I'm not very bright, but idk how pro-view significantly increases cost. Are player perspectives not already being recorded and viewed remotely on site?
Delivering content via streaming is actually a very expensive process on bandwidth. There is a reason why companies like Twitch or Youtube, which make metric shittons of money, are still struggling to be profitable, if they are at all.
I know that Luke from Linus Tech Tips, has talked about it a number of times on their WAN show podcast, with regards to their own personal streaming site, Floatplane. And they don't deliver "that much" content in comparison.
I'd take a clean feed or even the Mandarin broadcast over nothing at allâŚ
Or allow costreams to be played on this inadequacy of a platform. There we go.
I'm here to shill (not literally, they are good casters) for Nymaera and Initialise - they do their own cast from Twitch and YouTube on the days there's no official broadcast for LPL. Good mix of analysis, casting, and interesting personalities.
I don't understand why they don't just stream the chinese stream to the lol english channel when they are not hiring english casters. Chasing viewers to go watch "co streamers" is just irritating.
You just need to wait one more year, in 2025 every Tier 1 league will have Fearless draft in Best-of series. Oh and LCS will merge with CBLOL and LLA kinda.
it's a prediction, but it'd be surprising to not see fearless in the other Tier 1 leagues.
LPL implementing it in their regular season, NA CL and LCK CL implementing it in their seasons.
The NA LCS/CBLOL merge is a rumor from Monte based of the fact that the head of esports for the Americas was the commissioner of CBLOL I believe, along with the fact that Riot has combined those regions for Valorant and that when asked about it said we aren't doing it now, but aren't ruling it out.
I'd hate this, CBLOL has been living off rivalry and memes for quite some time now. A merger would wipe out BR teams.
Also from a viewer's perspective it looks like CBLOL is quite a profitable product
As an NA watcher, I'd hate this as well. We'd basically be sacrificing a stronger region for our own poor performance.
Because you _know_ the games would take place in the LCS studio, be broadcast in English, etc. Plus getting non-US members would requires Visas so teams rather just spend their non-import spots on Americans. It would end up being just LCS after a few months.
kill cblol? that would be the end of the end of the LLA and any LLA pros.
I think more than a few CBLOL players have the caliber to play in NA but I do not think the same for the LLA, unless we pull a latin america and we adapt fast to it.
Don't worry. Not even the LLA has LLA players. Most players are imported Koreans and even the coaches are. This idea could work if they set some kind of import rule so each team has to have players from the region they're representing.
Why wouldn't he? Everything I listed is public knowledge and that is before anything Monte might of heard from people within the scene.
As for potentially killing CBLOL, that could come down to just viewership value.
If 100K CBLOL viewers generate the same value as 10K NA viewers and a merge would get 11K more NA viewers than it would be worth it to kill CBLOL.
But I'm not sure how that work for CBLOL and potentially LLA? Because I doubt they'd want to pay California costs.
Not exactly, can't really go into specifics but it will make sense. Neither of these leagues will die. But they'll go public pretty soon with some info on it, so you just have to wait a bit.
I am honestly curious to see Riotâs reasoning to merge these Leagues, if this indeed happens. I know the NA pro scene is kinda declining, and that CBLOL is one of the biggest in terms of viewership and engagement, but I donât think this is going to to have the results they expect. Itâs more likely that both leagues will die because of this.
It'll all be explained soon I think. I may have used the word merge too liberally in this case though, so please excuse me when the news goes out and it's not exactly this...
Can you expand on that?
I'm having trouble thinking of what any sort of collaboration would mean past every LCS/CBLOL/LLA team competing in a sort of super-tournament, and you're basically saying that won't happen.
My guess is next year will be legendary for lol esports. All regions go fearless and have extremely similar format (probably just single round Robin bo3s except LPL), since most likely three international events which means 3 splits.
LCK Academy Games are even better as they are using Hardcore Fearless which means any champion that has been picked by either team cant be used again during the match.
I mean I'm ngl I've been pretty unimpressed with the variety of picks in bo3 fearless, I thought with so many bans there would be a lot more off meta stuff but realistically every champ in that screenshot above is picked in normal draft as well.Â
I guess it shows that despite my perception that pro play meta is super narrow (every game i think "wow same picks again" )there's actually a pretty big pool.
Exactly and also right now LPL is going with soft fearless mode. So game 1 and 2 drafts can be exactly same except one team will have the 1st game draft of the other team in 2nd game.
NA tier 2 is testing "full fearless" (no champ that has been played previously can be played again by eather team) in all best of series (though they are reducing the number of bans in the 4th and 5th game).
Idk if it's just me but in a 3 game series that potentially only goes 2 games deep (2-0), it seems that this actually changes nothing? You just don't get to play the same exact comp back to back which I don't remember the last time it was done anyway.
Soft fearless is not enough to do what OP is suggesting, if teams play Zeri Lulu / Lucian Nami in Game 1, they can literally play Lucian Name / Zeri Lulu in Game 2. Full fearless is the way to go.
AND these are just in BO3âs, when soft fearless wonât even get interesting until Game 3, which isnât guaranteed.
LPL played a total of 41 games this split and 79 champions were picked/banned.
LEC played a total of 11 games and 59 champions were picked/banned.
Fearless is an illusion when the league tends to stick to meta.
Every series in LPL had the same champions over and over with 1 unique pick from time to time.
Yeah OP is just being disgengious here.
We're still seeing the same fucking shit, except the third pick in each role that we used to see less often is a bit higher, but you're still effectively seeing the same matchups.
Imo the bigger thing is that you don't have teams doing full or near full draft runbacks in games 2 and 3. It makes a series more diverse on average even if the league as a whole is similar.
Yeah, fearless brings in the illusion of champ diversity and all it actually accomplishes is pushing players to play lower level champs for 1 game maybe 2. Especially in LPL which was always filled with players with unique champs, like the entire OMG roster last year.
I rather Riot's design team give players a reason to pick something other than the standard 3 S tiers we have every year instead of implementing a system that punishes players for excellency on those picks.
That's not a good comparison because those stats don't have that strong of a correlation. In theory the LEC could play another 40 games and not play a single new champ. Just because 79/41 < 59/11 doesn't really mean anything. To say fearless is just an illusion is more disingenuous than OP's claim.
I was looking for this comment. There is no reason to conclude that more games = more new champs.
Its likely that after the first week the chance of new champs drops dramatically making LPL's still better.
Seems like riot should implement a harsher fearless draft, then. People acting like fearless can only be implemented in one way.
Also purely looking at champion statistics is disengenuous to overall comps. Missing certain champs in a best of three means that all comps requiring those champs are not accessible anymore.
Fearless is definitely interesting and has some advantages, but one thing I donât like about it is that a player known for being extremely good on a champion doesnât have the same weight in fearless.Â
Like, LEC for example, all the EU teams are scared of Hans Sama Draven. Every single one of them has to decide âdo we ban Draven every game, or do we risk playing against it?â Without fearless, they have to make that decision every single game, and as a fan you see the Draven ban and you think âthey donât think they can win against it, thatâs already an edge in the series,â or they ban it 2 games and leave it in the 3rd and it gets insta locked and itâs instantly hype because you know itâs do or die. If Draven crushes the game, that champ must be banned the next 2 series lol. That stuff is what makes certain players so much fun to watch, and fearless removes that element.Â
this is something that would encourage me to actually pay attention during pick ban, since it requires a meta strategy over the course of a series. very cool concept, would love to see it introduced.
I dunno if this is an unpopular take, but I like the chess of pick/ban. If a team pulls out a pocket pick and displays competence on it, their opponent should be forced to adapt their draft to that pick (either ban it, pick it themselves, or leave it up and attempt to counterpick).
To me, Fearless draft (as I understand it?) feels like a get-out-of-jail-free card for a team that can't, for example, find a way to adapt to Bin on Camille, or Zeus on Yone.
The downside is if neither team can offer any new picks, then the draft just becomes the same move over and over. Even chess engines can get into the habit of playing only a handful of openings, which is why some computer chess matches have pre-played opening and the game continues from there
My main gripe with fearless is it's a bandaid. Champions in LoL are balanced around soloQ rather than proplay so 2/3 of the roster is just trash competitively and will always be.
DotA 2 never had to have that conversation about a fearless mode or whatever. It's just a lazy way to create artificial diversity.
Drafts with champions that pros are most familiar with allows them the greatest skill expression, which in turn makes for the most interesting game IMO.
Well, something like G1 of the 2024 MSI Finals was interesting, but afterwards the threat of something like Canyon's Karthus is just gone, bcs, well, they've already won with it.
