Why you shouldn't be mad at Riot for less than 50% of Champs being played in LCS

Fisk··45 votes·2,871 views

People really get upset about seeing >50% of champions played in LCS but we all need to take a moment to understand that what pros pick doesn't equal the only thing that is strong or viable. What pros pick is consistency. They pick champs that can consistently farm and play safely under almost any circumstance. Let's take Cho'Gath for example. He is a perfectly viable and even strong pick and solo queue, is naturally very tanky, has lots of damage, a crap ton of cc and can freeze and sustain lanes into oblivion if he chooses. Great champion actually, I nearly lost a four versus five the other game (I was the five) because of a Cho'Gath. But, Cho won't be able to succeed what so ever against certain top laners like Lee Sin or maybe Fiora or something else like a teemo (God help us all). And, if Cho falls to far behind in lane, he can't stack his ult and then can't become strong as a result. Does this mean YOU can't play cho and win? No. BUT you probably won't see cho picked over something like gnar or maokai in LCS because both of those champs will useful and relevant if they are counter picked or lose lane really really hard. Lee Sin is another great example of an LCS champ. Is he even really remotely over powered in soloqueue? Not really. Despite the QQ Lee Sin threads, he actually isn't that strong of a carry. He can deal damage, but has to get fed. He can build tank, but to get really tanky he has to have a lot of items. He can have high mobility and assassin potential but it purely rely's on the ability to outplay your opponent. He is actually relative balanced BUT, there are few games where a Lee Sin will perform badly, especially if you are good with him because of his high mobility and utility and his strong early game which helps to prevent him from getting shut down. He will rarely ever lose early heavily and will transition to late well almost no matter what but will he be OP and carry his whole team? No, most likely not. If you do see one carry, respect that guy because he is just good and would carry if he decided to main any other half decent champ.

TL;DR LCS is not = to viability. LCS= Consistency. Riot can't help that, some champs will just be more consistent than others because of their kits and the purpose of each champion.

Edit- Here is a good post about the idea of specialist champions. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/b6qPWdyT-a-plea-to-riot-consider-the-alternative This is what I'm talking about when I say consistency, there are champions that are generally more successful, even if a specialist can perform a certain role. The generally good ones are just picked more because they are a safe pick.

32 Comments

PoRKNADO27 votes

It's going to be a serious problem for Riot sooner or later and they need to address it.

People, myself included, are starting to get very bored watching LCS games with the same 15-20 champions with a handful of alternate picks depending on the ban phase. For me, it feels like I'm watchin the same match over and over. The same gank and harass patterns. The same all-ins. The same strategies. #LCSbigplays start to lose their allure when it's the same play you've seen 50 times before.

The viewer base REALLY wants more champion diversity and more varied team comps. Just listen to the LCS crowds and even the casters when someone hovers, or actually locks in a champion in pick/ban that falls outside the standard meta picks they see again and again in every other game...they get excited! They cheer!

...but alas, JarvanIV gets locked in again instead and you can feel and hear everyones disappointment.

IceKingChernobog8 votes

this is literally how i felt watching LCS for the 2nd and 3rd time. The lack of diversity in LCS really does get stale and boring

Retillin5 votes

And then you have someone like Quas pick Swain. Everyone gets all excited. The casters, the fans in attendance, twitch chat, and then he is out classed (the champion) by his lack of mobility (esp in team fights). Meaning he will most likely not get picked again this split.

qetzel1 votes

Let's be fair. Liquid lost really early, across all lanes. It wasn't the Swain pick that made them lose.

Retillin1 votes

Oh yeah, Liquid played bad over all. But when you take a champion with no mobility it's hard to be useful. He (Quas) was doing well in team fights latter in the game. But couldn't get to anyone (the carries).

qetzel1 votes

Only Fenix could, really, and that is because Azir is Azir... Tristana didn't get much off, and nor did Jarvan, Who has more mobility than more than half of Gravity's team.

