League of Legends is Testing an Experimental PBE Version of Draft Pick

A new version of the Draft Pick game mode is being vetted on the PBE to give content testers a new way to try out their favorite champions before patches go live.

For those who aren't as involved on the PBE, the current default queue that's available to players is simply Blind Pick. While tons of players opt for Blind Pick due to its swiftness, it's hardly the best option to try out a specific champion or role, especially when the whole point of being on the PBE is to test upcoming changes. To remedy the frustration of not getting your preferred choice in champ select, the new Draft Pick mode will help streamline the process and hopefully give everyone what they want.

"We've been watching your feedback about Blind Pick being the default queue on PBE and totally understand the frustration you're expressing," Riot SapMagic said. "In response to the feedback, we are testing out an experimental configuration of Draft Pick for PBE only that we think will be a good balance between our goals (making sure that we can test all our champion changes and content) and a good-feeling player experience (position assignment and the ability to adjust your runes to the competition."

Compared to the Draft Pick process that most are familiar with, the PBE-only version of the game mode will work as follows, according to SapMagic:

• You'll specify your position preferences like you normally would for Draft Pick
• When you get into Champion Select, you'll notice two changes:
  • There is no pick intent phase
  • There are no bans
• You'll complete draft picks as normal (using our new simultaneous draft pick configuration)

Of course, there's still always the chance that someone will attempt to swoop in and steal your role, but they'll likely be less inclined to do so when it's clear who chose what positions. The lack of ban phase will also guarantee that players don't ban away new champions or those with exiting changes on the horizon, an occurrence that totally defeats the point of testing things on the PBE.

The experimental game mode is live on the PBE for testing, but it'll be staying there with no plans to go live.