Increasing champion ban counts to 8 - thoughts?

Anoyze·Oct 30, 2014·114 votes·7,518 views

Riot increased the bans to 6 when there were 87 champions, allowing players to ban 6.89% of the champions. Currently there are 121 champions, and the ban count is still at six (4.95%); if the ban count is increased to 8, it will become close what it was before (6.61%).

A good case against increasing the amount of bans would be that a large number of players will be banned out completely; 8 bans at once may be just too much. What game designers can do to protectively fix the potential error is changing the pick / ban phase from:

Blue side ban 1 > Purple side ban 1 > Blue side ban 1 > Purple side ban 1 > Blue side ban 1 > Purple side ban 1 > Blue side pick 1 > Purple side pick 2> Blue side pick 2> Purple side pick 2> Blue side pick 2 > Purple side pick 1

Blue side ban 1 pick 1 > Purple side ban 2 pick 2 > Blue side ban 2 pick 2 > Purple side ban 2 pick 2 > Blue side ban 1 pick 2 > Purple side pick 1

Blue side ban 1 pick 1 > Purple side ban 1 pick 1 > Blue side ban 1 pick 1 > Purple side ban 1 pick 1 > Blue side ban 1 pick 1 > Purple side ban 1 pick 1 > Blue side pick 1 > Purple side pick 1

Thoughts fellow summoners?

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123 Comments

Coffee Ray GunOct 30, 201411 votes

An increase in bans is definitely needed at least in the pro scene as pick variety is very poor. I was thinking 5 bans per side... one for each role.

Meep ManOct 30, 201435 votes

5 is too much in my opinion. 4 per side would be good though.

Coffee Ray GunOct 30, 20147 votes

Yeah, true, any increase I think would be good.

Jenova SynthesisOct 31, 20144 votes

Make it like, 3 .664 bans per team.

Lt CuddlesOct 31, 20141 votes

Pray tell, how does one ban .664th of a champion? :^)

Jenova SynthesisOct 31, 20143 votes

Once you get in Bronze, you see things man... You see things.

Sagee PrimeOct 31, 20143 votes

I disagree but only if they changed the pick ban phase to something more along the lines of what dota uses. EX: BB-BB-P-PP-BB-BB-PP-PP-BB-PP-P route "B" being ban and "P" being pick obviously.

Picks and bans should be more strategic than they currently are now and most likely also increase pick diversity in solo queue and competitively.

XyphiosNov 1, 20141 votes

actually imo it wouldnt be. There are 119 champs and 10 champs are banned. You still have 109 champs to choose from which is a lot

Sagee PrimeNov 7, 20141 votes

Adding on to this... It'd probably increase pick diversity especially if the picks followed the BB-BB-P-PP-BB-BB-PP-PP-BB-PP-P route "B" being ban and "P" being pick obviously. Picks and bans should be more strategic than they currently are now.

OnegarionOct 30, 201410 votes

Honestly more bans wouldn't make the picks any different. It would just eliminate 1 more pick and then we would get roughly 2-4 new picks. It really doesn't broaden the pool any overall.

I think there is another option if we are looking at changing bans with a heavy emphasis on LCS play. That is to keep bans at 3 per team, but make it so each champion has a "cooldown" period when picked. So say we have TSM and C9 playing. TSM picks first and takes Orianna in game 1. Regardless of winning or losing TSM can't pick ori for x number of games. If its regular season play its say 2 games and playoffs can still be 2 or even 3 games. This forces players to use different champions. Now just because TSM picked Orianna doesn't mean C9 can't pick her in game 2. So while we still have the same champs coming in it makes you pull them out at different times. This also helps keep out the OP champions out of being the only thing played.

The biggest problem with changing anything about bans though is making the field more diverse, but less skilled. If you force people to learn 4-5 champions it changes how good they can actually be with them. It makes it more boring to me when you ban out an entire role making not just games but lanes be very boring. Also imagine seeing really weird picks that aren't picked because they are good, but because thats whats left. When you started getting out of the top 2 tiers of champions you start to get less exciting anyway just by play.

