What are the changes aimed at?

TLDR: Double standards are the norm since a few. Do you want us to play different champions or do you want a healthy game? Statistics don't seem to back up your announced grand scheme plans and some champions are on the rollecoaster. GC is that you?:)

I see the bigger picture explained everytime, but every other patch the changes just kills some champion, often deemed TOXIC because of his skills. Can we have a real idea of the bigger picture? So far what is said and the changes that are made seem to point out that:

• Assassin are all toxic except Zed
• Some champions can retain their mobility other don't
• Some champions need a rework, but they are currently just gutted until something is done
• Some items seemed to be a problem but just for a bunch of champions which weren't compensated at all
• The idea of counterplay is very vague and seems there must be the same level of counterplay against everything despite every champion has different power spikes

I see reiterated this concept of counterplay, but always cherry picked out of context. It's ok for a champion to suck for 30 minutes, or to be useful only if snowballing, but it's not ok if after those 30mins or if snowballing that champion is hard to deal with. While I can understand why Veigar could have his oneshot combo removed (I don't agree on the magnitude of nerf tho), I can't really see the reason for hitting that hard on Kass, Morde, Azir, Kata while letting Annie, Ahri, Leblanc, Nidalee and others getting to the top of the food chain without any real counterplay except "the enemy did a mistake".

Range and mobility is a bad excuse in the case of Kassadin, because there are still champions that do better, and do that earlier. Rather than changing numbers so he couldn't oneshot people after 30 mins, it has been decided he shouldn't appear for a few in ranked games until they will find an idea that works.

So first of all I question the latest rework of Kassadin, which was shortsighted at best, lowering Riftwalk cd, reducing the damage received with a scaling shield, raising the slow up to a snare and zero changes to address the real problems like mid game crappyness if on-par or behind and late game OPness. Now mid game is unplayable and you basically have to suck it up and hope your team is gonna carry you for at least 30 mins. Overdone? Yes, but intentionally.

The balance team literally dropped the balls on trying to balance Kassadin despite the fact they didn't even try in the right direction, addressing his scaling that makes him sub-par until OP. It seems a trend that has been applied to other champions aswell, Nasus, Ryze, Azir are others that comes to mind. Those unstoppable late game monsters rather than being fixed have been just been put in the bench.

This might be because the games length have increased so giving a bigger opportunity for late game champions to reach their peak. Rather than reducing the scaling and increasing the viability mid-game some champions are just dumped and deemed TOXIC, while some others which are superstars in the early and mid game are perfectly FINE!

I don't have a big problem with double standards as long as this is made clear and there should be an official list of competitive champions that won't be just dumped into the ground, after all these lists are surely made internally, I can't believe they can work with the vagueness of their official announcements, often betrayed by few comments just few days after patches.

So, now it seems they are gutting assassins to give more breath to mages, but they are also enforcing tanks and reducing jungle presence which indirectly will boost ranged mages. We will end up having another year of obnoxious top slap fests and mid clears? Despite all these assassins and early ganks the games are still very long, with current ideas behind should we expect 60 mins games on average?

It's one of the two, either you want to achieve the bigger picture you describe (healthy assassins, all champions viable, tanks in the jungle) or you want a less diverse meta (tank, mage, adc, support, bruiser)? Because honestly I can't see how you can achieve what is stated with this trend.