ARAM Bans are toxic for the gamemode.

Listen, I get that people are real sick of seeing Veigars wrecking their day or Kai'sas nuking people from orbit. I get a little frustrated in those games too. But that is what ARAM is about. Let me explain why I believe the only healthy thing for the gamemode is to remove the bans altogether when the BB event ends.

Edit: This is a bit jumbled, but I feel I articulate my points somewhat alright. If you wish to skip the mechanical reasons I feel bans are bad and go straight into the personal, you can skip the first paragraph under this.

To begin, why I believe the bans are so bad. Aram is a gamemode about experimentation, goofing off, and excessive cc. That last part was a joke, though an accurate one. Poke is a nuisance, but poke alone does not win games (unless the non-poke team is all melee fighters and assassins with weak cc in which case that's just the nature of RNG). In a system where locking down the enemy team is the win condition, which is the whole point of almost every good engage champ in the roster for even SR, then what happens if it's mitigated via the bans? It leads to even worse games. Now, in a game where BOTH teams might have had some good cc, because five to ten got banned, one team got all the best CC champs on the bench and in their team and the other has no chance to get any. Or, no cc champs at all show up, and the game is about whoever can one-shot even harder than it already is, with no counter-play. This still happens rarely in ARAM without bans, but bans will make this MUCH worse.

I say this as someone who isn't actually a fan of CC, that it's necessary.

However, that was just about why I believe the bans are bad objectively for the gamemode, and not where the really 'toxic' factor comes in. People will ban the same champs for the most part, or ban reactively. Those two encompass the vast majority of the player base. So, how do either of those shape up for other players? Say your own teammates ban three of your four favorite champs. Sure, the gamemode is about experimentation, but that's quite disheartening. In a gamemode where you can't even display 'please don't ban THIS ONE CHAMP', bans will only stifle teammates. Think of every time a teammate banned the champ you displayed in SR, and that will happen to someone at least a few times a day with bans enabled. For instance, I love Sona. She's been my main in SR for a long time, and I'm the best Sona player I personally know (so long as you don't include ult I'm predictable af with it). Sona has not gone un-banned in a single game of Aram I have played since the change. Getting her was the highlight of my day before, and now the entire community has said 'you aren't allowed to play her anymore, even if it's a 1 in 30-ish chance to begin with'. That's just disheartening, as mentioned above.

Or even look at it this way, Aram is again about goofing off and relaxing moreso than anything. Many, many players who find ranked or even SR too tense will go on HA in order to unwind and just play the game they love without any expectations to keep track of map and xp and all of the focus you need in a 'real' game of League. The last thing these people want is to be told is that the rare champs they get are just perma-banned. People are usually hype to get Veigar, Blitz, Sona, or Soraka. Not because 'oh we get a free win for having one or two of these' but because they feel good to play. And, for the enemy, they feel good to OUTplay. I'm only speaking from the perspective of myself and the ten or so people I play frequently with on this, but that's the general consensus. Strong champions aren't the problem with ARAM, it's mentality. Advantage and disadvantage are going to happen, and trying to mitigate these in advance brings so much more stress to the gamemode than it needs. It's the same as when someone says 'oh I brought the wrong runes'. Sure, that puts you at a disadvantage, but the gamemode is all about chilling (ha) and playing a game you love, you don't need to micro-manage everything to ensure victory.

Discalimer: I am not glorifying intentional feeding or throwing. Mistakes happen and rng happens. We need to as a community learn to live with these things. This does not mean that AFKs or inters should be pardoned.

My last and most important point is this. The gamemode literally has random in the name. The POINT is to scramble through the pre-game trying to grab someone you're halfway decent (or even good) with and just make it work. Some of the best ARAM games I have ever played would never have happened if bans were involved. Titans clashing against each other or a single person managing to pick up the nutty penta when behind. Half-healthing someone as Jhin during his peak last season, only to then be half-healthed by THRESH of all people. Ridiculous moments that might never happen again if every champion who's actually strong at the moment just gets perma-banned.

And sure, I'll be devils advocate against my own argument. 'People don't ban objectively for the most part.' This is a fair argument, but doesn't really change my point. If 9/10 games has the same champion manually banned, then it's not random, and it's stopping you from being allowed to play the full roster. Same problem as always.

My ideal middle ground would be to introduce 'soft' bans of champs or mechanics. For instance, if you have one champ who can resist death (Trynd, Taric, Karthus, Sion) then it will lower the chance of rolling a second one by just a little. Hard cc would function the same way, or perhaps knockups specifically to stop 'Yasuo games'. This would also infringe on true randomness, but in a less brutal fashion.

If anyone disagrees or just wishes to discuss this, I'll be keeping an eye on this post to see if others have good points of debate or perspective about this.