Idea for Improving Player Agency - The Re-Roll Refiner

This idea came to me the other night after I spent 40+ gold in a single round looking for any of three possible upgrade "hits", and coming away empty-handed. Having this happen in a close game where every upgrade counts feels really bad. So I started thinking - what if there were a mechanism by which the player could slightly influence the RNG mechanics to help them find the champions they're looking for? Any such mechanic would, of course, need to have an associated cost. So with that foundation, I came up with the following idea, and I figured it can't hurt to post it here to get feedback. I apologize if this is completely unoriginal and has already been discussed ad-nauseum.

**The Re-Roll Refiner: ** (this silly alliterative name is completely non-negotiable):

• The Re-Roll Refiner would exist in a new, specially-designated space on each player's island. I'm imagining the bottom right corner next to the bench.
• When you place a champion into this special space, it will influence the percentage chance to get certain champions for the duration of one round.
• At the end of the round where you used a champion in the refiner, that champion is consumed (cue fancy de-materializing animation). This is the cost. You don't get money back like you would for selling the champion.
• A Champion placed in the Refiner slot is not locked in (and thus doomed to de-materialization) until you've actually performed a re-roll with them in place. Savvy players can use this as an extra bench slot, but they've got to be careful!
• There would be two ways the champion influences re-rolls. It would significantly boost the chance to get specifically the champion that's in the Refiner. But it would also provide a moderate percentage boost to find other champions that share its Class or Origin.
• Higher cost units should increase the potency of the effect. The math on this should probably be directly proportional to the gold value of the unit, to account for even the possibility of putting 2 star units in the Refiner.

The intended design of this feature idea is to be most effective in the very early game, but perhaps even more so in the late game. Obviously you get more value out of the unit you sacrificed to the refiner if you're planning to re-roll 10+ times in a single round, which is often done in the late game. But it may also be useful early when there are fewer unwanted units watering down the champion pool, allowing you to hunt for those important 2 star upgrades that help you survive early.

The significant boost to get specifically the unit you're sacrificing would be a calculated risk. Are you willing to sacrifice one unit you want for the chance to find 3 in one big re-roll round? Or maybe it would be used as a way to provide continual fodder to the refiner. Like maybe I'm trying to find a (Phantom) Kindred so I keep sacrificing (Phantom) Mordekaisers to the refiner, and I'll buy any copies of him that show up in my refined results so I can keep doing so.

Potential Additional Features

• Highlight results in the unit-purchasing panel that are related to the unit being used in the refiner.
• Bad-luck protection: if the boost yields no results (or possibly even just no results that the player actually buys), then your Refiner unit is not consumed but remains locked in place and continues boosting in subsequent rounds until it produces a hit.
• Notifications in the chat window of units being used in the refiner by other players.
• Increased potency of boost effect for using the same unit in the refiner multiple times in a match. Or possibly for using the refiner at all in consecutive rounds.

That's about all I could come up with. I think it would be a good way to allow players to influence their RNG in a skillful way, without becoming an automatic mechanism to just get what you want. What do you all think?