The bigger problem is that Riot needs to stop making new champions or cut how often we get them and work on making diversity better. While I know they said that they don't want to make champ picks "rock, paper, scissors;" but you can't have total viability without some form of RPS in play. We have counters, but we need more hard counters for the OP champs. I feel like that alone would play a huge boon to diversity. If you know picking Zed/Yas early will instantly bring out their hard counter makes it less likely to pick them blind. Ofc counters are all skill based, but you need to create champions that can shut down others just because it keeps people from spamming 1 champ or the high pick rate of certain champs.

Coffee Ray GunOct 30, 201411 votes

I think hard counters are a very bad thing... both for casual play and pro play. Imagine getting put up against your HARD counter in blind pick, that wouldn't be fun.

Soft counters are good and healthy, it can be fun to go against your soft counter and win, or at least try your best. If you were hard countered it would be borderline impossible to do anything.

rymu2000Oct 31, 20141 votes

I had to go Garen v riven in blind, but I still won. Ryze however is a different story

Coffee Ray GunOct 31, 20143 votes

Were you Garen? Garen is Riven's counter. I just played against a Riven and dominated.

iConcyNov 1, 20142 votes

Garen vs Riven is weird match up, id ont think either of them counter the other. more skill bases. Ryze however counters every top so hard, he actually shifted the entire top meta.

Killer X 12Dec 3, 20141 votes

He has been in and out of the top lane for 2 years or more. The meta changes around him, allowing him in, more so then him pushing others out.

Prometheus856Oct 31, 20146 votes

I doubt it'd help. The top 6 bans at worlds were Alistar, Zilean, Maokai, Ryze, Lee Sin, and Thresh. Combined, they make up 259 of the 468 total bans in the 78 games played - that's more than half of the bans. They aren't banned because they're stopping people from playing what they want, because riot's wack-a-mole way of balancing things doesn't allow for it. Instead, they're banned because they're the most absurdly meta (read: OP) champs in the game, or, in Zilean's case, cancer to play against. If you expanded to 10 total bans, instead of 6, you'd see the next 4 highest champs continue to be banned (Lucian, Rengar, Zed and Nidalee) because they're still the best.

When a supermajority of champs are able to be played competitively (which won't be possible without extensive reworks on just about everyone with point-and-click kits and the removal of the mobility creep) and riot figures out that nerfing the meta and waiting for another one isn't fixing anything, that is when you add bans. But until that point, you're making the player responsible for a balance issue, instead of just fixing the fucking balance issue.

source: http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/2014_Season_World_Championship/Statistics/Champion_Stats

YGW CaspieOct 31, 20144 votes

But until that point, you're making the player responsible for a balance issue, instead of just fixing the fucking balance issue.

Well played. However with 4 bans a side things MIGHT change since it allows different banning strategies to emerge. Not banning strong meta champs isn't always necessary and as purple side if you let in as many meta picks as you can you can potentially trade 1 strong pick for 2 strong picks which is something that has been done competitively and isn't a bad strategy. It's not unusual to see strong meta champs go through ban phase but with 4 bans you can see targeted bans go even further into someones champion pool to expose those weaknesses in a team or you can see banning out of strategies that counter what your team is planning to run, so for example if you want to run a strong poke comp you can ban out really strong engage/anti-siege champions. It also opens up a few niche champions who have a few strong counterpicks but are strong otherwise since you can possibly spend a ban or two on those hard counters.

I do agree with OP however that if you add another ban you probably also need to revise the way pick/ban phase works. However, I also agree with you and that fixing balance issues instead of playing whack-a-mole is when a much healthier time comes to add bans but when is that ever going to happen? If they keep adding champions even at a slow pace it only adds to balancing issues and spreads out resources at Riot and at the rate they're fixing balance issues at the moment it doesn't seem likely that this game will ever reach a point where multiple metas can coexist instead of just one meta being dominant.

Sir ArmaMalumOct 30, 20149 votes

I like the idea of staggered bans but I'd rather not see bans happen after half the team has been picked. It narrows the choices for those who haven't picked and by extensions greatly increases the chance for them to be banned from their pick just because they were later in the order.

Why not, for the sake of simplicity, just tack on a single ban after first pick on both sides, on top of the current ban method?

MrBuffingtonOct 30, 20143 votes

I agree, the staggered bans might screw some roles over especially hard, especially since there have been a lot of situations where there are only 2-4 top-tier picks. For example, blue side bans Kha, picks Lee. With the current ban style, you at least have the chance to ban out Lee too, and force both sides to a tier 1.5 jungler or something. You can also just ban out your counters without much chance for the other team to respond.