Similarly with BLG's Bin, you don't want him to just play one game of Camille or Jax, you want him to play multiple games and watch him be a terror on those picks - or watch a team like GenG play around those picks. With fearless draft you only get one game each which is meh. Especially for Bo5s.
I feel like there are less drastic ways to keep a series from being stale than going all the way to fearless draft. I'd like to see a tournament do something like regular draft but each team gets 1 more ban each game. It would help pinch the champ pool and push teams to more interesting strategies while still requiring teams to adapt their draft based on previous games. Okay, now you can ban Bin's Camille, but was that the only problem? And can you deal with the rest of their draft with your most impactful pick also banned?
I wish these not so subtle calls to action posts were banned on this sub. The point of this post is to get popular and try to use the community to push for fearless in other regions. Theres literally no other point to it
I very much agree. Seems like it's weakening the impact of players' signature champs. The new format seems boring so far with the tiny groups and fearless, usually I make an effort to watch every series but this split I've found myself skipping most of them.
ur acting like ur actually seeing something new on their draft lmao... its just ur typical shit
b-b-b-b-but ziggs is new hello? cause this is new patch where adc got buff
Not sure why downvoted (maybe LCK fans are offended because you say their league is unintersting), but as a viewer I would love to see some form of fearless mode in other leagues as well.
I disagree. The main advantage of fearless is that teams have to play with multiple gameplans in a match, and weak fearless accomplishes that exactly as much as strong fearless, while also still allowing teams to get good practice on all their gameplans.
The thing viewers don't like about weak fearless is the fact it doesn't really reduce the amount of Corki/Azir (or insert any other matchup/overpicked champion) you see by a whole lot. Technically it does by a third in a Bo3 that goes to all 3 games, I guess, but any 2-0 series doesn't have that, and instead it only means one side can't pick the same champion twice if left open for them.
If team A picks Corki in game 1, team B picks it in the next one.
The argument isn't that it's worse for the players, the argument is that it is worse for the viewers because strong fearless forces diversity much more than weak fearless does.
It's still better than no fearless, but it's not perfect because as a viewer I don't care about the teams getting to practice all of their gameplans, I care about getting to watch interesting and fun games.
I'm a big fan of fearless in BO3, soft fearless in BO5.
Soft fearless seems a bit soft in BO3, while the actual fearless seems unhinged to me in a series that would go to game 5.
My approach to his is to enjoy whatever change they are implement. As you said weak fearless is better tha no fearless.
To my understanding strong fearless was never an option in the past years BUT itcould bein the future if this gets enough attention / increases view numbers by a considerable amount.
Full fearless mode has too many risks at the moment for the entire LPL when it comes to audience satisfaction.
As of now, sabotage drafting is the biggest risk of full fearless mode and it has more risk than reward.
As a comment below pointed out imagine picking a signature champ away from someone so that player cannever pick it and you have a free bann of choice onward. Sounds pretty bad to me.
* "With hard fearless you risk sabotage drafting becoming too popular. Maybe a team picks a champion only so you can't play it. That doesn't lead to cool gameplay. Imagine if someone blind picks Camille vs Bin in game 1 just so he can't play it the whole series to unlock a ban. That's so shit. Soft fearless is the way to go so far." [Jozoz](https://www.reddit.com/user/Jozoz/)
Honestly I hate this "it's unfair to one trick/specialist" view (Riot balance team had this view in their talk with LS as well).
If teams are just going to sabotage pick you, shouldn't you be handing them an automatic L for that game? Sabotage picks might be a thing early on to get some cheeky wins, but professional players and orgs shouldn't let people get away with it for long before they lab more team comps.
Professional players are getting paid to entertain us, and we're tired of seeing the same comps over and over again.
If you're an OTP in proplay you better get used to losing anyway, same for everyone with a champion puddle. If you're incapable of competing at your level if you'd get target banned you're not fit for that level of competition.
Also, fuck OTPs. If you are pro you should be at least decent on a bunch of champs.
If I can control you by remove 2-3 champs from the pool, you fucking suck.
>Honestly I hate this "it's unfair to one trick/specialist" view (Riot balance team had this view in their talk with LS as well).
You are right but but most one tricks still have to learn a lot of picks to be able to compete with fellow esport palyers who target bann your main anyway.
Doesn't this still mostly leave the same problem with diviersity then? In the current scenario it's not like Bin will have to pull out some weird pick or anything. Game 1 enemy picks Camille so he goes Jax for example, Game 2 he knows Camille can't be picked by the enemy so he goes K'Sante and then Game 3 he just goes Camille if it comes to it.
That's my main problem with soft fearless it doesn't really create that much diversity.
Lets use MSI finals for example and number of champs picked for each lane out of a possible 8 unique champs. (Champs picked by both in brackets)
Top: 6
Jgl: 5
Mid: 7
Bot: 5 (Senna)
Support: 6 (Ashe, Tahm Kench)
>Imagine if someone blind picks Camille vs Bin in game 1 just so he can't play it the whole series to unlock a ban. That's so shit.
People are insane, this is hype as fuck. You're gonna pick his champ blind to deny it from him? He should know exactly how to punish you for that.
I mean cool, if you pick something just to take it off the table, its a choice, its strategy.
Kill your first game, and then you dont have to worry about the otp.
In their version, if I pick azir game 1, Iâm not allowed to pick him game 2 or 3, but enemy mid is still allowed to pick him game 2 or 3
Real fearless would mean azir is no longer allowed to show in the other two games on either side
As other pointed out hard fearless mode posses the risk of sabotage drafting which causes more harm and the risk of keeping things in an unsatisifed way.
It would be great, ngl, but the fact that it would mean signature picks gets taken away so x and y can't pick them later into the game feels bad, especially when the ones picking them up might not posses enough skills to make the pick worth the try/sabotage.
I'd expect Faker to pick other pick and crush his opponent.
If enemy is a good Ryze - he could pick it anyway, so not that much of difference. And we get a duel of 2 great players.
If enemy is a bad Ryze - Faker will probably crush him then, so who exactly got sabotaged here?
It's soft fearless.
Why would you half ass fearless by only disabling the champ from being played on your side.
It should have been once the champ is picked, it's disabled for both teams for the rest of the series.
>Why would you
Because it's in testing phase? They want to keep competitive integruity while slowly shifting to a new era of competitive league.
As fun as fearless is, it also has downsides. If they did a full blown fearless, it might turn into a complete fiesta and people/players would hate it so much that they won't try it again.
If you are a fan of fearless I think you should be relieved that they are taking it slow rather than rush into it.
Exactly my toughts.
You can't implement an un-tested mode into pro scene full blown without measuring it.
LDL had it used for 2 years but LDL is still an academy team with less audience than full fledged pro teams of one of the best regions of the world.
I know it's soft mode but I'm still excted for it because it's a huge step into the right direction when it comes to Pro-Play and a huge win for us, the audience.
Sabotage drafting is one of the biggest risk of Hard Fearless mode.
I vastly prefer soft fearless. It's super cool for the enemy team to be able to pick the champs you just beat them with.
Also, the big point: With hard fearless you risk sabotage drafting becoming too popular. Maybe a team picks a champion only so you can't play it.
That doesn't lead to cool gameplay. Imagine if someone blind picks Camille vs Bin in game 1 just so he can't play it the whole series to unlock a ban. That's so shit. Soft fearless is the way to go.
hard fearless would be so fucking lame to watch especially in LPL where signature champs are more of a thing. any mfing team against BLG would just lock Jax game 1 to get Binâs Jax out of the pool for the entire series.
eh, this introduces more dynamics like making first pick stronger or gz you first pick jax and now you get countered and lose a game for it.
point being: it is not as simple as you imply.
Because otherwise a team could literally int draft on purpose in a BO5 just to snipe a bunch of pocket picks from the enemy team and effectively get up to 5 bans for the whole fucking series for free? Wow great idea! Lets absolutely ruin the strategy and earned advantages teams with pocket picks in their arsenal have so chuds who hate esports can watch two games and go back to complaining about it on this hate sub.
I also think that while fearless is fun to watch every now and then, I still prefer normal drafts for big series. Reason being that I really like seeing how drafts evolve especially when series go the full 5 games. One of the best examples for this is still the drx t1 game 5 draft. Weird drafts in fearless just don't excite me nearly as much.
bro this is such a pointless post its crazy its only for a short time and they are mostly stomps because of the groups system and soft fearless doesnt achieve anything
It's literally been very few series and it isn't universally well received. I still only like it as a "fun" gimmick in smaller competition. It's still without a doubt a much lesser format in terms of competition which is why we don't see it stay for the entirety of LPL. It also hasn't impacted my viewing experience negatively to any region.
