Sword of the Occult is a troll item that should be removed from the game.

Of course I realize that when you make a thread like this a lot of the people who are going to read it are the small minority of people who buy this item and have weird niche uses for it. I wouldn't have a problem with an item staying in the game that I thought was useless, (sup ?) but over the 3 years that I've played this game, I've only ever seen used to troll, or at the very least, used by people who have 0 interest in teamwork, which is pretty much synonymous with trolling in a team game.

First of all, to the people who are going to say "but it has a use and I buy it on X champion" let me tell you that your teammates really wish you wouldn't. Seriously.

The problem is that, nobody never dies, so it's just way too high risk, and anybody who legitimately thinks that they're so good that they can compete in ranked matches with this item and not have it be detrimental to their team is automatically expressing a 'solo carry' mindset that has no regard for teamwork and is arguably toxic. (You know, Riven mains.) These people are the "if I'm having a bad game, we deserve to lose, because I'm the only person on the team who's good" people, and buying this item instantly identifies that you're that person to the rest of your team. It's simply doubling-down on the "if I can't get fed, we don't deserve to win" mindset because of the snowball nature of the item, and it's not fair that one person gets to make that decision for the other 4 on their team. In fact I'd really like to see the numbers on people who were reported, who also happened to buy this item, to see if there's a correlation between this item and toxicity, which I'm willing to bet there is. I also seem to recall that it's (rightfully) one of the least bought items in the game, which is another argument for it's removal not being a big deal. I'd imagine that almost nobody buys this in ranked or normals.

No, almost nobody buys this item in a "serious" game mode, but let me tell you who does buy it. People in bot games, and smurfs. (I don't have a smurf account, so I'm just guessing there, but why would a smurf not buy it?) And this is where the item is a problem, this is where it gets super troll-y. I play a lot of bot games because it's an easy first win bonus and sometimes I just don't want the hassle of having to try, but let me tell you, is cancer in bot matches. I don't know how many times I've seen people in bot games buy and then only focus on getting kills, ksing often, and absolutely never taking objectives. They only care about their KDA and find that Bot games are a great way to "practice" this when these same people would never in a million years take this item into a real match (and more than likely lose if they did.) Also, when's the last time anyone bragged about their KDA in a bot game and was taken seriously?

Bot games have their purpose and practice is one of them, but if you're going to use it to "practice" a strategy that you will absolutely never use in a real match, you're wasting your and my time. Second, here's the other thing people do with in bot matches that I ran into recently that I can't stand. They buy it on champions who have no business with it, and proceed to act like they're the ADC, and often KS because stacks. Or hell, sometimes they buy it on a champion who can use it, and then KS because stacks.

DISCLAIMER In a real match, I don't care about KSing, I don't believe that it truly exists. If you're in a team environment, a kill is a kill, and some are more optimal that others, you need to care about who gets kills but it's still a net win for your team no matter what. But when people KS in a bot match they are clearly only playing the game to compete against their own teammates for kills and CS. This is a philosophy of gameplay that should not exist and the people who do it are asshats. This is why people hate smurfs, even when smurfs don't do this intentionally they outperform their teammates and it looks like they're competing against their own team. Being able to outperform your teammates is a skill that isn't necessary, and coincidentally the whole concept of Sword of the Occult encourages you to do this and to play this way. It's a self-focused, performance-based item only that might help you look like a good League of Legends player, but in reality, it's doing more harm to your team than good.

Anyway, back to the story. I played a bot match the other day and I hovered Bard cause I main him and that's what I always do, so some dude (who's silver btw) locked in Thresh, so I was like I guess I'll ADC so I picked Miss Fortune. This was all done with zero communication, btw just at the character select screen. We get in game and Thresh and I go bot, and to my dismay he starts to CS minions, and I looked at his build and realize he's bought a longsword. Not only did he continue to CS, so now I'm actively competing with my lane partner for CS, which helps no one, he also took the first two kills in lane. Then he goes back and buys . Eventually I got tired of competing with my lane partner so I started roaming and pushing towers cause now I just want this game over with. Here's the thing if he had said he was going to ADC Thresh, I would have supported him! I main support anyway, and in a bot game Idgaf what you do, but when you instalock Thresh while I'm hovering a support character, and then I pick ADC, I expect you to support because nobody wins if we compete with each other during the game. In the end I went 11/0/12 and he went 17/2/9. I looked him up and found out that lo and behold, when the dude plays Thresh in ranked (which he does often) he builds support Thresh (and never places wards,) but in bot games, which he also plays often, he goes ADC Thresh with first item every time. In his most recent ADC Thresh bot game he went 40/1/3. I'm sure his Ashe ADC loved that.

** Semi-TL:DR** The point that I'm making is that competing against your teammates is not a fun experience, and as an item only enables people to do this, the only people who buy do this often, and it's not a good item in any "serious" game mode as evidenced by it's high-risk low-reward mechanics and it's snowbally nature. Yes, removing as an item wouldn't prevent people from competing with their teammates, KSing, or going ADC Thresh without communicating, but in bot games is a "trap" item because the risk it carries is completely gone because most people are very rarely going to die to bots. This makes it an item that's more abusable than it is useful, creates a hostile team environment, and doesn't actually help anyone get better in actual League of Legends games in any capacity, and in fact only teaches new players how to get worse if they see smurfs using it and think it's actually a good item. If it was removed, you'd piss off thousands of trolls and smurfs, and like 200 people who aren't that who just happen to think it's a good item, it's a net win honestly.