League Of Legends' New 10-ban Format Explained

With the new 10-ban system coming soon to normal play in League of Legends, there have been some questions asked as to why Riot Games chose to go with the ban system that they did, one that differs from the pre-game ban format that's seen in professional play. In a /Dev Blog post from Friday, Riot Draggles addressed a few of the questions surrounding the ban system while talking readers through the process that led them to this format as well as which formats they decided not to go with.

In this new banning phase that will take place before each game that already features a ban/pick phase, each individual player will be able to ban away one champion to total 10 bans. However, there is the chance that someone from each team will choose to ban the same champion since everyone bans at the same time, meaning that while there will be 10 bans, there might not always be 10 unique choices. Duplicate bans or not, after the banning phase is over, players will pick their champions like normal.

Draggles said in the post that the main reasons behind using the ban format that differs from pro play were centered around giving more power to the individual player and also because the pro format just didn't translate as well to normal games where there's less strategy and team coordination.

When determining the best solution for implementing the 10-ban phase into normal play, the team behind the design looked at several other options and assessed their benefits and drawbacks. The main factors they were looking for when finding the best option were equalizing each player's power, removing the random champ select order for bans, and shortening the time spent during the pre-game phase. The five main ban systems the team looked at includes the Esports Draft, an Alternating Ban draft, the Snake Draft, the Captain's Draft, and lastly, the Simultaneous Draft.

The first of them, the Esports Draft, has already been debunked as not working quite as well in normal play, and the last of the list, the Simultaneous Draft, is the one that was chosen to be implemented. So what was wrong with the remaining three formats?

With the Alternating Ban, the devs were worried that it would add additional time to the ban phase by alternating the bans in a lengthy "one for us, one for them" format. It also puts a lot of pressure on bans that near the end of the ban phase to take out the must-bans if the first players didn't already. Certain champs that are frequently banned would almost certainly never see Summoner's Rift, either.

The Snake Draft would have similar advantages to the Alternating Ban in that each person would have a choice in the banning phase and players could react to opponents' bans. However, they felt that this form was basically just a worse version of the Esports Draft system that didn't carry the same strategic potential.

Last on the list, the Captain's Draft seemed like a great way to create some pre-game tension during the ban phase. In this mode, you'd get into the game much quicker, but at the trade-off of having just one person from each team choose each ban, a system that would result in other players begging for their suggestions to be heard.

Ultimately, there seemed to be quite a bit of thought that went into the new 10-ban system. Draggles ended the post by saying that the team would soon be addressing the current state of matchmaking and autofill in upcoming posts.