Fearless Draft: State of The Game
There are currently 167 champions in League of Legends each with different abilities, combos, synergies, play-styles and designs giving everyone a champion they can identify with, master and have fun with.
I understand that to have the best chance of winning any game you should abuse the most powerful things at your disposal, and for League that comes from the drafting of the strongest champions of the current patch.
For a time the changing of patches was enough to shake the meta game and give new champions and team comps a time to shine and for viewers a chance of seeing their favorite or just something new that they might find enjoyable to watch.
Math Time
For the 167 champions each will have a primary role and here is the break down of how many fit into each lane currently (ignoring flex options for now):
Top: 38
Jungle: 38
Mid: 40
Bot:25
Support:26
This is rough and obviously doesn’t account for all the champs that can be played in 2 or 3 roles.
The total number of team comps with the numbers is equal to 38 X 38 X 40 X 25 X 26 =
37544000 for the first team and 32034600 for the second team. (This seems wrong but i’m too dumb to work this out)
In pro play for the most part the number of comps seems closer to 3 (slight over exaggeration) with champions rotating out with the meta.
A huge variety of champions receive nerfs and still see play at competitive levels due to their unique skills, looking at you Azir…
Riot do have a very hard time balancing the game for non-pro play and pro-play so I am not claiming that this is an easy fix, however Fearless draft as a concept seems to me to help with almost all of the issues that me as a viewer has right now.
How Fearless Draft Works
Standard Fearless Draft
In a best of 3 series if a team picks a champion that team can no longer pick that champion for the remaining games of the series.
Hardcore Fearless Draft
In a best of 3 series if a team picks a champion both teams can no longer pick that champion for the remaining games of the series.
In a best of 5 there are some different rules depending on the league or region but in general it will work like this, the same but if the series reaches game 5 there will be no normal bans but all of the picks will still be banned for both teams.
How Fearless Helps
Draft skill is something that even by a viewer’s standpoint seems frustrating right now. A coach will have some kind of plan with their team and have to react to what the enemies have picked. Depending on each patch and what champions are most powerful/ impactful at that moment, that will result in 1 of 3 things.
- The same champions are always banned – If the champion is so overpowered that the blue side will always pick it first it’s likely that it will be 100% banned by the red side.
- Blue side always first picks the same champion – in the event that 6 other champions are deemed more important to ban for the 2 teams, but this 7th champ is the next best, it will always get picked up by blue side. Which leads into…
- Red side actually gets an advantage as they can pick 2 of the most powerful picks in the first rotation when there are only 6 champions banned.
So Fearless doesn’t actually help with the first point but eliminates the other 2. This adds complexity to drafting because if you take the “best” pick in the first game it means that if you want to play a similar style you will be doing so with what is seen as worse picks for the role. It also helps balance for Riot because if there is a champ that is out of control and any team picks it well then it will be banned for the rest of the series, or it just stays in the first 6 bans.
As for any issues with the mode I do worry that with the standard fearless draft when the teams are more mismatched on skill level it won’t really affect the outcome. Even though the “better” team is locked out of champions, both games may look like stomps and might make the “weaker” team look even worse, which may result in viewers not enjoying these matches as well (unless you are a fan of the “better” team I suppose).
Conclusion
In summary, with some of the leagues around the world looking to move to best of series for the regular part of the split, I truly believe that they should think about implementing Fearless to add to the viewing experience.
GGWP