Hexakill has no viable champ diversity: it's a mage-fest (with fixes and predictions)

Skip to the 'Fixes' section towards the bottom, which doubles as a TLDR, if you are so inclined.

Here is the Hexakill champion pool:

Tanks: Alistar, Maokai, Sion, Wukong, Garen

AD Assassin: Fiora, YI, Wukong

Supports: lolnope

Bruisers/fighters: you're funny

ADC/Marksman: Huehuehuehue (trist is semi viable b/c of resets, but in all cases, you can find a mage that does whatever you want to do better, in trist's case, that's AP ezreal).

Mages: anything that uses AP you can build Luden's Echo / Wooglets / Void Staff and win the game. This is the only way you can play supports. Same with half the tanks. You play them as burst mages.

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Here are the underlying mechanical issues that cause this. Keep in mind I'm not judging these things as "bad". But they are what they are, and that has consequences in terms of which champions are strong/weak/playable if you want to win.

   A.  Itemization.  Already more or less covered.  The aforementioned mage item trifecta is the best thing you can get on this map/mode which leads to...

PREDICTION NUMBER ONE If Riot releases in depth statistics about this mode, Luden's and Wooglets will be the two most (non-boots) items bought. Other than cheap pieces like boots or Vamp scepter, I'm talking finished items. Hydra will be up there, but that's only because Sanguine is not a realistic option for Hexakill, and people are still (laughably) trying to have fun/win in this mode by playing AD champions. Void staff will be top 6/7.

Wooglets and Void staff are good, core items for mages, and are probably necessary to make them viable. The real culprit here is how well they combo with the overtuned-for-this-mode Luden's Echo.

   B.  Gold comes in fast.  I'm not saying I don't want it that way, but it has effects.  First it makes the cost of Oracles trivial.  While normally assassins are pretty scary, or at least viable, this immediately rules out Akali, Rengar, and to a lesser extent Talon and Kha Zix.  

Second, the quick gold gain leads to a relatively quick first item purchase. Now if you believe, like I do, that there is one item that only half of the champions in the game can use, and that item is stronger than the items that the other half can use...who does this benefit? Right. 7-9 minute luden's. It's an insane power spike on a class of champions that hit their power spike through getting to the max rank of their nukes. The echo acts as a force multiplier for their already excellent power spike from level 6-13 - the core part of the Hexakill experience. And then there's the literal multiplier of Wooglet's waiting for them next, which also doubles as an excellent defensive option (bye bye Zed, cool CC tanks, I'll be chilling right here while my team nukes you off the map).

   C.  6 players per team and a smaller map makes AoE more valuable.  This should be pretty evident.  While this opens the door to the plausibility of someone like an Amumu or a Malphite, you'll still find that they end up building more like mages than tanks.  You'll quickly find that if you try to take Amumu or Malph into the Dojo of the mages that you will be first, stunlocked.  Second, nuked off the map.  And third, if you built the items to survive them, ignored while they kill your team.  Then you're left to 1v1 them, which you can't, cause you didn't buy Luden's + Wooglet's.

   D.  Clairvoyance is a game changer.  There's not a lot to do on this map in terms of winning the game.  You have two shrines, a limited jungle, and a boss which isn't even close to being as important as baron/dragon.  Any team that can look at its mini map knows that if the enemy isn't in lane, and not on a shrine (you'd see that too), they are at Vilemaw (easy enough to check) or camping a brush somewhere.  There is nothing else they can be doing.  So the team not camping needs to group up and start checking brushes.  CV is great for this, but what do you do if CV is down?  You check the brush as safely as you can, from range, with skills.  Who has short c/d ranged skills that can be spammed to check brush?  I think you see where this is going.  If a fighter tries to check a brush for you, well...RIP Darius/Riven.

So even though AoE tanks benefit from this situation a bit, it still helps mages even more.

PREDICTION NUMBER TWO Champion diversity will be some of the lowest we've seen from a featured game mode (excluding pre Sona+Ryze perma banned original URF). If Riot releases these stats, we'll find an overwhelming amount of mages at the top. I guess I should say viable champion diversity, because I'm more concerned about win rates relative to pick rates - it's not just as simple as either one by itself.

Just looking at pick rates, I'm sure there will be plenty of picks for champions that don't have a great win rate. After all, if you consider yourself a Lucian main, you'll probably still play Lucian in Hexakill. Even though you can't hope to lane against Xerath + Ziggs + Lux no matter who your lane mates are. But I'd bet that if you split the total run-time of Hexakill into halves, or quarters, you'd see a dramatic drop off in a lot of non mage champion picks.

Yes, some of this will happen in every featured mode as players figure out the meta, and what's good and what isn't, but I think it will be an extraordinary and record-setting drop off for Hexakill.

If that's not the case, and people are still stubbornly picking 'bad' champions, I think this will be strongly reflected in the win rates in the second half or later quarters of time that Hexakill is live. People are going to realize, "oh rushing Luden's on heimer is pretty freaking good, I'll just do that if I want to win". Those who don't fall into that mindset will see their win rates drop off.

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Fixes

1. Perma ban reset champions on this map. Katarina, Tristana, Yi, and Kha'Zix

2. Disable Luden's Echo. I can't think of a way to preserve the spirit of this item (which is admittedly cool) without breaking it for AP scaling melee, so just disable it. Maybe give them (mages) back a single target DFG type item with a short range 'gunblade' type nuke so it has to be used more defensively in close quarters as opposed to 'LOL luden's nuke gets whatever range my spell has' (again see Ziggs/lux/xerath/kog for the worst offenders).

3. I think with YI out of the game, Fiora becomes a pretty worthy ban candidate. I've heard that some people want Thornmail back in the game, but if the first two suggestions are done this shouldn't be necessary. I'd still be interested in a Thornmail with slightly less stats being in Hexakill as a situational pick for when the other team is auto attack heavy. Maybe 80 armor and 25% damage return instead of 100/30.

These three changes alone would do wonders for greater diversity of viability across champions/roles. Not every team would be 1 tank, 1 AD assassin, and 4 mages. Supports could build like supports...with...you know...actual support items. Darius could actually get picked, played, and (gasp) win the game. God forbid you might even see a skarner, udyr, or trundle.

We've had years of ARAM where long range - poke mages were kings and queens. I was really hoping Hexakill wouldn't be this way too. I guess technically it isn't - they aren't long range - poke mages in Hexakill. They're long range death mages.