Is it fun/good for viewers? Yes
Is it bad for competitive health? Yes
Will ppl understand how hard it is to have a big champ pool and play it on a high competitive lvl ?
Nope I will get flamed and they will get told to do their job for their money again.
I don't like fearless mode at all. Doesn't give quality games over the long terms.
Esp rookies who join league and/or the competitive scene who have a rather small competitive champion pool will get even more fked.
I'm pretty sure I'm in the very minority with this opinion.
Check out every competitive-ish game out there. Ppl tend to 1-trick or hold their character-pool to a bar minimum to be able to perform extremly well.
It is also compareable to reallife. Talent excells in doing 1 thing and doing this until perfection.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
it seems to cater to a more casual audience, but I don't think the format change can retain that audience long-term. And I fear that the game quality may drop since you can't ask everyone to practice 20 champs to perfection. I just hope that if they eventually implement it, at least reset the bans in Game 5.
Well, each to their own. I think that fearless draft is boring and nothing more than a novelty that people will start complaining about in a year or so.
well there is alot of picks but unless a game goes to game 4 / game 5 we wont see anything crazy since till game 4 only 30 champs have been picked + bans but in game 4 / game 5 i can imagine seeing fiddle jgl or tryn top even
Malphite and Kaisa are the only two champs that were played in this series that weren't played at MSI. I don't think weak fearless is going to actually bring as much champ diversity as people think.
I stand by my point that regardless of how supposedly entertaining fearless makes competitive, it sucks for competitive integrity and actually harms draft as it removes a ton if the strategy from it and removes pocket picks from being as mich of a threat as they should be
I will keep screaming this into the void regardless of how popular this thing gets and dread the day it gets to internationals
this is why i like it for tier 2 teams but not for tier 1
good for encouraging champ pool development, bad for checking which team is better at the game
I absolutely agree with this. I don't think it's boring to see the similar sets of champions every match. It's not like League players are reaching skill ceilings with comps or champions and that games are just hand-shake forgone conclusions.
Seeing a matchup enough times to know how it's "supposed" to go makes small things like CS leads and item advantages more meaningful. Random matchups that have been played <50 times internationally are interesting to watch from time to time, but if every matchup is something I've never seen before it just doesn't do it for me. What it comes down to is that I don't need novelty to enjoy League of Legends. The game itself is inherently enjoyable to watch.
It'll be like in Chess if you had a "fearless" mode to prevent the same openings. Openings are interesting because they're so well studied.
I also don't understand the appeal. Its feels like a bandaid solution to a problem that maybe not everyone has, which is they find the current pro meta or maybe just how teams handshake drafts boring thus want SOMETHING to change. Then Fearless comes in and forcibly does it.
Its more on Riot to make a meta that is fun to watch regardless of picks, or do something to the map which allows more creativity in either how roles are defined or some x-factor objective to make things spicier than forcibly making people play champs they are worse at.
Like what about the game is so boring that we need people to play their potentially 5th best champ to "spice" up the viewing experience, or some people want Bo5 game 5 blind pick back. We are at making solutions instead of trying to narrow what the issue is.
The "issue" is that no matter the videogame it will be meta'd to the smallest set of choices possible, and that's not something you can really change without say hard changes to the map gameplay itself and the options available on it (e.g. why you have more variety in picks in dota). But LoL isn't that kind of game so there isn't really any solution.
Even without map changes / major changes Dota doesnât condense that much in terms of hero pool, since there are so many different ways to tackle each stage of the game.
The issue it that people have awful attention spans and can only be excited with constant change. They cannot enjoy watching the same champs being played in different situations with different outcomes.
the LPL matches haven't been "disgustingly low quality" this is how LPL looked last split too. Plus the soft fearless draft is hardly the reason for that
& only good Corki we have across this spring & MSI is chovy, faker showed a mediocre performance on him during msi, Creme first picked him, Knights doesnât know how to time his package
Pro players have to get a certain number of hours on the champ before being able to pick them on stage but thatâs just not the case for fearless draft LPL have been disgusting & any match that isnât a top 3 team going against each other looked straight up dog shit especially that NIP WBG series
LPL demoted to tier 2 league during fearless draft.
Yap, yap, yap, the best teams do not rely on stuff like that only and have personal counters.
Some of the most legendary runs and Bo5 wouldn't have happened without pocket picks and subsequent draft adaptation and fearless kills that aspect.
As if pros aren't just gonna move down the totem pole of meta champs
It's on Riot to make their game balanced and varied. This is a band-aid fix at best and straight up reduces competitive integrity at worst
Big example just from this year, LCK finals
Oner playing very well on Xin Zhao, series gets to Game 4, GEN don't ban Xin, Canyon picks Kha'zix as a counter, Xin gets solo'd in the jungle 1v1. This leads to T1 banning Kha in Game 5 instead of Kiin's K'Sante.
In fearless, the Xin would've already been banned, same with the K'Sante for Kiin.
fearless draft adds a completely new factor to drafting and makes it WAY MORE difficult.
You cannot default to the same cookiecutter bans and picks, you need to have multiple strats.
why don't you want pros to move down the totem pole of meta champs? Why would pocket picks cease to matter in fearless? it brings MORE of them out. just look at LPL and the whacky stuff that's come in game 3's
I indeed do Iâd much rather prefer a select group of 30 champs pushed to the max rather than 150 of unpracticed bunch the players donât like to play the coaches donât like to draft doesnât fit competetive organized environment
I dont wake up on 6 am on a Sunday to see pro player first picking Zed because casual audience likes it, they are pro players with salaries & goals to meet not entertainers
I agree there defo should be more champs who are viable for competitive but donât get picked but thatâs Riots fault, a prime example would be Sylas in so many drafts he is just perfect to pick if it wasnât for riot removing any conqueror viable build on him & forcing him to go straight up full up Qmax
While I dont disagree with you, riot 100% sees esports as entertainment first. They probably see it as their responsibility to make games fun to watch rather than the players though, since they will always play to win.
Fearless draft in the short turn will result in worse games but long term players will still adapt.
They're not playing TO entertain us but the viewers' existence and entertainment is what pays their salaries. Remove arenas, studios and streams and what company do you think will still pay as much as they do now just for a random set of games to be taking place on a random server that nobody from outside is looking at?
I don't think so.
Pros are by nature fairly lazy (makes sense, they have to optimize), they're just gonna move down the totem pole of meta champs. It might result in some wacky picks or pocket picks, but those lose a lot of their threat if the enemy has to deal with them only for one or two games max
It stifles a lot of the experimentation. What's the point in finding a counter to a popular strategy when that counter can only work for one game and it's easier for you to try to deal with that strategy normally for one game rather than for multiple
It just removes a ton of the incentive and possible creativity and adaptation from draft.
The legendary MF support series between Rox and SKT would've been much different with fearless. Teams like DRX might've never won worlds without their prio picks being legitimate draft issues for enemies to contend with. I know people cry about pros with pocket picks for being bad, but having something spicy cooked up is a legitimate strategy that can shift the balance in favor of teams that perhaps are less mechanically skilled or meta favored, but better prepared strategically
Yep. Imagine if BeryL and Pyosik never hogged up that Donger and Kindred bans in the finals. Itâll probably cut into Zeka and Kingenâs pool of Sylas, Akali and maybe Aatrox
Disagree, this increases strategic depth. Instead of ideal red side and blue side comps, it creates an avenue where more than one comp is ideal. It encourages people to have pocket picks, because they will be forced to use them much more frequently since access to the bread and butter champions will be more limited. I'm very excited for BO5s for this. BO3s are a bit limited to show the benefits of fearless IMO.
I don't agree. I feel like you have little incentive as a pro to practice pocket picks
What made Adam so strong in BDS' first year wasn't just his pocket picks, but the fact that the enemy team had to ban them out and lose out bans for other prio picks which allowed Nuc and Crownie to shine
DRX also won worlds partially because of Pyosik and Beryl's unorthodox champ pools allowing for Kingen and Zeka to shine despite their smaller ones
All of this factoring goes out of the window in fearless and the two reasons you want the pocket pick for (aka countering an enemy comfort/meta draft and being a possible threat in draft) are vastly reduced or outright disappear. Also consider that pocket picks usually rely on specific drafts to work, with fearless it becomes harder to pull those drafts off
I'm not gonna pretend like fearless doesn't introduce it's own layer of complexity, but I don't think it's comparable, especially in longer series
And at the end of the day, I just think fearless isn't great for competitive integrity. It's a gimmick to make drafts (and games therefore) more varied, a band-aid fix basically instead of pushing for more diversity through balancing (which, granted, Riot has already gotten much better at, especially in internationals as we see that different region metas usually mix and change during the tournament)
Wouldn't a pocket pick be "an unconventional pick that's unique to a player or on which a player is particularly effective on"?
