Hextech Crafting is cool and all, but...

Well, I've never really had an interest in the whole Hextech Crafting system. I think it's neat, and a cool way to reward players for investing time into League of Legends. But I do have a couple of problems with the system- not what it is at its core, which is a way to give people free stuff, but namely:

1. Hextech Annie and Soulstealer Vayne are only available through Hextech Crafting. I understand why Hextech Annie is Hextech-exclusive- if I remember correctly, it's to commemorate the release of the system, yeah? I'm fine with this, honestly. However, I'm not exactly okay with Soulstealer Vayne being added to this pool. I get that these skins are supposed to be rare, and that they're cool in that they're really hard to get (in theory. You can spend $500 and not get either of these, while a friend can open up Hextech Annie within their first dozen chests). The problem I have with these skins is that they are only available through Hextech Crafting, and specifically Gemstones. Because they are acquired randomly (at the moment), it's possible to acquire, say, 500 chests and not get any Gemstones, right? Well, then you could say, "ThrustingTurtlez, you silly wumpus- boxes and keys can be acquired for free! Just play the game and stop being such a booberry screwboy!" Well, sure. That's true, but you can only really earn 1 chest per Champion per season. This means that over the course of around 12 months, you can only receive around 130 chests. Given, that's insane- that's a lot of chests, and all for free! However, even THAT isn't exactly true. At the release of the system, you could only get 4 chests before needing to wait around a week to get another one. This is because it seems to work on a recharge system, where you are given 1 chest opportunity per week. This effectively means that you can't get ~130 chests over the course of the season, but instead you can only get around 56 per season- 4 at the start of this season, plus another 1 for each of the 52 weeks of the year. On top of that, I remember reading that key fragments get harder to obtain as you acquire more of them, which I assume would mean that their "drop rate" scales inversely with the total number of fragments you've obtained so far. In other words, more fragments now=fewer fragments later. Given, I assume this is RNG-based, meaning you could get a fragment every time you win a game if you're lucky. I'm also not sure if that is still implemented.

2. Champion Mastery Levels 6 and 7 are tied to Hextech Crafting. I don't really get this one. For a while, I didn't exactly mind it. I was explaining this system to a friend who hadn't played League in a while, and she gave me the most incredulous look. She said: "Why would I have to play a Champion that I have no interest in playing in order to get chests, which I would then open with keys and hope that they held Champion shards, which I would then disenchant into Essence, that I would then use to show my mastery with Champions that I love playing?" She had a point. I think that it's silly that Blue/Champion Essence is necessary for increasing Champion Mastery. An example would be like this: I main Volibear, right? Let's say I have rank 5, and I earn a few rank 6 tokens- enough to actually get to rank 6. Now, let's also say that I don't have any chests. I will now have to play Champions that I don't have a feel for/don't like playing (like Tryndamere or Xerath, for example) in order to get chests. Once I acquire the key fragments to open these chests, I will need to hope that the resulting treasure within includes a Champion shard, which I will need to break down into essence. On top of that, rank 6 requires 500 essence (last time I checked, anyhow) while rank 7 requires 600. That's more than any 1 Champion shard. What if I'm unlucky and I don't get many- or ANY- Champion shards from these chests? Now, on the bright side, players can now buy Champion shards for IP, but this doesn't change the fact that Champion Essence is required to increase Champion Mastery. I assumed the main focus of ranks 6 and 7 was to show that you can consistently play your favourite Champions well, meaning the minimum S-/S rank requirement was justified. But... if you can get, say, 20 S ranks in a row, but you aren't getting Champion shards from chests/aren't raking in that I.P., then you can't show that you kinda deserve rank 7, right? I mean, realistically speaking, you can get from rank 5 to rank 7 in as few as 5 games. The idea that there can be some people who are very good at their favourite Champions and desperately want ranks 6 and 7, but are gated by Champion Essence, makes me feel... bad.

Aside from those two things, I don't exactly have any qualms with the Hextech Crafting system. I'm not saying it's a bad system or anything, either- I'm just saying that these two "problems" that I have could be solved in straightforward ways. Maybe allow these skins to be acquired in a different way or give players another, Hextech Crafting-related way, like by sacrificing 3 skin shards and a Champion shard in order to get a random skin for the Champion you want? Perhaps Champion Mastery levels 6 and 7 could not be gated to Champion Essence at all, or maybe decrease the amount of Essence needed?

To be fair, these are ways to get free content in the game, so I can't complain about that. To repeat myself, I'm actually not complaining about that- I'm complaining about how frustrating these two specific aspects of the system can be. I would like to hear what others think about this though. I've been thinking about this for a while, but I haven't exactly gotten around to communicating with others about this stuff until now.