to support a low elo testing team kind of falls in-line with the first point, but for a different reason. Lower elo players who truely wish to become good at the game will generally be more apt to test unintended options for new champions, such as the Camille support that actually ended up appearing in LCS. I say this because I myself pulled out that pick when Camille first launched long before LCS had seen it. There was a logic to the pick that might have been overlooked due to the mage support meta. Having a large gap closer coupled with an AoE stun on such a short cooldown in the botlane was way too enticing an idea to not test. In my own tests I had quite a bit of success on the champion though I never got a chance to pull it out in ranked due to even low elo permabaning her. Now the reason I say low elo players with the intent to climb will be more likely to test these unintended scenarios is because they are searching for low elo stompers that people don't expect. The possibility of an incredibly strong pick on top of the surprise factore of it being played in an unexpected role will due a lot to sway a game in a one-sided direction. While this does bring some creative strategy to the game it also makes for some unenjoyable games for those on the receiving end. Another example of this was a Trist Gragas botlane duo that I had concoted several seasons back before Gragas got some nerfs.
For the above reasons I think having a second playtest team at an equivalent elo to the average player would be highly beneficial to League of Legends as a whole. As you can see by my reasons this team would be more of a support team to the main test team and not the primary deciders of whether a champion needs more adjustment. Heck it could even be accomplished by pulling members who are already employees at Riot in the target elo and assigned as an additional role instead of their primary role, since it's been said many times over that there are players in all levels of play working at Riot. I just ask that anyone who responds to this to have meaningful points, comments, questions, and what not as I believe this is genuinely something that is necessary for the game as a whole.