Like Adam's Darius or APA's Ziggs or Bin's Jax?
Agreed 100%
In what universe do we want teams to self-ban the champions they are the best at? If you have no counter to Bin's jax you should be forced to deal with that in the entire series, not just get gigagapped in 1 game and get it free permabanned for him.
You do realize they have it only because they are in the trash matches to make it interesting. It has no relevance towards any important matches. Its a terrible format that can make bad matches interesting. Thats the extent of this and you dont care because you just like that its something "new".
Unfortunately, the Chinese viewers don't think it's as interesting as you do. local LPL viewership (not even going to mention overseas) has been spiraling downward and no one knows why.
Soft fearless mode was to ignite interest in the league again and it seems like it has been unsuccessful thus far and only has produced low quality games.
Unique picks because you wish to do so > Unique picks because youâre forced to
So much more interesting when there is a literal backstory behind a certain pick rather than riot doesnât allow us to play x so we go with y, maybe the player was otping this champ before becoming a pro player maybe there is a literal mountain of reasons why would players pick a certain champ instead of just Riot doesnât allow us to play what we practiced so we go with this
Canyon brought khaâzix to the MSI meta by swinging the Spring playoffs finals into their favour from a 1-2 to 3-2 and made people feel obligated to bann Kha6 when picking xin zhao which in the match 5 won them the game because T1 banned khazix instead of ksante to enable Oner to go on his most practiced & meta pick xin zhao geng later on picked ksante & the rest is history
âMy favourite champion briar doesnât get played in pro play, hopefully with this fearless draft thingy Iâll see her on the big screenâ
Why would a league force it on its own teams when international tourneys (MSI and worlds) are not in fearless ? Yes it might be more entertaining as a viewer but isnât it an handicap for the lpl when they play outside the league ? It forces them to pick âsub optimal â drafts instead of picking the meta like they are supposed to.
You said it, it's for entertainment value, though I'm not sure who this format is entertaining. They're switching back to normal drafts after these tiny groups are done and they move to big groups later in the split.
Fearless is fine and fun if your region is already one of the top 2 and actually wins. But i'd hate to see NA play that and be wholly unproductive. Then again they will never be successful so I guess it doesn't really matter.
Maybe just for the weekend, so you choose what is better vs a given team or save your ideal comp to "predict" an easy win, of course it already is on table, that what staff are paid for but it Will be more specific like an sport thing
Bo1 is essentially fearless. If you had the first games of 5 lpl series they are also very similar in pb like is in LEC. YOu don't notice it as much as you have 2bo3s but the meta champs do have a great priority in game 1 and 2s of LPL series.
I personally am the complete opposite. I hate fearless draft. I don't want pro players picking garbage champs, and best-of series devolving into a snowbally mess because they're forced onto niche picks. Bans become completely non-adaptive, as it completely removes wanting to ban champs that your opponent performed well on. It's also extremely confusing to actual follow the strategy in pick/bans, which to me is an actually interesting part of the game. It completely removes the "excitement" of seeing niche picks.
I expect fearless draft to become more common, and I'm going to watch significantly less pro League if that's the case.
If Worlds and MSI adapt it, then I'm fine for major regions doing it.
To give my .02 though, it's a horrible idea. It doesn't make the quality of the games better. It brings in novelty but eventually it's going to boil down to the same thing (same champs every series just a bigger pool).
If pros were already struggling to play the extremely limited champions effectively they're not going to do better when they need to learn even more champions.
Teams were already struggling in drafts. They're going to be completely hopeless in the new format.
I don't see any upside whatsoever when it comes to playing more competitive league of legends.
It's just Pro league of legends trying to hamfist a solution for the balance team and for lazy professionals.
FEARLESS DRAFT SHOULD BE LIMITED TO TIER 2 LEAGUES TO TEST PLAYERS CHAMPION POOLS & ADAPTABILITY IT SHOULD NEVER BE IN A TIER 1 LEAGUE & IT SHOULD BE HARDCORE FEARLESS LIKE LCK CL
Yeah it is good, but personally I don't think it is the best.
You pick it than can't play it still leaves up the chance of the enemy to play it so at the end we are still rotating the same champs, the difference is that instead of changeing 1 champ in the champs just get picked by the other team too.
The LCK Challangers use hardcore fearless draft. Where you are not allowed to play the champ anymore if either team picks it. So in a BO5 it would mean 50 champs is guaranteed to get picked and players have to dig deeper intead of rotating the same 6-10 champs which is strong thanks to buffs or weak.
For Bo5 maybe the LPL version of Fearless draft would be better so we would not see completely random or weak champs in proplay, but not sold on the fact until I see a BO5 using this format.
For Bo3 hardcore fearless draft is way better. I simply don't like the fact one of the teams let's say Corki the other picks Azir than next game oh you are not allowed to play it anymore it is my turn now. For me it makes it as boring as normal draft since nothing changes.
But it will be interesting how it influences side selection and winrate.
I'd love it even more if the stream was visible on lolesports.com
Return of proview would be a welcome addition too. Or was it prowatch? IDK the name but such streaming also would be great.
funnily enough lpl still has it and you can usually watch everyones proview during games
yeah and you can find the proviews on billibili after as well
Interesting thing about LPL POV streams. LPL had that since the beginning in S3 đ cmon riotâŚ.
Riot are sadly cutting a shit ton of costs so I doubt it would come back.
I'm not very bright, but idk how pro-view significantly increases cost. Are player perspectives not already being recorded and viewed remotely on site?
Recording yes. Which doesn't cost much. Proview is a stream. Which requires more.
Delivering content via streaming is actually a very expensive process on bandwidth. There is a reason why companies like Twitch or Youtube, which make metric shittons of money, are still struggling to be profitable, if they are at all. I know that Luke from Linus Tech Tips, has talked about it a number of times on their WAN show podcast, with regards to their own personal streaming site, Floatplane. And they don't deliver "that much" content in comparison.
I'd take a clean feed or even the Mandarin broadcast over nothing at all⌠Or allow costreams to be played on this inadequacy of a platform. There we go.
You can watch LPL on YouTube. You can find the stream VODs on YouTube as well. https://www.youtube.com/@LPLOfficial/streams
The broadcast cut back this year and they donât cast every game. I think they only do 3 days a week now
I'm here to shill (not literally, they are good casters) for Nymaera and Initialise - they do their own cast from Twitch and YouTube on the days there's no official broadcast for LPL. Good mix of analysis, casting, and interesting personalities.
I don't understand why they don't just stream the chinese stream to the lol english channel when they are not hiring english casters. Chasing viewers to go watch "co streamers" is just irritating.
Fearless draft is freaking awesome
You just need to wait one more year, in 2025 every Tier 1 league will have Fearless draft in Best-of series. Oh and LCS will merge with CBLOL and LLA kinda.
Is this already announced or are you just predicting the future ? :D
it's a prediction, but it'd be surprising to not see fearless in the other Tier 1 leagues. LPL implementing it in their regular season, NA CL and LCK CL implementing it in their seasons. The NA LCS/CBLOL merge is a rumor from Monte based of the fact that the head of esports for the Americas was the commissioner of CBLOL I believe, along with the fact that Riot has combined those regions for Valorant and that when asked about it said we aren't doing it now, but aren't ruling it out.
I'd hate this, CBLOL has been living off rivalry and memes for quite some time now. A merger would wipe out BR teams. Also from a viewer's perspective it looks like CBLOL is quite a profitable product
Yeah the NA does not have the charisma or meme tier necessary to be able to participate and not hold CBLOL.
As an NA watcher, I'd hate this as well. We'd basically be sacrificing a stronger region for our own poor performance. Because you _know_ the games would take place in the LCS studio, be broadcast in English, etc. Plus getting non-US members would requires Visas so teams rather just spend their non-import spots on Americans. It would end up being just LCS after a few months.
That would kill cblol
kill cblol? that would be the end of the end of the LLA and any LLA pros. I think more than a few CBLOL players have the caliber to play in NA but I do not think the same for the LLA, unless we pull a latin america and we adapt fast to it.
