Hexakill is a great game mode, here's why.

I've seen some people complaining that they hate the new TT Hexakill, so I wanted to give some voice to the exact opposite: This is a great game mode with deep competitive possibilities and is also a lot of fun.

Some quick points that I love:

• Teamwork matters more than individual laning - 1 person can't throw it
• Towers are hard to take early, therefore harder to really snowball it early
• Team comps are varied and interesting
• Everyone is physically close to each other, so elaborate team fights happen often
• Lots of come-back potential
• Map awareness is challenging but interesting, since you have to track 6 players. Do it right and you will dominate.

Firstly, my suspicion is that a large number of bronze / silver players dislike the game mode because of their inability to counter Katarina. Having so many players in such a tight space makes it a reset-fest, and they never choose champs with CC in order to counter that.

Let me assure you all that once you actually play to counter the inevitable Katarina, it all works out fine. At low level, everyone wants to play a 6-assassin team, and then complain when the enemy 6-assassin team out-ninjas you. Once you win a few games and get your matchmaking up, there are actually very few Katarinas chosen in champ select. Gold level players seem to know how to interrupt Kat, and hence she's chosen only seldomly, and is not game-breaking.

Generally speaking, the game is as strategically interesting as regular 3v3 Twisted Treeline. There are many interesting options for how you configure your lanes and your overall team comp. If you take a jungler to get more team XP total, then you need to compensate for the lesser ability to push the lanes at the start. This has a potential impact on your ability to force a favourable fight at the 3-minute mark at the enemy altar.

So far my favourite team comps have been something like 2 AOE mages + AD assassin + AD bruiser + 2 supports. Anyone with AOE CC is very strong, same with AOE damage. Vel'koz is king in this mode, as is Wu Kong. Another really fun thing to play is Tankraka. If you play Soraka with a Spirit Visage and a Frozen Heart, hitting your Q on multiple people will heal you a ton, and you can tank for days. I've had some really fun moments of out-dueling some of the assassins by creatively using my AOE Silence and sustaining like mad.

In some senses, this game mode plays a lot like Heroes of the Storm. There's not that much focus on early last-hitting, mostly just gathering team XP as efficiently as possible in the early game, and then at around level 6 or so you really need to focus on whole-team movements. You can be split into 2 groups, but you need to react very quickly and group back as 6 when necessary. Efficient rotations can let you win a 5v6 if you're good.

Because your teammates are everywhere, you're not going to really lose a game based on one person's bad laning phase. It's also difficult to get towers early game, because acing the enemy team is so hard. By the time you've killed some people and moved towards a tower, there's already someone respawned in base and coming out to defend.

Summary

If this game mode were around permanently, I'd play it all the time. I think it'd make a really fun competitive mode and a fascinating meta would drop out. I'd really love to have a full draft mode.

If you find yourself whining about Katarinas, then you're just doing it wrong.