Retillin1 votes

I dont know. Graves and Trist have about the same mobility. (granted Trist's ult is a great disengage) Zed-Azir are about equal. Vi-J4 are about equal (J4 more often but Vi's ult is point and click) Mao has more than Swain Thesh has more than Janna (thresh has more options, can engage and disengage)

I would say Gravity had over all just a bit more mobility. And with Swain having none and trying to be a carry vs Hauntzer's Mao who was basically all tank, just killed anything of than a late game hyper carry-ish game plan for TL. Gnar or even Rumble (ranged ult on Rumble) at least would have been useful. Swain just couldn't do anything vs the back line of Grav.

BastionKross7 votes

I will second this. I'm not mad that the pros will try and pick the best champs because it's their job to win. I'm mad that the side effect of them doing so is that every match is the same damn thing with little variance. It's getting to the point where it's difficult to tell if I'm watching the next game in the series or just a replay of the last one. You've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all.

Imagine if Starcraft 2 had balance like that, where only race that was good enough for pro play was zerg. Entire tourneys would be 14 zergs and one die-hard protoss. No one wants to watch all those ZvZs, they'd get boring as hell even if the zergs all did something different. Blizzard knows that variety is the spice of life and tries to make all three races as viable as each other. (With varying results)

I would not consider pro League play to be very spicy. In fact, it tastes like cardboard.

Manchester 5mash7 votes

someone hovered on riven for like 20 seconds in lcs this weekend and my heart started racing

and then they picked gnar

AbrahamBaconham4 votes

Yeah but, the pros aren't playing for the casters or the audience. They're playing to win the match.

There isn't really a means to, or even a reason to, incentivise LCS players to pick out-of-meta champions. A pro, because their priority is to win, will always choose the path of least resistance; they will always choose the most powerful, most reliable champions. There isn't much Riot can even do about it.

SecretAgentHulk1 votes

Riot could adjust the balance of power so that currently off-meta champs are more reliable in comparison.

AbrahamBaconham3 votes

It's not that simple. Balancing in a game with as many champions and variables as League is infinitely more complex than just saying "oh, they aren't popular right now, lets buff them."

Can you imagine what would happen if Yorick was buffed simply because he was "unpopular?" Riot deliberately keeps him underpowered because of how unbearably toxic his kit is. You think Zed and Yasuo are frustrating to lane against? You haven't experienced the tears of rage a veteran Yorick player can provoke.

How about another unpopular character, like Fiddlesticks? Unlike Yorick, Fiddlesticks is actually a very strong champion. The damage and CC he brings to a team is invaluable, and his natural sustain makes him one of the few original AP junglers who are still viable. The problem is, no matter how you buff him, pro teams will never pick him, because he's easily countered by good warding, tenacity, and applying almost any form of CC while he's draining.

Completely ignoring how utterly boring the game would be if every champion was equivalent in power, even if Riot could pull off the impossible task of perfect balance, you'd still have comps that work insanely well with certain champions, so you'd still keep seeing the same people over and over.

Retillin2 votes

I think the issue, is more that they have not worked out a large balancing system at the pro level. Granted that could just be REALLY hard. So instead they SHOULD (imo) play more of a wack-a-mole on the top picks. To increase "diversity" and show different game styles.

They have made a huge point trying to get buzz phrase "strategic diversity" into every cast of the LCS (as an example). Yet the dame strategic mode prevails. Either out poke (get ahead early) or team fight. That's it. And when you see the same champs (Liss, Gnar, Lee/J4, Zed/Kass, ect...) it really kills the viewing experience.

AbrahamBaconham1 votes

Playing wack-a-mole with powerful champions is taking things to the opposite extreme; too little fluctuation vs too much. Where perfect balance would mean mind-numbing consistency, instantly nerfing anyone who becomes popular would make nobody a reliable pick. Sure, it would solve the issue of the same champs being picked every LCS game, but it would wreck havoc on the game at every other level. Who wants to play a game where literally every character faces the risk of being gutted or reworked on a weekly basis? What kind of balance team even wants to do that? Do we really want a League of Olafs?