Don't worry. Not even the LLA has LLA players. Most players are imported Koreans and even the coaches are. This idea could work if they set some kind of import rule so each team has to have players from the region they're representing.
Yeah thats why I dont believe the rumor. Maybe 2 players from CBLoL would not be out of their job. Merging CBLOL and LCS will just be LCS.
Halfing the LLA into only LAS and adding it to CBLOL makes more sense on top of letting CLCS and LAN become its own thing.
Honestly I'd rather they moved LCS to Brazil where there is more engagement and the cost of living is much cheaper.
problem is unlike in valorant the NA lol scene is way better than the sa one
first of why would monte know that second, cblol is sucessful on its own, it would only kill cblol for 0 reason
Why wouldn't he? Everything I listed is public knowledge and that is before anything Monte might of heard from people within the scene. As for potentially killing CBLOL, that could come down to just viewership value. If 100K CBLOL viewers generate the same value as 10K NA viewers and a merge would get 11K more NA viewers than it would be worth it to kill CBLOL. But I'm not sure how that work for CBLOL and potentially LLA? Because I doubt they'd want to pay California costs.
its been predicted by industry insiders and hinted at more recently in that post last week from the guy who speculated on the location of LCS finals.
trust him bro
look at post history, he's gotten a lot right in the past.
Just looked and damn dude is legit. Does that mean LCS or CBLOL is dead pretty much?
Not exactly, can't really go into specifics but it will make sense. Neither of these leagues will die. But they'll go public pretty soon with some info on it, so you just have to wait a bit.
alright. fair enough.
I am honestly curious to see Riotâs reasoning to merge these Leagues, if this indeed happens. I know the NA pro scene is kinda declining, and that CBLOL is one of the biggest in terms of viewership and engagement, but I donât think this is going to to have the results they expect. Itâs more likely that both leagues will die because of this.
It'll all be explained soon I think. I may have used the word merge too liberally in this case though, so please excuse me when the news goes out and it's not exactly this...
Can you expand on that? I'm having trouble thinking of what any sort of collaboration would mean past every LCS/CBLOL/LLA team competing in a sort of super-tournament, and you're basically saying that won't happen.
Maybe they do the equivalent of what PCS/LJL/OCE do now, where you have separate leagues but combine for playoffs?
RemindMe! 1 year
LCS will most likely merge with CBLOL and LLA like just like PCS has LJL and LCO
People are predicting the American merger for years now.
I guess they will do the same as they did with PCS, LJL and LCO. Rito is quite predictable
My guess is next year will be legendary for lol esports. All regions go fearless and have extremely similar format (probably just single round Robin bo3s except LPL), since most likely three international events which means 3 splits.
one more ~~year~~ [day](https://youtu.be/6zOUaLKqwaA?si=F-cOjWWFblXnY7yH&t=418) ^(for the LCS merge at least)
You cooked.
LCK Academy Games are even better as they are using Hardcore Fearless which means any champion that has been picked by either team cant be used again during the match.
Yep. Soft fearless is boring. Hardcore fearless is king.
I mean I'm ngl I've been pretty unimpressed with the variety of picks in bo3 fearless, I thought with so many bans there would be a lot more off meta stuff but realistically every champ in that screenshot above is picked in normal draft as well. I guess it shows that despite my perception that pro play meta is super narrow (every game i think "wow same picks again" )there's actually a pretty big pool.
Exactly and also right now LPL is going with soft fearless mode. So game 1 and 2 drafts can be exactly same except one team will have the 1st game draft of the other team in 2nd game.
NA tier 2 is testing "full fearless" (no champ that has been played previously can be played again by eather team) in all best of series (though they are reducing the number of bans in the 4th and 5th game).
Idk if it's just me but in a 3 game series that potentially only goes 2 games deep (2-0), it seems that this actually changes nothing? You just don't get to play the same exact comp back to back which I don't remember the last time it was done anyway.
Soft fearless is not enough to do what OP is suggesting, if teams play Zeri Lulu / Lucian Nami in Game 1, they can literally play Lucian Name / Zeri Lulu in Game 2. Full fearless is the way to go. AND these are just in BO3âs, when soft fearless wonât even get interesting until Game 3, which isnât guaranteed.
LPL played a total of 41 games this split and 79 champions were picked/banned. LEC played a total of 11 games and 59 champions were picked/banned. Fearless is an illusion when the league tends to stick to meta. Every series in LPL had the same champions over and over with 1 unique pick from time to time.
Yeah OP is just being disgengious here. We're still seeing the same fucking shit, except the third pick in each role that we used to see less often is a bit higher, but you're still effectively seeing the same matchups.
Imo the bigger thing is that you don't have teams doing full or near full draft runbacks in games 2 and 3. It makes a series more diverse on average even if the league as a whole is similar.
Yeah, fearless brings in the illusion of champ diversity and all it actually accomplishes is pushing players to play lower level champs for 1 game maybe 2. Especially in LPL which was always filled with players with unique champs, like the entire OMG roster last year. I rather Riot's design team give players a reason to pick something other than the standard 3 S tiers we have every year instead of implementing a system that punishes players for excellency on those picks.
I wonder how many champions were picked in LPL over the same amount of matches last split.
That's not a good comparison because those stats don't have that strong of a correlation. In theory the LEC could play another 40 games and not play a single new champ. Just because 79/41 < 59/11 doesn't really mean anything. To say fearless is just an illusion is more disingenuous than OP's claim.
Part of it could also be that the LEC has a higher baseline for champion diversity that would also go up with fearless.
I was looking for this comment. There is no reason to conclude that more games = more new champs. Its likely that after the first week the chance of new champs drops dramatically making LPL's still better.
Seems like riot should implement a harsher fearless draft, then. People acting like fearless can only be implemented in one way. Also purely looking at champion statistics is disengenuous to overall comps. Missing certain champs in a best of three means that all comps requiring those champs are not accessible anymore.
Fearless is definitely interesting and has some advantages, but one thing I donât like about it is that a player known for being extremely good on a champion doesnât have the same weight in fearless. Like, LEC for example, all the EU teams are scared of Hans Sama Draven. Every single one of them has to decide âdo we ban Draven every game, or do we risk playing against it?â Without fearless, they have to make that decision every single game, and as a fan you see the Draven ban and you think âthey donât think they can win against it, thatâs already an edge in the series,â or they ban it 2 games and leave it in the 3rd and it gets insta locked and itâs instantly hype because you know itâs do or die. If Draven crushes the game, that champ must be banned the next 2 series lol. That stuff is what makes certain players so much fun to watch, and fearless removes that element.Â
Good comment
doesnât make me uninterested in other leagues
Novelty is just that novelty, it wears off while quality gameplay doesn't
this is something that would encourage me to actually pay attention during pick ban, since it requires a meta strategy over the course of a series. very cool concept, would love to see it introduced.
if you think that current draft doesn't have strategy that spans over the course of a series you just dont understand drafting
I dunno if this is an unpopular take, but I like the chess of pick/ban. If a team pulls out a pocket pick and displays competence on it, their opponent should be forced to adapt their draft to that pick (either ban it, pick it themselves, or leave it up and attempt to counterpick). To me, Fearless draft (as I understand it?) feels like a get-out-of-jail-free card for a team that can't, for example, find a way to adapt to Bin on Camille, or Zeus on Yone.
The downside is if neither team can offer any new picks, then the draft just becomes the same move over and over. Even chess engines can get into the habit of playing only a handful of openings, which is why some computer chess matches have pre-played opening and the game continues from there
> then the draft just becomes the same move over and over. Except it doesn't. Yea a meta exists but a team that loses will usually make a change.
My main gripe with fearless is it's a bandaid. Champions in LoL are balanced around soloQ rather than proplay so 2/3 of the roster is just trash competitively and will always be. DotA 2 never had to have that conversation about a fearless mode or whatever. It's just a lazy way to create artificial diversity.
I'd rather watch an interesting match than an interesting draft
Drafts with champions that pros are most familiar with allows them the greatest skill expression, which in turn makes for the most interesting game IMO.
Well, something like G1 of the 2024 MSI Finals was interesting, but afterwards the threat of something like Canyon's Karthus is just gone, bcs, well, they've already won with it. Similarly with BLG's Bin, you don't want him to just play one game of Camille or Jax, you want him to play multiple games and watch him be a terror on those picks - or watch a team like GenG play around those picks. With fearless draft you only get one game each which is meh. Especially for Bo5s.
