I'm feeling like Riot is too focused on the problems in front of them, and not the whole ecosystem.

Prime example is talking about funneling nerfs in today's post and saying that it's primarily an issue with a few champions.

We've seen funneling strats on Kai'sa and Graves in addition to Karthus and Yi in pro, and realistically, as long as a champ can both clear the jungle decently and carry, they're a good candidate for a funneling strat (so Kindred -- if she's ever not not garbage -- should be a good pick too, for example). Funneling has also been consistently paired with Braum, yet Braum is untouched while Taric gets nerfs; however, neither Taric nor Braum are overperforming or problematic in non-funneling roles.

Funneling has much wider consequences than just Taric/Yi and Nunu/Karthus, but Riot seems to only be looking at what's right in front of them, and not what will inevitably come down the line.

I also feel like Riot is getting poorer at understanding the outcomes of their decisions, and you only need to take one look at the death of crit ADs in bot, or the creation of funneling as a strat, or the "need" to "diversify" mana choice beyond Morello's and the ensuing fiascos with tear, or the changes to and ultimate removal of banner to understand that. To me, this really feels like a symptom of seeing a "problem" but not understanding what happens you pull that "problem" block out of the jenga tower of League balance -- problems often bandaid other problems in a system this complicated, and it just feels like Riot isn't that adept at predicting the outcomes of their decisions anymore. They don't understand how seemingly small things interact with the whole ecosystem.

I think this might be a result of focusing too much on data; data is a useful tool to isolate potential problems, but data can't tell you -how- to fix a problem or what happens after you "fix" it. For better or worse, that requires an intuitive understanding of how the game is likely to function when its moving parts are altered, removed, and replaced. To be clear, I don't think Riot balance necessarily lacks that; they've demonstrated an understanding of this before. But I do think Riot balance is emphasizing that skill a lot less right now, and it's starting to show as the meta snowballs into awkward territory full of unexpected consequences.