TheI3igDaddyOct 30, 20147 votes

There needs to be 4 per team now, there's no excuse imo. We have so many more champions than in season 1. 5 is pushing it a bit, but 4 needs to be implemented for Season 5.

ByrnesOct 31, 20146 votes

No. -Riot since 5ever. Yes. -other competitive mobas.

A previous explanation was given that bans aren't there to force competitive play, but to keep out what had been labeled as "z-class" champions - basically champions that were known to be OP/imba but not yet nerfed. This is why the ban count has remained as it is, despite the increase in champions the z-list has apparently remained the same.

ByrnesOct 31, 20141 votes

And my personal opinion is that we should increase bans and, dare I say, just remove known imba champions from being used in ranked or tournaments. I mean, that entire concept is just so toxic. For example, when Riot realized how imba Lucian was and removed him from tournament play for a short period of time. Meanwhile, he stayed on live to be used in ranked play. What is with that yo. If you know there is a secret list of imba champions "to be nerfed", why don't you either fix them on the spot or remove them from ranked and competitive play? Jebus.

wolfaxOct 31, 20143 votes

Because you can't fix them on the spot. Anyone who tells you that has obviously never really thought through the process of nerfing/buffing. Why in the hell would they make a change without testing it? So many things on the forums I would actually like to see Riot post a list of every change they tested for a specific champion with explanations as to why many of the attempts that obviously didn't make it to live failed. Not for every change, but for at least one so people can see what it actually is Riot does in the background.

Also, at the point you do that every person is going to claim Riot's just got their head up their butts because they haven't disabled champion X because they just lost and that's totally not supposed to happen.

DaaaaangOct 30, 20144 votes

8 bans would be interesting.. I think it would allow for a little more diversity. I would still think ban phase should come before picking. Team compositions would get completely destroyed. Say the first two players on purple pick dive champs.. say and Yasuo . The other team can ban Tristana and Twitch leaving your team with an adc that would probably not work well in the comp.

Maybe that's just part of the strategy.. but I think once you get into the plat/challenger/LCS region.. way more games would be decided in champ select.

ChaoticPineconeOct 30, 20143 votes

my biggest issue is that although there are 30 more champions since the ban number was increased (im taking your word for it), the number of viable champions actually decreased - at least in professional play. half the champions released were never really viable - viktor, sejuani, nautalius, fiora, darius, etc. plus, the number of champions that people used shrunk - you dont really see the variety you saw back in season 2. the most played/banned champions this season were older champs - alistar, maokai, zillian, janna, lee sin, ryze, janna, rumble, trist were all at least 50% ban or pick rate. the only newer champions picked that much were kha, thresh, and lucian.

plus, the pros know each other and their stats. they already have to know at least 4 characters - 3 possible bans and 1 first picked away. youd need to know 5 champions to be versatile enough not to get banned out, and thats not even taking to account if the champion is viable or not.

its more of a balacning problem then a ban # problem

in solo queue, there are too many factors. nobody bans shaco and rammus, even though they are way too strong in solo queue. people who main 1 "unviable" champion can make it far (like marinerevenge on garen).

KingsgraveOct 30, 20143 votes

Reduce the time allotted for banning so that we still have the same period of time before a match.

I honestly think 5 would be the best amount. They would never really need to change it beyond that since they only release like 5 champs a year.

It would also be 8.264% of the champion pool. If we force that many of the conventional picks to be banned, we will start seeing a lot of interesting champions in competitive and in ranked.

SecretAgentHulkOct 30, 20142 votes

Buff the time allotted for first pick and nerf second-to-last and last pick by the same amount. Whenever I'm team captain in duo queue, it's always rushing to figure out who to ban in first pick, then just finding and clicking for all the others.

GremlinfellerOct 30, 20143 votes

I ain't got patience for this...

KzooCrasherOct 30, 20143 votes

No reason to even read the whole post after

Riot increased the bans to 6 when there were 87 champions, allowing players to ban 6.89% of the champions. Currently there are 121 champions, and the ban count is still at six (4.95%); if the ban count is increased to 8, it will become close what it was before (6.61%).

