First Timing in Ranked
So I'm making this thread to discuss a somewhat controversial topic in league of legends. The ability to first pick a champion in ranked queues. In my opinion, Riot should put a limit on the capabilities of players being able to first time a champion in ranked as is supposed to be where you're trying your best, not trying something out. The goal of this is to try and open up the discussion about this topic and see if there isn't some sort of solution for players choosing to pick something they don't know in ranked. I'm going to say this now, I'm all for learning new champs, and you shouldn't need to be condemned to becoming an one trick or only being able to play a select few champions. Rather, I would prefer if Riot would implement a method of sorts that would limit player experimentation to normals or blind games.
the whole concept of ranked queues is to show how good of a player you are with the champion(s) you are best with. If you're picking something, having never played it before, then there's no possible way you can play something as good as you would a champion you've played even a handful of times. By picking something new in ranked, you are putting your teammates in a position where they're most likely going to be forced to carry you since there is a good chance that the first timer's laner(s) have had practice on their champions, thus putting the first timer at an automatic disadvantage. This isn't a problem at some of the lowers elos either. This is an ongoing issue at ALL parts of the ladder, from bronze to masters, and should be taken seriously because it makes losing lp a lot easier for your team because of that one player who chose to be a liability for the entire team. Now, the argument that will probably come with this is "you should be able to carry these players no matter what. just git gud and carry these bad players." which is a fair arguement to make. That player IS at your skill level after all, right? you wouldn't get matched with them if they were a full tier below you, so how bad can they be? Now, even though this probably isn't absolute, there's a good chance that player climbed by playing champs in their champ pool that they're comfortable with to climb to whatever elo they may be at, and that this is just a one off type of game where they just wanna try something. That means that this player is no longer capable of playing at the same tier as where they're placed because they don't know the mechanics of the champion, they don't know their power spikes, they don't know their match ups. They don't know anything about this champion that they should know to at least some degree before entering ranked.
So what's the solution? how can we fix the problem while still keeping the freedom of playing a diverse number of champs in ranked? The solution I propose is to make it so players must achieve a certain level of mastery on a champion before it is playable in ranked queues. Now, what level of mastery is required can be debated upon, but i believe somewhere around level 2 or 3 would be a reasonable gate keeper to accomplish this goal as it means the player must have had at a handful of games on their respective champion, which in some cases is enough to get a really good grasp on how that specific champion works. in my opinion, I think around 5-10 games on any champ is enough to be capable of playing them to a somewhat confident level. Implementing this as a change in the future could help solve a lot of frustration in ranked without really harming many players either, and would be an overall positive change for game health.
Anyways, that's my thoughts. You're beyond welcome to approve/disapprove however you may please. I want to at least get this out there so that it can be discussed and maybe implemented in some form. I'd be happy to hear any constructive criticism on the concept to try and make it as reasonable as possible for every player, since I know my thoughts might not be the same as everyone else's.