On September 13, the latest champion in League of Legends was released. However, Briar is having a very weak start. Some players complain that inexperienced players have directly unpacked Briar in ranked games. This would severely ruin the fun of the game. They demand a ban on new champs.
What is the problem with Briar? The new champion, just a week after release and even after an emergency buff, still has a really miserable win rate (via u.gg):
- It only manages to win in 43.90% of all ranked matches. That is the last place of all 165 champions in her main position.
- Only Naafiri in the jungle (41.90%) and Briar herself in the top lane (38.35%) have even worse stats.
Riot Games has increased her health points and reduced the cooldown of her “E” ability. However, this has only slightly raised the win rate.
Why is her win rate so bad? There are several factors at play. Many players simply don’t have enough practice with the new champion yet. While her bloodlust mode is strong, if it can’t be deactivated, you risk dying quickly. Timing and the right decisions are especially important for her.
Additionally, she seems to be overall too weak in terms of balance.
That’s why many players are now calling for new champions to be banned from ranked matches at first. Because of the lack of experience and balance, this leads to miserable experiences and frustration in ranked.
If you don’t punish her, at least help us
What do the players say? The Reddit user LightningINF created a thread in which he expresses the following wish: “Ban new champions from ranked matches for at least a week.
He reports that in his match, a player chose Briar for the mid lane, right after the champion’s release, in about Platinum/Emerald ranking. The player lost the lane with 0 kills and 9 deaths and only got 30 CS in 20 minutes. He even ran under the tower without using bloodlust and died.
He actually wishes that such players would be punished. But he doesn’t believe that Riot Games will do that. Therefore, he has two further wishes for the developers:
They [Riot] should at least not allow a champ that people are not familiar with to be used immediately after its release.
I would even go further. Set it up so that players have to play a certain number of matches without rank to be able to play a newly added champion in ranked. This could also work as a solution for smurfs. Imagine, the smurf creates a new account and cannot play with the champions they want to rank up with until they have completed 10-15 games with each champion.
How are the suggestions received? The thread received over 1,000 upvotes and over 650 comments. Many understand LightningINF’s wishes and would at least wish for a temporary ban at release. However, there is not only agreement.
Some point out that there are players who only play ranked matches and that normals offer no incentive. Others can’t imagine that master or challenger players suddenly have to go into a normal match and meet players at the very lowest level. This would ruin the fun for both sides.
The user TheXavierIngram also explains that ranked matches provide very important data to balance the new champion. Normal matches do not due to the sometimes unbalanced strengths of the players.
Forcing players to try out new champions first in normal mode doesn’t seem to be the solution. It seems better to manually ban Briar in any match if you don’t want to play with or against her.
What do you think about this problem? What would be your preferred solution? Or do you have any other suggestions?
Champions don’t have to be popular or strong when mastered perfectly: LoL: Player explains how he reached the top 0.5% of Europe with one of the most unpopular champions.
