Strategic balance is more broken than champ balance

Depending on the state of the game, there is always going to be a handful of S tier champions who rotate in/out of that spot. So the amount of raging flying around about that stuff is about the same as it always has been and always will be. But what I think is the real issue of the current landscape of the game is the overall design philosophy and how the game has become more formulaic and one dimensional. Yes it is true more champions are viable than usual, and many of them are highly flexible. But we have given up a variety of strategy and play styles in order to gain this variety of champion. Let me highlight several of the core issues:

Importance of strategy: On a high level LOL has 3 major skill categories. Micro - which includes things like individual mechanics, laning prowess/matchup knowledge and ability, and small scale plays like mid roaming to river to help secure scuttle or steal a buff, or generating lane pressure. Then there is Macro - this includes team wide play and decision making; so things like what objectives are priority during lane phase, positioning on the map, rotations, plays that span multiple lanes like when bot gets a deep ward for top TP play then mid hard pushes so that enemy mid cannot roam to help. Then third is what I call General Strategy- which would account for things like champ select, item builds, and vision control. Like anything else, it's impossible to balance these aspects perfectly, but I think right now the balance between them is the most skewed it has been in a long time. I remember one season a few years ago where it just seemed like macro was the end-all-be-all of winning games, and since decision making tends to be a weak point for many players, there was a lot of backlash and I actually believe that one season is an origin point for many of the pacing and general changes to game philosophy we've seen over the past 3-4 seasons. Now days, Micro is exceptionally important, and the variety of champs you can play is actually a part of that. How a champ fits into the overall team comp or functions as a style counter, is not as important as being able to generate pressure in lane. If you can abuse a specific rune or a specific matchup, that champ becomes viable in that role, little else matters. Turret plating plays into this as well; who cares if it takes you 3-4 mins longer to kill Tier 1 towers than it used to if you can just pick a good matchup and farm turret plate gold before pushing it down? Just a lot of focus on generating lane pressure and making plays early. Who made the first move matters more than consistency of play over the course of a game. Just as example if one team picks Trist and Braum bot lane against a Lucian-Nami, just the ability to stay even and cs and not give up any kills (all without help of jungler) is indicative of outplay. This is something we have lost site of - going even in an unfavorable matchup is outplay. Going along with that same theme of lane pressure, how many low econ top laners are left in the meta? Sion and maybe Urgot if you're being liberal, both of whom just got nerfed because they are actually fairly dominant in lane fore being tanks. Which is why they were even meta to begin with. All the old low econ top laners who just want to neutralize lane, lose gracefully, and scale up are out of the meta.

One dimensional win conditions: In the past a gold lead felt like it was just an advantage you could garner to get to your team's win condition. With how hard the game snowballs, baron buffs, and how bounties can actually increase snowball rather than aid in comebacks....it feels more and more like THE GOLD LEAD IS THE WIN CONDITION rather than just one of the boxes you check to get to your win condition. And our backs are up against the wall in a lot of strategic ways. For instance, if you draft specifically to generate a lot of pressure bottom lane, all it takes is a little bad RNG for the value of your strat to just go into the floor. If you get a mountain-cloud as first two drakes rather than something like ocean-infernal, I would go as far as to say that the value of the drake advantage is half of what it could have been. Meaning you have to be able to pivot to pressure mid/top, which puts more emphasis on picking a strong jungle matchup, which in turn limits the jungle pick pool. Along those same lines, when Riot increased the importance of scuttle in order to generate more conflict it also limited options. Sure the increase in early fighting is cool, but think about this; if scuttle is so important then you HAVE to pick the stronger early 1v1 jungler, or you HAVE to pick either a top or mid who will guaranteed have lane priority early on to roam and help secure one of the two first scuttles. Yeah it's an interesting aspect of the game, but it's also extremely limiting in terms of the types of junglers and laners you can choose along with pathing options. I understand that there needs to be some level of predictability to jungle patterns, otherwise it just feels like luck rather than strategy, or that vision is God, but I think there is a lot of space to meet in the middle.

One of the smaller issues I think is just rune abuse. By that I'm referring to the idea that a lot of the relative power of a champion has to do with the ability to abuse certain runes than with the champion themselves or the way the fit into a team comp. for example before the conqueror nerf came in it really felt like you had to pick Sion/Urgot, or a champ who was strong with Conqueror otherwise you were gibbing yourself extremely hard. Again this points to the importance of lane priority, and the lack of ability to soft sacrifice certain lanes or rolls to delay the game or trade for gains elsewhere. TSM Sven specifically mentioned how the "lane kingdom" style of play (which in the past was almost exclusively a solo Q feature) has become more important across all regions even at the pro level. Even Korea, where in the past they have been known as the safest and most consistent laners, they are being forced into this volatile style of play and champ picks. Then when it comes to team comps, yes split push and poke styles are more viable now than they have been in a couple seasons, but their windows for success are still comparatively small when it comes to comps that want to generate skirmishes or team fights, and I think right now a team fight comp is really only viable if it has a few ways to generate skirmishes as well. Looking at poke comps, while it is stronger now than it has been in a while, "full" poke comps are still a huge gamble and I would go so far as to say really they are a no no because they are so risky. Again, I know true perfect balance of all comps and style is impossible to achieve, but when I think back to the year Samsung White won worlds, I think you literally had every type of champ in every role represented, and pretty much every style of team comp, and this at the highest level of play.

Personally I would not mind trading in a little less of the explosive and wild card nature of league for some of the strategic options we had back in the day.