Cass's rework is a total failure ATM and how did Azir get released?

1% pick rate. 40% win rate.

My gut feeling is these aren't healthy signs for any champ.

The only two things keeping Cass from being the worst champ in the game is that urgot refuses to stop being urgot (his winrate is .08% worse) and Azir was released broken. Riot should have really pushed back the shurmia event until after the season was over. They clearly weren't ready for it and it showed.

I mean you clearly expect a new champ or a rework to come out at around a 48%-52% win rate because that's average. That's about where you want a champ to be. But they aren't there. And this is more than being a little off too. 40% and 38%. Are you kidding me? Azir is sitting on a 19% ban rate because people specifically don't want him on their team. I'm not sure what mark riot was aiming for, but they missed it in both cases.

So what happened? Did PBE fail them? Do riot's current internal meterics stink? Is riot too distracted by the LCS championship and the changes for next season to do their jobs? How is it that 2 champions, one new and one a rework, were both able to make it to live as a liability to their teams in the same patch cycle? I mean in terms of what riot has done lately, they've got a snake who's more toxic to her own team and a sandmage who is quicksand that his team is trying to fight in.

Riot should be able to do better than this. Riot has done better than this (but not lately because they nerfed tops to the point irelia is good again). For a lot of fans, that has to be the most worrying thing of all. Riot's talking quality, is capable of quality, has done quality in the past, but is delivering 2nd rate atm. I don't know what's going on, but a failure clearly occurred.

Now in riot's defense this could just be horrible cluster luck. It happens to people. The system could be correct and it just so happens that two major failures happened back to back. But it might be more than that.

This is also why I'm dreading the Soraka rework in addition to the fact they are picking the wrong direction for her. The first time something bad happens is an accident. The second time is a mistake. The third is a trend. At 45% right now she needs an improvement in win rate as the last nerfs intentionally killed her and this rework was to give her a healthy and viable kit. Emphasis on both healthy and viable. If she doesn't release in that 48%-52% area when she goes live this week, riot is officially trending down in terms of balance.

The pressure is on.