Why is League of Legends dying? Can it be saved?

Recently I commented on one comment in this thread and it really got me thinking: Is League of Legends dying (or a dead game)? Is there anything Riot can do? Someone in this thread mentioned Riste - a high elo Garen One-Trick who is known for being this positive guy overall.

This is the perma-link to the thread where his comment is located: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/tOBfFwFf-is-it-just-me-or-are-people-slowly-not-playing-league-anymore This is the perma for my comment: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/tOBfFwFf-is-it-just-me-or-are-people-slowly-not-playing-league-anymore

I'm reposting it here for sanity's sake so you don't have to go find it. It is editted to keep it relevant to this particular post, but a lot of it is still relevant. If you want to read just the TL;DR of the post, it's all in bold.

League is a dying game. The majority of the League community is just fed up with Riot's balance team more so than the game. Riot doesn't necessarily listen to outside opinion all that often. (The last time they did was when they brought in Irelia Carries U to give his thoughts on the Irelia rework... which was one of their balance mistakes in the past, but they did eventually get it right.) They should have some of the community join in on balancing the game. Bring in people from the 1% (Diamond 4 and up) to talk about the state of the game. They have more insight and a closer finger on the pulse of the game because (unlike Riot employees), for most of them, their livelihood (live-streaming) depends on having this "finger on the pulse" attachment to it.

If I had to make a historical example of it, look at colonial society - especially the relationship of Spain to its colonies in Texas and what is now Mexico. The king of Spain made very broad decrees about how he wanted his colonies run. The colonial leadership had this to say about it. "I understand but I do not comply." This was the way they approached the king's decrees because (in all honesty), the king was not there and did not know the natives as in-depth as his governers did. The governers did what they had to because their survival (literally) depended on it. This is how I observe the relationship of League to streamers and League to Devs. In order to really know what's going on with the natives (Solo Queue), listen to the governers (Diamond 4+ Twitch Streamers). Find out what they know and make educated guesses on what can (and should) be done. If you have a champ made for pro-play (like Ryze), let it be. It may not fit into Solo Queue ever... and that's perfectly fine.

You can't ever make the community 100% happy, but the goal of the balance team should be to make the majority (90% or better, though for sanity, I think 75% is a reasonable "majority") happy with the state of the game, while stepping on as few players' toes as possible. Riot has not done that, and for that reason, League has been in the crap-shoot state for years.

Ways to fix League:

1. Listen to those whose lives depend on your game.
2. Don't balance EVERYTHING for Solo Queue. Some champs just won't fit (sorry, Ryze and Akali), and that's fine.
3. Don't balance EVERYTHING for Pro Play. Some champs won't ever fit (sorry, Garen) and that's fine.
4. Faster patches would be nicer. A patch every 2 weeks to address overall balance, with an interim 1-week patch to hack out all the bugs, hotfixes, etc. (No one will fault you for making more regular adjustments to the game to make it a healthier experience.)

The list can continue. But I leave that to you, the player base, to add on what you think.