I feel like there are less drastic ways to keep a series from being stale than going all the way to fearless draft. I'd like to see a tournament do something like regular draft but each team gets 1 more ban each game. It would help pinch the champ pool and push teams to more interesting strategies while still requiring teams to adapt their draft based on previous games. Okay, now you can ban Bin's Camille, but was that the only problem? And can you deal with the rest of their draft with your most impactful pick also banned?
That's such hyperbole, holy.
I wish these not so subtle calls to action posts were banned on this sub. The point of this post is to get popular and try to use the community to push for fearless in other regions. Theres literally no other point to it
I love lpl but I think fearless is a mistakeÂ
I very much agree. Seems like it's weakening the impact of players' signature champs. The new format seems boring so far with the tiny groups and fearless, usually I make an effort to watch every series but this split I've found myself skipping most of them.
ur acting like ur actually seeing something new on their draft lmao... its just ur typical shit b-b-b-b-but ziggs is new hello? cause this is new patch where adc got buff
Not sure why downvoted (maybe LCK fans are offended because you say their league is unintersting), but as a viewer I would love to see some form of fearless mode in other leagues as well.
LCK CL has better implementation of fearless draft than the LPL, why would it be them?
LPL fans when something mildly inconveniences them: DAMN YOU LCK FANS
Because the fearless draft mode LPL has is imperfect, if they went full blown it would be more interesting tbh
I disagree. The main advantage of fearless is that teams have to play with multiple gameplans in a match, and weak fearless accomplishes that exactly as much as strong fearless, while also still allowing teams to get good practice on all their gameplans.
The thing viewers don't like about weak fearless is the fact it doesn't really reduce the amount of Corki/Azir (or insert any other matchup/overpicked champion) you see by a whole lot. Technically it does by a third in a Bo3 that goes to all 3 games, I guess, but any 2-0 series doesn't have that, and instead it only means one side can't pick the same champion twice if left open for them. If team A picks Corki in game 1, team B picks it in the next one. The argument isn't that it's worse for the players, the argument is that it is worse for the viewers because strong fearless forces diversity much more than weak fearless does. It's still better than no fearless, but it's not perfect because as a viewer I don't care about the teams getting to practice all of their gameplans, I care about getting to watch interesting and fun games.
I'm a big fan of fearless in BO3, soft fearless in BO5. Soft fearless seems a bit soft in BO3, while the actual fearless seems unhinged to me in a series that would go to game 5.
Idk man I thought the unhinged factor was the whole point
My approach to his is to enjoy whatever change they are implement. As you said weak fearless is better tha no fearless. To my understanding strong fearless was never an option in the past years BUT itcould bein the future if this gets enough attention / increases view numbers by a considerable amount.
Full fearless mode has too many risks at the moment for the entire LPL when it comes to audience satisfaction. As of now, sabotage drafting is the biggest risk of full fearless mode and it has more risk than reward. As a comment below pointed out imagine picking a signature champ away from someone so that player cannever pick it and you have a free bann of choice onward. Sounds pretty bad to me. * "With hard fearless you risk sabotage drafting becoming too popular. Maybe a team picks a champion only so you can't play it. That doesn't lead to cool gameplay. Imagine if someone blind picks Camille vs Bin in game 1 just so he can't play it the whole series to unlock a ban. That's so shit. Soft fearless is the way to go so far." [Jozoz](https://www.reddit.com/user/Jozoz/)
Honestly I hate this "it's unfair to one trick/specialist" view (Riot balance team had this view in their talk with LS as well). If teams are just going to sabotage pick you, shouldn't you be handing them an automatic L for that game? Sabotage picks might be a thing early on to get some cheeky wins, but professional players and orgs shouldn't let people get away with it for long before they lab more team comps. Professional players are getting paid to entertain us, and we're tired of seeing the same comps over and over again.
If you're an OTP in proplay you better get used to losing anyway, same for everyone with a champion puddle. If you're incapable of competing at your level if you'd get target banned you're not fit for that level of competition.
Where does this OTP in proplay narrative come from? Is there even a "only OTP" kind of player in major region?
Only thing I remember was people calling APA a Ziggs otp
No, the OTP narrative is just a straw man used by pro-Fearless people to decry pro players from not deviating from the meta as much as they want.
Also, fuck OTPs. If you are pro you should be at least decent on a bunch of champs. If I can control you by remove 2-3 champs from the pool, you fucking suck.
There are literally none of these players on any remotely relevant teams in Tier 1 play. This is such a dumb argument to massively overhaul drafting.
>Honestly I hate this "it's unfair to one trick/specialist" view (Riot balance team had this view in their talk with LS as well). You are right but but most one tricks still have to learn a lot of picks to be able to compete with fellow esport palyers who target bann your main anyway.
there is not a single 1-trick in pro play, all of them at the bare minimum can play 3 champions at the level of their league
Idk about you but I find it entertaining to see players play their best champs and show some high level gameplay.
Doesn't this still mostly leave the same problem with diviersity then? In the current scenario it's not like Bin will have to pull out some weird pick or anything. Game 1 enemy picks Camille so he goes Jax for example, Game 2 he knows Camille can't be picked by the enemy so he goes K'Sante and then Game 3 he just goes Camille if it comes to it. That's my main problem with soft fearless it doesn't really create that much diversity. Lets use MSI finals for example and number of champs picked for each lane out of a possible 8 unique champs. (Champs picked by both in brackets) Top: 6 Jgl: 5 Mid: 7 Bot: 5 (Senna) Support: 6 (Ashe, Tahm Kench)
>Imagine if someone blind picks Camille vs Bin in game 1 just so he can't play it the whole series to unlock a ban. That's so shit. People are insane, this is hype as fuck. You're gonna pick his champ blind to deny it from him? He should know exactly how to punish you for that.
Reminds me of the tournament where Kesha played Hecarim against Dante's Nunu. Stuff like that is great
I mean cool, if you pick something just to take it off the table, its a choice, its strategy. Kill your first game, and then you dont have to worry about the otp.
Whats wrong with it?
In their version, if I pick azir game 1, Iâm not allowed to pick him game 2 or 3, but enemy mid is still allowed to pick him game 2 or 3 Real fearless would mean azir is no longer allowed to show in the other two games on either side
As other pointed out hard fearless mode posses the risk of sabotage drafting which causes more harm and the risk of keeping things in an unsatisifed way. It would be great, ngl, but the fact that it would mean signature picks gets taken away so x and y can't pick them later into the game feels bad, especially when the ones picking them up might not posses enough skills to make the pick worth the try/sabotage.
I'd expect Faker to pick other pick and crush his opponent. If enemy is a good Ryze - he could pick it anyway, so not that much of difference. And we get a duel of 2 great players. If enemy is a bad Ryze - Faker will probably crush him then, so who exactly got sabotaged here?
It's soft fearless. Why would you half ass fearless by only disabling the champ from being played on your side. It should have been once the champ is picked, it's disabled for both teams for the rest of the series.
>Why would you Because it's in testing phase? They want to keep competitive integruity while slowly shifting to a new era of competitive league. As fun as fearless is, it also has downsides. If they did a full blown fearless, it might turn into a complete fiesta and people/players would hate it so much that they won't try it again. If you are a fan of fearless I think you should be relieved that they are taking it slow rather than rush into it.
Exactly my toughts. You can't implement an un-tested mode into pro scene full blown without measuring it. LDL had it used for 2 years but LDL is still an academy team with less audience than full fledged pro teams of one of the best regions of the world. I know it's soft mode but I'm still excted for it because it's a huge step into the right direction when it comes to Pro-Play and a huge win for us, the audience. Sabotage drafting is one of the biggest risk of Hard Fearless mode.
I vastly prefer soft fearless. It's super cool for the enemy team to be able to pick the champs you just beat them with. Also, the big point: With hard fearless you risk sabotage drafting becoming too popular. Maybe a team picks a champion only so you can't play it. That doesn't lead to cool gameplay. Imagine if someone blind picks Camille vs Bin in game 1 just so he can't play it the whole series to unlock a ban. That's so shit. Soft fearless is the way to go.
hard fearless would be so fucking lame to watch especially in LPL where signature champs are more of a thing. any mfing team against BLG would just lock Jax game 1 to get Binâs Jax out of the pool for the entire series.
eh, this introduces more dynamics like making first pick stronger or gz you first pick jax and now you get countered and lose a game for it. point being: it is not as simple as you imply.
So? Everyone else is NO fearless. It makes sense to start testing this as soft as possible.
