League of Legends moving to 10 bans is ‘quite likely’

As the sheer number of champions in League of Legends has increased over the years, one question has gained more and more relevancy: when is it time to increase the number of bans each team gets before a game?

Currently, each team gets three bans. It used to be that the person first in drafting order on each team would get all three bans for their teams, but before this season it was changed so that the bottom three picks on each team get one ban each.

There have been rumors of a change to 10 totals bans, giving one to each player in each game, and Lead Champion Designer Andrei “Meddler” Van Roon said on the boards an impending change to 10 bans is “quite likely.”

We're still planning to look into 10 bans once the new client's out (changes needed to champ select for extra bans would be made in that, not the old client). I think it's quite likely we move to a 10 ban system, though that's not guaranteed yet.

How would that look? Meddler said one of the most important factors is not increasing the team champion select takes. That could mean everyone bans at the same time, or people selecting their bans before even getting into a game.

The variant we've talked about similar to that is simultaneous bans from all 10 players. You see what your team are banning/have banned, but not what the enemy is banning. Does lose the ability to shape your bans in response to the enemies, probably saves a lot of time though.

Another option is one similar to DOTA 2, where bans are mixed in with picks, allowing for interesting drafting strategies and more champion diversity.

We've talked about it. There's some appeal certainly. Some good arguments for it in pro play in particular as a way to both support increased diversity and a more interesting champ select. Value in regular games seems lower given you don't know who your opponents are, so bans tend to be much more frustration, general power or lane counter based than specific.

It’s also possible pro and regular games will have different ban systems, either just at the beginning of the change or permanently.

It's something we're open to if it's the best solution. There is some value in consistency between the two, given the context's are pretty different might be outweighed by the advantages of tailoring a separate solution for each though.

The changes will likely launch with the new client, so some time over the next month.