My take on Black Market Brawlers

First impression is that I expected much more from this game mode. It doesn't feel that much different from a regular match on summoners rift.

For one thing, I feel like the black market items are mediocre at best. I usually end up building the same way I always do and I end up doing just fine. I feel like it would be more effective if you were able to purchase black market items as an additional 7th or 8th slot to add to your late game effectiveness, because some of the actives are actually pretty neat but don't warrant sacrificing the other stats.

Additionally, while purchasing and upgrading unique minions is a cool concept, I feel like they haven't had a significant impact on any of the games I've played thus far. I feel like it would be more interesting if we had some kind of meaningful control over their paths/targets (e.g. having razorfins march towards dragon when you know there is inevitably going to be a teamfight for dragon once it spawns so you have an edge in that sense.)

There's probably a lot of variables I'm not taking into account, but I'd like to hear some other opinions on this game mode and whether or not people think it feels sorta stale.