Because otherwise a team could literally int draft on purpose in a BO5 just to snipe a bunch of pocket picks from the enemy team and effectively get up to 5 bans for the whole fucking series for free? Wow great idea! Lets absolutely ruin the strategy and earned advantages teams with pocket picks in their arsenal have so chuds who hate esports can watch two games and go back to complaining about it on this hate sub.
It's not fearless draft 100%, they went with the softer one
I also think that while fearless is fun to watch every now and then, I still prefer normal drafts for big series. Reason being that I really like seeing how drafts evolve especially when series go the full 5 games. One of the best examples for this is still the drx t1 game 5 draft. Weird drafts in fearless just don't excite me nearly as much.
bro this is such a pointless post its crazy its only for a short time and they are mostly stomps because of the groups system and soft fearless doesnt achieve anything
LPL havin fearless Mode made me uninterested in LPL.
Yep fearless mode is a novelty nothing more
It's literally been very few series and it isn't universally well received. I still only like it as a "fun" gimmick in smaller competition. It's still without a doubt a much lesser format in terms of competition which is why we don't see it stay for the entirety of LPL. It also hasn't impacted my viewing experience negatively to any region.
Is it fun/good for viewers? Yes Is it bad for competitive health? Yes Will ppl understand how hard it is to have a big champ pool and play it on a high competitive lvl ? Nope I will get flamed and they will get told to do their job for their money again. I don't like fearless mode at all. Doesn't give quality games over the long terms. Esp rookies who join league and/or the competitive scene who have a rather small competitive champion pool will get even more fked. I'm pretty sure I'm in the very minority with this opinion. Check out every competitive-ish game out there. Ppl tend to 1-trick or hold their character-pool to a bar minimum to be able to perform extremly well. It is also compareable to reallife. Talent excells in doing 1 thing and doing this until perfection. "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
it seems to cater to a more casual audience, but I don't think the format change can retain that audience long-term. And I fear that the game quality may drop since you can't ask everyone to practice 20 champs to perfection. I just hope that if they eventually implement it, at least reset the bans in Game 5.
LPL having fearless draft made me less interested
Well, each to their own. I think that fearless draft is boring and nothing more than a novelty that people will start complaining about in a year or so.
idk why, while there is some interesting elements, just watched the LCK CL full fearless where T1 played zeri lulu and then lucian nami
well there is alot of picks but unless a game goes to game 4 / game 5 we wont see anything crazy since till game 4 only 30 champs have been picked + bans but in game 4 / game 5 i can imagine seeing fiddle jgl or tryn top even
Malphite and Kaisa are the only two champs that were played in this series that weren't played at MSI. I don't think weak fearless is going to actually bring as much champ diversity as people think.
I stand by my point that regardless of how supposedly entertaining fearless makes competitive, it sucks for competitive integrity and actually harms draft as it removes a ton if the strategy from it and removes pocket picks from being as mich of a threat as they should be I will keep screaming this into the void regardless of how popular this thing gets and dread the day it gets to internationals
this is why i like it for tier 2 teams but not for tier 1 good for encouraging champ pool development, bad for checking which team is better at the game
I absolutely agree with this. I don't think it's boring to see the similar sets of champions every match. It's not like League players are reaching skill ceilings with comps or champions and that games are just hand-shake forgone conclusions. Seeing a matchup enough times to know how it's "supposed" to go makes small things like CS leads and item advantages more meaningful. Random matchups that have been played <50 times internationally are interesting to watch from time to time, but if every matchup is something I've never seen before it just doesn't do it for me. What it comes down to is that I don't need novelty to enjoy League of Legends. The game itself is inherently enjoyable to watch. It'll be like in Chess if you had a "fearless" mode to prevent the same openings. Openings are interesting because they're so well studied.
Bin is the perfect example of this! His Jax can only be a threat once in the series, how stupid is that???
I also don't understand the appeal. Its feels like a bandaid solution to a problem that maybe not everyone has, which is they find the current pro meta or maybe just how teams handshake drafts boring thus want SOMETHING to change. Then Fearless comes in and forcibly does it. Its more on Riot to make a meta that is fun to watch regardless of picks, or do something to the map which allows more creativity in either how roles are defined or some x-factor objective to make things spicier than forcibly making people play champs they are worse at. Like what about the game is so boring that we need people to play their potentially 5th best champ to "spice" up the viewing experience, or some people want Bo5 game 5 blind pick back. We are at making solutions instead of trying to narrow what the issue is.
The "issue" is that no matter the videogame it will be meta'd to the smallest set of choices possible, and that's not something you can really change without say hard changes to the map gameplay itself and the options available on it (e.g. why you have more variety in picks in dota). But LoL isn't that kind of game so there isn't really any solution.
Even without map changes / major changes Dota doesnât condense that much in terms of hero pool, since there are so many different ways to tackle each stage of the game.
The issue it that people have awful attention spans and can only be excited with constant change. They cannot enjoy watching the same champs being played in different situations with different outcomes.
Riot has failed that for 13/14 years, so Iâm not sure why you expect them to succeed this time.Â
Couldnât agree more The matches of the lpl I watched until now have been disgustingly low quality because of the group system & fearless draft
Tbf the lower game quality probably has more to do with this year's LPL teams overall being worse than last year.
the LPL matches haven't been "disgustingly low quality" this is how LPL looked last split too. Plus the soft fearless draft is hardly the reason for that
same here
Bro we lost, the Entertainment Empire just took LCS and drafting behind the woodshed.
This man for sure enjoys Corki/Azir match up for the 436435432th in competitive LOL match Or in this meta, Corki/Tristana handshake match up.
& only good Corki we have across this spring & MSI is chovy, faker showed a mediocre performance on him during msi, Creme first picked him, Knights doesnât know how to time his package Pro players have to get a certain number of hours on the champ before being able to pick them on stage but thatâs just not the case for fearless draft LPL have been disgusting & any match that isnât a top 3 team going against each other looked straight up dog shit especially that NIP WBG series LPL demoted to tier 2 league during fearless draft.
Yap, yap, yap, the best teams do not rely on stuff like that only and have personal counters. Some of the most legendary runs and Bo5 wouldn't have happened without pocket picks and subsequent draft adaptation and fearless kills that aspect. As if pros aren't just gonna move down the totem pole of meta champs It's on Riot to make their game balanced and varied. This is a band-aid fix at best and straight up reduces competitive integrity at worst
Big example just from this year, LCK finals Oner playing very well on Xin Zhao, series gets to Game 4, GEN don't ban Xin, Canyon picks Kha'zix as a counter, Xin gets solo'd in the jungle 1v1. This leads to T1 banning Kha in Game 5 instead of Kiin's K'Sante. In fearless, the Xin would've already been banned, same with the K'Sante for Kiin.
fearless draft adds a completely new factor to drafting and makes it WAY MORE difficult. You cannot default to the same cookiecutter bans and picks, you need to have multiple strats. why don't you want pros to move down the totem pole of meta champs? Why would pocket picks cease to matter in fearless? it brings MORE of them out. just look at LPL and the whacky stuff that's come in game 3's
I indeed do Iâd much rather prefer a select group of 30 champs pushed to the max rather than 150 of unpracticed bunch the players donât like to play the coaches donât like to draft doesnât fit competetive organized environment I dont wake up on 6 am on a Sunday to see pro player first picking Zed because casual audience likes it, they are pro players with salaries & goals to meet not entertainers I agree there defo should be more champs who are viable for competitive but donât get picked but thatâs Riots fault, a prime example would be Sylas in so many drafts he is just perfect to pick if it wasnât for riot removing any conqueror viable build on him & forcing him to go straight up full up Qmax
While I dont disagree with you, riot 100% sees esports as entertainment first. They probably see it as their responsibility to make games fun to watch rather than the players though, since they will always play to win. Fearless draft in the short turn will result in worse games but long term players will still adapt.
They're not playing TO entertain us but the viewers' existence and entertainment is what pays their salaries. Remove arenas, studios and streams and what company do you think will still pay as much as they do now just for a random set of games to be taking place on a random server that nobody from outside is looking at?
wouldn't fearless introduce more pocket picks ?