Honestly, I think the way we have it set up now is best for game health. The game changes every year, and thus the meta changes with it. Sure, for one season we will likely see the champions again and again, but it will change gradually, likely before the season is over.

agbudar2 votes

{quoted}

It's going to be a serious problem for Riot sooner or later and they need to address it.

People, myself included, are starting to get very bored watching LCS games with the same 15-20 champions with a handful of alternate picks depending on the ban phase. For me, it feels like I'm watchin the same match over and over. The same gank and harass patterns. The same all-ins. The same strategies. #LCSbigplays start to lose their allure when it's the same play you've seen 50 times before.

The viewer base REALLY wants more champion diversity and more varied team comps. Just listen to the LCS crowds and even the casters when someone hovers, or actually locks in a champion in pick/ban that falls outside the standard meta picks they see again and again in every other game...they get excited! They cheer!

...but alas, JarvanIV gets locked in again instead and you can feel and hear everyones disappointment.

this makes me wana learn get to challenger get into a team then for the final match i will instalock urgot...

i can dream folks i can dream

Vlasimuthe21 votes

This is in part why people are complaining though, a generalist should never be able to perform a role even remotely as well as a champion specialized in that role. The utility generalists bring far outclass any specialist type champion, which is exactly what that discussion was saying. People see that generalist champs can provide so much utility to the game with no visible weakness and that is why they are mad because there is no reason to not pick anything but a champ with no weakness. Most players just seem to be too immature to properly express the reasons why they are mad in a civilized manner and just resort to the "OMG WTF RIOT DOING" type threads. What players want is for generalist type champs to not exist because they seem to far outclass everything or be far outclassed. As Troy said in his thread, generalists can be a part of the game, but the newer released champs can do too much compared to more balanced generalists like GP. Generalists just need to not do everything at once but simply more things at once than a specialist can do.

Killer X 125 votes

I would be happy if it was 50 percent of the champs. Its more like 30 with very few team specific exceptions since some people have slightly awkward champ pools for the meta.

Cu Sidhe4 votes

"People really get upset about seeing >50% of champions played in LCS. . ."

Why would people get really upset by seeing greater than 50% of the champions played in the LCS? Isn't that what they want?

Hehe, I joke of course but might want to edit that.

:3

Orangesilk4 votes

Wait, let's make something clear.

Cho will almost never lose lane HARD, even if he gets counterpicked, because he builds tanky, becomes innately tanky, sustains, waveclears and is impossible to dive and kill. If you get an early lead, he'll go full Nasus, farming stacks and becoming tanky under turret.

His consistency problems at pro play don't have anything to do with his laning phase and have more to do with how weak his kit is against highly mobile champions. Cho'Gath only has 1 way to gapclose onto an enemy mobile champion, by landing his rupture, his rupture however is basically impossible to land against mobile champions, since it's slow and delayed, as a result, he's almost useless against high mobility comps, which you may have noticed, is how most LCS comps work.

Cho'Gath fares well against the rest of the roster, but he really suffers against the LCS usual picks, and this is why you will never see him picked there.

Major Sparkles2 votes

^^^^^ +1

Spacesuit Spiff2 votes

yes someone said it.

lemme add something: for every lcs strat you can try to copy into soloq, there are 5 more that would get punished hard in LCS but work perfectly fine in soloq.

pckpr2 votes

Well said.

Raptamei1 votes

The elements that make Dota less fun in solo queue make it more fun to watch at pro level and vice versa.

I don't think you CAN make a game that has both.

TrentBatNA1 votes

It's okay because #LC$BIGPLAY$

lDontLiftIcarry1 votes

Looks like a run on sentence. Fix it.

meatjunjun1 votes

Totally agree with you, man. Finally someone gets it in this cesspool of QQ warriors. In a game with 120+ champs, the LCS will only see 30-40 viable champs in every season because those champs are the best for tourneys.

