TFT needs refinement

I've played a number of TFT games now and understand its in open beta. I don't want to shit on the game mode outright because I could see this being a mobile time waster game mode with only a few minor tweaks. If that's the intention, I wouldn't be making this post because it'd have no real impact. However, when I look at the TFT page it shoes "Ranked: Coming Soon" and that scares the shit out of me. The game mode is not worthy of a ranked environment for several reasons. The least of which is the RNG that people are already speaking out about. Having thought on it for a little while and played my games, I feel some feedback is warranted.

First, lets talk about the RNG. I understand it makes every game different and interesting. I also understand its so people can't just make a meta and the whole thing gets boring. However, in a competitive environment that sorta needs to happen. You've hosted one of the most successful competitive games for 10 years now. You understand that retooling and balancing is a factor. And you also understand how to shake up meta as it becomes stale. To this extent, I think the RNG is a huge mistake, at least to the levels it currently is. Allow me to apply a numbered list to what I mean, in order from worst to more superficial.

1. Champion selection can get incredibly annoying in later stages of the game. Many of my games I'd build towards nobles, yordles, void, or shape-shifters, and then suddenly stop getting the option to purchase them. This invariably lead to lost games because I would either have to retool on the fly, a costly investment that rarely pays off, or fall WAY behind in champion power and or requirements for bonuses. It also created a "feel bad" moment when I see someone else got lucky and had multiple rank threes within their team's theme. I felt screwed over by the divine being known as R N Jesus. I propose two possible solutions.

1a) The first is to remove the random champion selection all together outside the carousels. Have a list of champions you can purchase with your gold between each round that may be added too as you progress through the matches. 1-2g champs in the first few rounds, 3g in the next few, and so on. This would allow people to build their teams and structure them as they go, providing a tactical play-style. Perhaps make it cost gold to combine champions into a higher rank, forcing a choice of grabbing a new champion or upgrading the ones you have.

1b) My brother suggested this one and it keeps some randomness but cuts back on it a fair bit. When the random selection comes up it spawns 10 champions at a time in 2 rows. If you refresh it pushes the top row of 5 off and spawns 5 new champions to select from. This can cut down on stupid mistakes to a degree, and offer greater choices in what you purchase. Multiple times I sold a champion I though I wasn't going to use only to spawn 2-3 more of them and regretted the choice.

2. The items are ridiculous as they currently are. Many times I would get extremely lucky and get 2-3 items before the minions were done and those items would be perfect for my build. Many more I'd get absolutely nothing. Either way, its incredibly unfair. The items can turn the tide of combat if you're lucky enough to have them align with your champions, and each other. But the key term there is lucky. More often than not I see my opponent have a serious advantage and there's nothing I could do to overcome it, because they got the items on the champs that needed them. It was also super frustrating to fight the mobs (minions, krugs, raptors, ect.) and get absolutely nothing, again seeing opponents who got a couple items from them. Once again, I've a couple different solutions following the same logic as champions.

2a) Allow items to be purchased directly with gold. Once again, this would created a tactical and strategic game play feel. It'd force you to think about if what you wish to purchase based upon your current game state and options. I envision having a list of items constantly available similar to the shop in other game modes. However, I could caution that people should only be able to buy maybe 1 or 2 items between each round. To me, this would create a more chess like game mode, coupled with 1a for champions and would be ideal for competitive play.

2b) If RNG is necessary here, make it what drops. Not that anything or multiples drop at all. Guarantee a single drop from each wave of non-player enemies. It could be random what drops, but having some people get multiple synergistic items while you get nothing at all is the worst feeling thing in the game as it stands. I could recommend that certain mobs drop a promise 2 items, while still keeping what drops randomized, just for the devout RNG worshipers.

2c) This is taking 2a and 2b and combining them to a degree. Again, I stress that for a competitive environment you'd want to minimize RNG as much as possible. However, I can understand how allowing people to just buy whatever they like whenever they like can lead to some degree of overpowering build options. A way to keep items somewhat limited would be to have certain stages grant item vouchers that you can then trade in to a shop. This shop would have a list of all available items within it but certain ones would cost more vouchers. I feel this would pace the game a bit better, while still leaving the players in control.

3. Some of the powers seem to perform far better than others. I understand that the limiting factor in many of them (Yordles, Nobles, and Assassins come to mind) is the requirements for them. However, they still feel overwhelming to go against considering the champions that can use them. Nobles in particular is irritating as the 3 buff on a Lucien can create a single champion that carries you through many games. However, pirates is strictly gold advantage which has it's place and isn't terrible, but falls off HARDCORE later as more and more of that gold is sunk into re-rolls. I have some ideas for how to retool these, but it would ENTIRELY depend on where the game mode went concerning the RNG factors. So for now, I'll not attempt to go down that rabbit hole. Especially while typing this up at 3am.

To recap, I feel the game could keep its RNG if it was a time waster similar to ARAM. I'd personally enjoy a bit more player control to live up to the TACTICS in the name but I have enough fun as is. However, if ranked is seriously an option, the RNG needs to be removed as much as possible. Crits, dodge chance, and stuns (Assassin, Yordles, Glacial) are fine. But the player needs to be able to build their team and not get screwed over because they simply aren't getting the last one they need for a bonus or rank 3 champion. Either way, it is fun and I'll be playing a lot more of it. I just hope my thoughts can lead to some helpful developmental ideas down the line.