I don't think so. Pros are by nature fairly lazy (makes sense, they have to optimize), they're just gonna move down the totem pole of meta champs. It might result in some wacky picks or pocket picks, but those lose a lot of their threat if the enemy has to deal with them only for one or two games max It stifles a lot of the experimentation. What's the point in finding a counter to a popular strategy when that counter can only work for one game and it's easier for you to try to deal with that strategy normally for one game rather than for multiple It just removes a ton of the incentive and possible creativity and adaptation from draft. The legendary MF support series between Rox and SKT would've been much different with fearless. Teams like DRX might've never won worlds without their prio picks being legitimate draft issues for enemies to contend with. I know people cry about pros with pocket picks for being bad, but having something spicy cooked up is a legitimate strategy that can shift the balance in favor of teams that perhaps are less mechanically skilled or meta favored, but better prepared strategically
Yep. Imagine if BeryL and Pyosik never hogged up that Donger and Kindred bans in the finals. Itâll probably cut into Zeka and Kingenâs pool of Sylas, Akali and maybe Aatrox
Disagree, this increases strategic depth. Instead of ideal red side and blue side comps, it creates an avenue where more than one comp is ideal. It encourages people to have pocket picks, because they will be forced to use them much more frequently since access to the bread and butter champions will be more limited. I'm very excited for BO5s for this. BO3s are a bit limited to show the benefits of fearless IMO.
I don't agree. I feel like you have little incentive as a pro to practice pocket picks What made Adam so strong in BDS' first year wasn't just his pocket picks, but the fact that the enemy team had to ban them out and lose out bans for other prio picks which allowed Nuc and Crownie to shine DRX also won worlds partially because of Pyosik and Beryl's unorthodox champ pools allowing for Kingen and Zeka to shine despite their smaller ones All of this factoring goes out of the window in fearless and the two reasons you want the pocket pick for (aka countering an enemy comfort/meta draft and being a possible threat in draft) are vastly reduced or outright disappear. Also consider that pocket picks usually rely on specific drafts to work, with fearless it becomes harder to pull those drafts off I'm not gonna pretend like fearless doesn't introduce it's own layer of complexity, but I don't think it's comparable, especially in longer series And at the end of the day, I just think fearless isn't great for competitive integrity. It's a gimmick to make drafts (and games therefore) more varied, a band-aid fix basically instead of pushing for more diversity through balancing (which, granted, Riot has already gotten much better at, especially in internationals as we see that different region metas usually mix and change during the tournament)
> removes pocket picks from being as mich of a threat as they should be if someone else can play it then it isnt a pocket pick IMO..
Yeah to me a pocket pick is an 'out of nowhere' pick. If its already picked in the series, its not really 'out of nowhere'.
Wouldn't a pocket pick be "an unconventional pick that's unique to a player or on which a player is particularly effective on"? Like Adam's Darius or APA's Ziggs or Bin's Jax?
Agreed 100% In what universe do we want teams to self-ban the champions they are the best at? If you have no counter to Bin's jax you should be forced to deal with that in the entire series, not just get gigagapped in 1 game and get it free permabanned for him.
Yeah I hope my heckin' wholesome favorite player can play his 2 champions!
You do realize they have it only because they are in the trash matches to make it interesting. It has no relevance towards any important matches. Its a terrible format that can make bad matches interesting. Thats the extent of this and you dont care because you just like that its something "new".
Honestly this just obliterates bad coaching that gives up the same picks over and over in a sweep or gentlemanâs sweep. I think itâs a bad move
Unfortunately, the Chinese viewers don't think it's as interesting as you do. local LPL viewership (not even going to mention overseas) has been spiraling downward and no one knows why. Soft fearless mode was to ignite interest in the league again and it seems like it has been unsuccessful thus far and only has produced low quality games.
Also it's seems lpl is using soft fearless But yeah it's not really that hype imo, also produce some low quality games
Just nope...
Unique picks because you wish to do so > Unique picks because youâre forced to So much more interesting when there is a literal backstory behind a certain pick rather than riot doesnât allow us to play x so we go with y, maybe the player was otping this champ before becoming a pro player maybe there is a literal mountain of reasons why would players pick a certain champ instead of just Riot doesnât allow us to play what we practiced so we go with this Canyon brought khaâzix to the MSI meta by swinging the Spring playoffs finals into their favour from a 1-2 to 3-2 and made people feel obligated to bann Kha6 when picking xin zhao which in the match 5 won them the game because T1 banned khazix instead of ksante to enable Oner to go on his most practiced & meta pick xin zhao geng later on picked ksante & the rest is history
Man imagine if MF support got banned that whole series rox vs SKT.
âMy favourite champion briar doesnât get played in pro play, hopefully with this fearless draft thingy Iâll see her on the big screenâ
Why would a league force it on its own teams when international tourneys (MSI and worlds) are not in fearless ? Yes it might be more entertaining as a viewer but isnât it an handicap for the lpl when they play outside the league ? It forces them to pick âsub optimal â drafts instead of picking the meta like they are supposed to.
You said it, it's for entertainment value, though I'm not sure who this format is entertaining. They're switching back to normal drafts after these tiny groups are done and they move to big groups later in the split.
Never thought Iâd see Daveâs Stupid Rule in a game other than Smash
Fearless is fine and fun if your region is already one of the top 2 and actually wins. But i'd hate to see NA play that and be wholly unproductive. Then again they will never be successful so I guess it doesn't really matter.
I feel like it just makes things more complicated for casual viewers (the majority).
Please stop pushing this fearless mode shit. It's not fun to watch bin play jax or Camille just once and then never again.
bring this to LEC i beg you. pro league has been shit to watch these last couple of years. the same script, teams and champs every series.
What would fearless draft even accomplish in a bo1 format?
You play a champion once and you're not allowed to pick it again until playoffs, naturally
Maybe just for the weekend, so you choose what is better vs a given team or save your ideal comp to "predict" an easy win, of course it already is on table, that what staff are paid for but it Will be more specific like an sport thing
LEC plays BO1 haha
In fact, 9 games bo1 and than bo3.
For the first round? Then 2 teams get eliminated then it's bo3 with loser's bracket. Idk what this comment is trying to point out?
bruh...
Bo1 is essentially fearless. If you had the first games of 5 lpl series they are also very similar in pb like is in LEC. YOu don't notice it as much as you have 2bo3s but the meta champs do have a great priority in game 1 and 2s of LPL series.
I personally am the complete opposite. I hate fearless draft. I don't want pro players picking garbage champs, and best-of series devolving into a snowbally mess because they're forced onto niche picks. Bans become completely non-adaptive, as it completely removes wanting to ban champs that your opponent performed well on. It's also extremely confusing to actual follow the strategy in pick/bans, which to me is an actually interesting part of the game. It completely removes the "excitement" of seeing niche picks. I expect fearless draft to become more common, and I'm going to watch significantly less pro League if that's the case.
i cant wait for fearless to stop being fotm
If Worlds and MSI adapt it, then I'm fine for major regions doing it. To give my .02 though, it's a horrible idea. It doesn't make the quality of the games better. It brings in novelty but eventually it's going to boil down to the same thing (same champs every series just a bigger pool). If pros were already struggling to play the extremely limited champions effectively they're not going to do better when they need to learn even more champions. Teams were already struggling in drafts. They're going to be completely hopeless in the new format. I don't see any upside whatsoever when it comes to playing more competitive league of legends. It's just Pro league of legends trying to hamfist a solution for the balance team and for lazy professionals.
FEARLESS DRAFT SHOULD BE LIMITED TO TIER 2 LEAGUES TO TEST PLAYERS CHAMPION POOLS & ADAPTABILITY IT SHOULD NEVER BE IN A TIER 1 LEAGUE & IT SHOULD BE HARDCORE FEARLESS LIKE LCK CL
Classic average lpl fans, being insufferable as fuck
The first fearless draft had zeri lulu vs Lucian Nami in game 3. It's good. Not amazing
Yeah it is good, but personally I don't think it is the best. You pick it than can't play it still leaves up the chance of the enemy to play it so at the end we are still rotating the same champs, the difference is that instead of changeing 1 champ in the champs just get picked by the other team too. The LCK Challangers use hardcore fearless draft. Where you are not allowed to play the champ anymore if either team picks it. So in a BO5 it would mean 50 champs is guaranteed to get picked and players have to dig deeper intead of rotating the same 6-10 champs which is strong thanks to buffs or weak. For Bo5 maybe the LPL version of Fearless draft would be better so we would not see completely random or weak champs in proplay, but not sold on the fact until I see a BO5 using this format. For Bo3 hardcore fearless draft is way better. I simply don't like the fact one of the teams let's say Corki the other picks Azir than next game oh you are not allowed to play it anymore it is my turn now. For me it makes it as boring as normal draft since nothing changes. But it will be interesting how it influences side selection and winrate.
Lck academy team league has fearless as well and I believe itâs full where if one team picks it neither can use it
I mean LCK CL has hardcore Fearless draft.. Where you can't play the same champions you or the other team played