They’ve talked about it in the past, but it looks like Riot Games is pushing forward with their plans to implement a 10-Ban system to League of Legends, at least for the professional scene.
League of Legends previously only had three bans on each side that took place before the picking phase began. Now, the new 10-Ban system adds an additional two bans to each side halfway through the draft. According to the official announcement, Riot hopes that this new system will lead to more champion diversity as well as reward teams that can predict and counter their opponent’s strategy with the additional bans.
So how exactly does the new system work? Well it will first begin with both sides taking turns banning a single champion until six champions are banned. After that the pick phase begins with blue picking first, red picking twice, blue twice, and red one more time.
After this comes the new second ban phase. Similar to the first ban phase, each team will alternate in banning a single champion with red picking first. It’s at this point that teams will attempt to disrupt their opponent’s draft and strategy by predicting what picks they’re planning and taking them out of the pool. Each side will ban two champions during this phase to finish up the new 10-ban system. From there teams will enter the final picking phase where red will pick once, blue twice, and finally red again.
In summary, the new system will look like this:
For the moment, this new system will only apply during professional games. Riot does say that a revised system will arrive to regular games down the line, but there’s still a few factors for them to consider before applying it.
They also have concerns regarding how long it will take to actually start a game after a player has pressed “Play” as they’ve already received complaints in the past of it feeling too long.
More information about the new system can be found here.