Its not about the % champions its about the % of champions in a given role... with that many bans one team could ban out every competitive pick in a single role look at jungle for example. Jungle had so few competitively viable champions at worlds banning out 4 of them would leave one team with a astronomical advantage

PiriprimeyOct 30, 20147 votes

Of course, banning out champions is to remove viable choices, but whose fault is the limited champion pool that pros choose from? It could be Riot's (you could say a team has no choice but to choose from 4 junglers), but they are working hard to make more and more champions good picks, so that will certainly change. My opinion is though that it's the teams' fault, for they are always trying to stick to their comfort picks. Everybody likes a bit of surprise when it comes down to champ select, and we have seen teams that are famous and infamous for their surprising yet usually turning-out-to-be-carrying champions (Unicorns of Love comes to mind with their Swain and Poppy), and the viewers sure like a bit of variety. And when casual gold-silver-bronze players play, they know nothing about their opponents, so they would certainly benefit from two extra bans.

TL;DR: Pros should be forced to play more champs (they are pros, man), while non-pros wouldn't suffer from being able to ban more.

DaenOct 31, 20141 votes

My opinion is though that it's the teams' fault, for they are always trying to stick to their comfort picks.

This begs the question, why are the comfort picks for basically every single professional team essentially the same?

PiriprimeyNov 1, 20141 votes

Yes, you're right, I was strongly implying that there is no OP tier of champions. Let me correct myself: there probably is. But:

As I have already mentioned: Riot is working on the issue.
Comfort picks (even if they're all the same) make the game a bit less about actually coming up with good strategies at home and a bit more about predictability. The thing I don't like in pro play is the kind of thinking that comes with the "Ok, they know I'm a Ziggs main, and they also know that I wrecked the last three games with Zed. So what will I do if they ban Zed?", because they will usually return to the Ziggs in that case. There's always a third option. (Or there should be, see 1.)
Comfort picks aren't essentially the same, that's not true. The recurring thing in matches is the bans: as Prometheus856 pointed out above, you see the currently OP champions being banned. And then come the players with their comfort picks. There are junglers who main Lee Sin, there are one who main Elise (or there were, at least), and there are Jarvan IV mainers. That's good. If you know your enemy only plays one champion well, you could ban it and make them be in a bad position. The argument is: if there are 4-5-6 cancerous champs, then ban phase over, that was it, strategic banning is lost. With two more bans, you could make yourself safe with 2-3 bans, and harass with the remaining ones. That's about it.

DaenNov 1, 20142 votes

Comfort picks aren't essentially the same, that's not true. There are junglers who main Lee Sin, there are one who main Elise (or there were, at least), and there are Jarvan IV mainers. That's good.

Let's look at some LCS 2014 Summer Split statistics, shall we?

Elise vs Lee Sin happened in 31 games (28%) across the split.
Less than half (48%) of jungle matchups included a champion other than Elise, Lee Sin, or Evelynn.
The vast minority (9%) of jungle matchups did not include Elise, Lee Sin, or Evelynn.

Lucian vs Twitch happened in 15 games across the split, which was 13% of marksman matchups.
Less than a quarter (23%) of marksman matchups included a champion other than Lucian, Kog'Maw, or Corki.
The vast minority (13%) of marksman matchups did not include Lucian, Kog'Maw, or Corki.

Morgana vs Braum happened in 22 games (20%) across the split.
Less than half (48%) of support matchups included a champion other than Thresh, Morgana, or Braum.
The vast minority (6%) of support matchups did not include Thresh, Morgana, or Braum.

If this doesn't point to most teams having the same comfort picks, I don't know what does. I know this is just NA, but pick diversity is not high enough worldwide to really disprove anything here.

SecretAgentHulkOct 30, 20144 votes

If every competitive pick is ruled out, both teams are left with uncompetitive ones. I don't really see where it's a problem I guess.

1 WingNov 1, 20142 votes

what's so wrong with being able to drop all your bans to wipe out all top teirs from one position? If I see you banning the top ADC, then, okay, I'll ban the remaining top ADCs, so now neither team has a top teir ADC. What's bad about that happening? Oh, you took Lee Sin first pick? Okay, now we'll take take Ryze and whatever other top pick we want. I think being able to wipe out a position, rather than just the six top picks, should be a strategic choice.

