League of Legends has always had events. These usually come with new skins, new lore entries, or new champions. In the past, the events were much more experimental than they are today. One event even completely removed a champion from the game because the story required it.
Which event is it about? In 2015 there was a special event for the city of Bilgewater. The pirate city is known for all kinds of criminals. The Burning Tides event told a story in 4 acts around Miss Fortune, Graves, Twisted Fate, and Gangplank.
The story told was also represented in the game through various content. The ARAM map was visually altered, even with a new announcer voice. However, the strangest event of this event was the death of Gangplank.
At that point in the event, Miss Fortune supposedly killed Gangplank within the lore. As a result, she gained power in Bilgewater. The skin Captain Miss Fortune
is also based on this story. Following Gangplank’s lore death, the champion was also removed from League of Legends. This, however, caused problems especially in Esports.
No one could train with him
What is the problem? At that time when you started the game, it only said: Gangplank is dead and has been disabled in all queues
(roughly: Gangplank is dead and has been removed from all modes). Gangplank was removed for a week and then returned with a rework that completely changed his playstyle.
This caused a problem in Esports matches, as even on the test server he was not playable at first, otherwise the reveal wouldn’t have been so exciting. In subsequent Esports events, however, Gangplank was playable immediately, even before he was back on the live servers for everyone.
No one could train with him or against him. A week is simply too little time. The successful German Twitch streamer and former pro player Tolkin tells his own story about this in a stream, which you can see in this clip:
In fact, champions and new patches are rolled out cautiously in Esports. For example, the Worlds have a delay because professionals naturally prepare with their own picks and counter-strategies.
If a patch were changed every 2 weeks in the professional area, training and preparation would be impossible.
What was the event like apart from this situation? Within the community, people remember the event quite positively. The new lore was interesting and implemented in such a way for normal players that it was fun. The new skins were good, even a Gangplank skin was free, the new game mode was unique, and the then-new ARAM design was liked by the players.
Many wish for such an event again. However, that a champion is removed for a week will probably never happen again, as the game is too competitive nowadays. Whether we will ever get old game modes or even patches back is questionable. MeinMMO editor Nikolas Hernes has tried to analyze it: LoL: Players wish for a game mode that WoW successfully introduced 5 years ago – but can that work?
