League of Legends Looks to Speed Up Champion Select

Changes to League of Legends’ champion select stage are coming to the PBE servers to get players in the game quicker.

Draft pick is the game mode that’s being targeted with the changes, the pick and ban mode that takes the longest to get through. From the time you join the game, pick your champion, and ban out the ones that you don’t want to play against, 45 seconds have passed. Each pick phase beyond that takes 30 seconds to get through, so by the time everything’s picked and you have a moment to prepare your loadout, several minutes have passed.

That’s the game phase that Riot’s looking to shave some time off of with Riot Games’ Brad “CertainlyT” Wenban – a name you might recognize as a Rioter who’s responsible for champions like Yasuo and Zoe – posting on the PBE boards to discuss the changes that are coming.

“Our goal is to streamline champ select so that you can spend more of your session in the game,” Riot CertainlyT said. “We want to accomplish this by trimming phases that tend to drag on. You should feel more consistently engaged with the champ select experience throughout. Of course, this means in some situations, you will feel pressure to make decisions faster.”

The Rioter added that the changes will be tested in certain regions before going live, but nothing’s going to be done until players are happy, he said. Sharing a the chart below to show what the live version of the Draft champion select phase feels like to players compared to the new PBE version, CertainlyT said that changes are being pushed “aggressively” to give Riot room to roll it back a bit based on players’ feedback.

“Once comfortable with the new timings, player should be always engaged, but seldom stressed. This is where you come in. We test internally mostly via custom games. I need candid feedback from players who have put 20+ games in on these timings under real life circumstances, like bans and trades. As the above diagram shows, we’ve pushed this version pretty aggressively — better to start with noticeable changes and pull back as needed.”

The changes only apply to Draft games, so those who prefer the get in and go quickness of Blind pick will still enjoy their brisk picking phases. League’s PBE servers will host the changes today as they’re added for players to try out the new Draft mode themselves.