League of Legends To Implement 10-ban Draft In Patch 7.11

It's been teased and speculated about for quite some time now, but it looks like the 10-ban draft system for League of Legends will finally be implemented into all regular play modes that use the drafting system. Throughout patch 7.11, the changes will begin to roll out in all of the regions, but with such an impactful part of the game being changed, there's going to be some other adjustments to accompany the bans as well.

The drafting stage will begin as it already does with each player declaring their intent for a particular champion; that much will stay the same. As opposed to professional play where the teams alternate their bans, everyone in this version of the draft will ban champions at the same time. That means there's no longer any need to beg teammates to ban your least-favorite champion, as you can take care of that yourself. Hovering over the champ you want to ban will allow for some coordination, and after you've selected your ban, that champion's portrait will appear next to your champion. Once locked in, the portrait will move to the top of the screen.

Another tricky part about this new ban system is that since there are no alternating bans between teams, you won't be able to see who the enemy team is banning. Once everybody has locked in their respective bans, the bans from both teams will be revealed to each other. This means that there can and most likely will be duplicate bans resulting from the banning phase if both teams select a common champ to ban.

But why not implement the same system that's seen in professional play into regular play? Riot said it basically boils down to the drastic difference regarding how the two levels of play are organized as well as the teamwork that's present in them.

"In organized play, having some knowledge of your opponents' strategy means you can pivot your pick and ban phases to specifically target weaker players or home in on a small champion pool," the announcement for the new 10-ban system read.

The simultaneous ban procedure should also alleviate some of the focus that's put on those who are further down the pick order. Those who pick later often get several bans thrown at their remaining position, an issue that Riot said they considered when choosing this draft system and hoped would be fixed with the new plan.

A FAQ at the end closed out the announcement by answering a few more common questions about the new system. There's an option to choose "no ban," the ban phase is expected to be around 35 seconds long, and there's still the possibility that your teammates can disregard your declared intent and ban your champion away instead.

There will be a /dev blog coming in the next few days that will elaborate on the new system and the decisions that went into implementing it.

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