MrSlowDieOct 31, 20143 votes

after a lot of thoughts, this idea will most likely to do good,

e$port will more fun to watch, I mean, variety

Acidic PuddleOct 31, 20143 votes

I say for solo queue have 5 bans on each side with one ban for each person, so that you can ban 1 person that u dont want to lane/play against.... this would somewhat limit the 1 pick trolls in solo queue

BhareNov 1, 20143 votes

My problem with this is with 4 bans you can kind of target pick a role and screw them. Enemy team bans Trist? Ban lucian, corki, twitch and jynx and suddenly there's slim pickings for most ADC players.

SkylimetoonOct 30, 20142 votes

Its a good idea but i think only the first option would be a good idea simply because if you can ban one and then pick 1 you could immediatly get someone the other team would have wanted to ban making it a bit pointless to have the whole banning system if you can just pick the champ before he gets banned and trade. but an increased ban rate would actually be a good idea and wouldnt destabilize the gameplay. hopefully it wouldnt just turn into a "same 8 champs banned every game" type of thing, because their is always the problem of champions not being able to be played. they wouldnt be the same 8 champs exactly just similar bans every game kinda like now.

ThePurpleKnightOct 31, 20142 votes

Personally I think everyone on a team should get to ban just 1 champion, should be blind banning, everyone bans at the same time, then it reveals the bans and those champs are out.

GavranOct 31, 20142 votes

If I had more bans to work with I'd just be more annoying with them. I can already hurt the enemy team when they ban 1 adc so I ban 3 more. You want to let me ban a fifth? And potentially have 8 of them banned?

Not to mention you're adding another minute to champion select.

And for the love of god please don't start interspersing picks and bans. It's already annoying when someone dodges because the thing they wanted to do got banned. You're going to delay that by a few picks now too?

Cenobite AzazielOct 31, 20142 votes

Riot already stated that more bans would screw up roles. Ban lucian, tristana, corki, vayne and the other team bans draven, twitch, cait, ezreal.

Nice. Now the adc picks are sivir, graves, ashe.

So if one player picks one of those ADC you can set up a kill lane of no mobility, or make an auto counter lane, picking already it's counter or you can ban the whole roster of a pro player.

AnoyzeNov 1, 20144 votes

Riot already stated that more bans would screw up roles. Ban lucian, tristana, corki, vayne and the other team bans draven, twitch, cait, ezreal.

Nice. Now the adc picks are sivir, graves, ashe.

So if one player picks one of those ADC you can set up a kill lane of no mobility, or make an auto counter lane, picking already it's counter or you can ban the whole roster of a pro player.

You obviously didn't read my post.

cshakesNov 1, 20142 votes

Or maybe they'll pick Jinx? Or Kog'Maw? Or Miss Fortune? Or Varus? There are 15 ADCs in this game, y'know. And if both teams ban out four ADCs, they're both stuck with "substandard" ADCs.

AMYS GRAVEDec 4, 20141 votes

or they pick yi, talon, panth, etc...

"you don't have to be a ranged adc to play bot lane, supports can do more than support, an heimerdinger is actually not a troll pick. It's time to get creative and try new things rather than ridiculing other people in champ select. it's time to break the meta. deal with it"

cshakesDec 4, 20142 votes

I was merely pointing out that even of ranged ADCs, the pool really isn't that limited. Hell, you can play double bruiser bottom lane and do well.

AMYS GRAVEDec 4, 20141 votes

oh i absolutely get that, there are plenty of options even just in ranged adcs.

two more fun bot lane combos i've seen are Annie or Blitzcrank Thresh . both work really well.

Entheos GeonNov 1, 20142 votes

The problem with your suggestion is that the last pick can still be completely banned out. I propose that Riot ups the bans and the owned champion requirement to enter rank/draft mode but give everyone the champions at the 450 ip price point for free so it doesn't take much longer to meet the required champion pool.

MyrddinOct 31, 20141 votes

increasing the bans would greatly hurt the pro scene and even the casual scene,

For the pros, if you have 5 bans each how easy would it be to ban out even the best of them?

even increasing it to 4 would kill a lot of teams

AnoyzeOct 31, 20143 votes

increasing the bans would greatly hurt the pro scene and even the casual scene,

For the pros, if you have 5 bans each how easy would it be to ban out even the best of them?

even increasing it to 4 would kill a lot of teams

Apparently you didn't even read the post.