Why Bard seems like a very dangerous champion

Hey everyone,

With the new champion revealed, I figured I'd just share my thoughts on Bard and why he is potentially quite close to being a gamebreaker.

Now before you grab your torches and pitchforks, I'm not saying gamebreaker as in "he's too strong/dominating" or anything like that. Well, kinda like that, but in different regards.

As we all know, League of Legends is a game of teamplay and skill, but every now and then, a match can turn into a rather frustrating experience because some people, me included, may at times lose their cool about the game. That's usually fine, as long as you don't act upon it and keep your rage to yourself, which I'm sure most will try to do.

Now, we've all in our LoL career been subjected to trolling, grieving teammates (If you haven't yet, I fear for your future.), but I feel like Bard is notching it up a bit by giving not only his allies, but also, when he so wishes, his enemies clear tools to engage upon his own team.

His E can create a tunnel through terrain passable to anyone, not just his teammates, but also his foes. He can set up ganking routes which are more than contraproductive to his team.

His R is able to 'zhonyas' a whole group of 'beings' on the Rift simultaneously. Again, not just his allies, but also his enemies.

I feel like Riot took the part of Kalista's ult that gave her control over her support and turned it into a multi-target AoE spell. Of course, Kalista has no say in where her ult gets thrown, but she is still able to remove a valuable asset to her team's damage output simply by pressing R. Imagine. You're a Leona, supporting a Kalista who lost faith in the game and is ready to troll you and your mates to oblivion in what way she can. You hit your E on an enemy and are ready to follow it up with your full combo to genuinely secure a kill for your team, when your Kalista just goes 'lol no' and pulls you out against your will.

Back to Bard: There is immense power and control over his team in Bard's skills. Should you play with a Bard and he goes salty enough to want to ruin you and your friends' days, he can effectively create means for your team to stomp you. He can set up portals in his own jungle to make passage for the enemy jungler easier and he can 'statis out' an out of position carry to have the enemy team engage on them once the spell is lifted.

In my personal opinion, though he is not my type of support, I think Bard is a refreshening addition to the League of Legends roster and has some clearly quite new and unique spells which are sure to make for some big moments in a game, but I feel he has a bit too much control over his own team and, if he wants to, can quickly turn a game into a 6v4.

tl;dr - Salty Bard will self-pwn his team for lulz, beware

If you have any thoughts on the matter, I'd be interested in hearing them. That was just my first impression of the champion as soon as I looked at his reveal page, so I'd like to know if you had a similar premonition or if something completely different popped in mind.

Hope I'm not alone on this! Silven