Custom Games
Okay so hear me out. I appreciate the thought going into TFT I really do. But it is still a long way off with balancing changes, and a bunch of people I've played with enjoy the game but not enough to continue playing it as it stands now. But I managed to get a full lobby of 8 friends banded together and we attempted some in house rules, such an an Item ban (We banned cursed blade) 1 character ban, (we let 1 random person choose and if we were to play more we'd have those lower from the last game pick etc) and we banned item stacking, so you could only use 1 completed item per character.
The idea alone was enough to get my friends to try it out and we really enjoyed it. Not everything has to be about a ranked grind in this game, and there are a lot of us out there who enjoy the game but find some of the current meta toxic for the game.
If there was a custom mode even if there is only 4-6 people playing per game, i'm sure plenty of people would still appreciate to use it. Setting your own rules and playing seems to help out some of the balancing issues.
For Example.
Not allowing item stacking means no double shojin pyke, (which all items should carry with them Unique: Passives to be honest)
And allows everyone to try out how well certain champs do with 1 item.
No longer could you bank all your bucks onto 1 person, and pray the rest live like half-tanks for them.
I dunno. I hope there are people out there who agree, but a custom lobby set up could be really great.