There will ALWAYS be top tier champs, and even if you nerf one God, another will rise up to take its place. Then you'll see everyone complaining about that champ too.

For example, let's say all mid-laners got nerfed hard and Brand somehow became the strongest pick, he'll be pick/banned 100% of the time and everyone in this thread will cry and moan.

Eraest971 votes

Totally agree with you Fisk. It is like getting mad at a football team for using the same quarterback all season, or that they use some of the same plays over again. I won't lie, it does get boring to watch what seems like the same match, but I still get excited for every Big Play that happens.

People are always find a reason to complain about something. So while they are still complaining I'm going to still get excited for every champ select and every Big Play that happens.

Daen1 votes

It is like getting mad at a football team for using the same quarterback all season, or that they use some of the same plays over again.

I'm not sure football is an accurate analogy, because the parallels you drew are directly associated with using the same mid laner all season or using some of the same strategies over again. Champion select is not something that can really be compared to professional sports, because that kind of pre-game non-play strategy doesn't happen in physical team sports.

Each champion in League of Legends has a limited amount of variability and viewing interest within the framework of the game; when the same matchup is chosen half the time, the interactions are forced to be almost identical. I did a detailed analysis of 2014 NA Summer Split, and the jungle matchup Lee Sin vs Elise happened in 31 games (28%) over the split. For all intents and purposes, all 31 of those game matchups had very similar strategies and identical mechanics. I wish I had done a full team analysis, but all the roles except mid had very stagnant matchups.

As one other example, only 7 games (6%) during the entire split had a support matchup where Thresh, Morgana, or Braum weren't present. Over half the matchups were those 3 champions against each other.


TL;DR, there is incredible staleness in a lot of the roles. I get that things change, but seeing one of three champions literally every game except 7 of them gets a little boring.

junglerboy161 votes

Gnar is actually falling out of being a priority pick now for the exact reason that now he is too inconsistent (there is long enough when he has to be mini gnar to counterbalance his overwhelming strength as mega gnar that more pros are opting for Champs like Maokai /Lissandra /Rumble ).

Learnding1 votes

"Consistency" Meanwhile, every single hero in Dota 2 gets picked competitively at least twice. Every one of the 110 Hero's get chosen at least twice in competitive play.

Baby bumpy League is sitting on a nice saturated 15 or 20 champions.

Zinju1 votes

In season 2 I watched nearly every LCS game and now I barely watch. I do not like watching the same champions played every game by every team. But, there is not much riot can do about this. In a nutshell: If 2 players have even mechanics/skill how do you gain an advantage? Champion select and champions themselves. Therefore, champions who can do well while countered/behind are picked. Although disappointing to watch.

I enjoyed when Gambit would play off picks like Kennen/Malphite support. Hell, even the recent TF jungle was something new to watch.

Secretnir1 votes

I don't really agree with the sentiment expressed a few times here in the thread that there's simply a natural hierarchy of champs in each role and the ones at the top get played competitively.

I think that, overall, champs have gotten overclocked for each role as newer and newer champs come out. The word "Mobility" has been used a hundred or so times in this discussion. And every champ that comes out now has a clear mobility escape/engage/disengage.

I also agree with the point raised in a different thread about how mobility champs do not have any clear drawback in damage or anything else to clearly demarcate what they supposedly give up for all their mobility.

If you want to see more competitive variety, Riot needs to rework some of the champs that have been left in the dust with no mobility and no clear damage advantage over champions who have tons of mobility. We know they're not going to go through the last 40 or 50 champions and remove their mobility that is now a trademark of their kits. So take the champs who never see the light of day and give them countermeasures against high mobility, or give them mobility of their own. Some of these have been needing some love and changing for a LONG time anyway. Poppy, anyone?

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