League of Legends will no longer autoban frequent meta-breaking offenders

Riot has updated its policy so you won’t be automatically punished if you’re frequently reported for playing something heavily off-meta, like unconventional champions in bizarre roles. 14-day bans for unconventional picks were “very rare,” but with recent high profile cases like Support Singed with Smite and Support Nunu with Smite (see a pattern here?), Riot decided it needed to tweak its rules.

From now on, if you get reported frequently for unconventional picks but it appears you’re trying to win and not just trolling, your account will be locked. You can then reach out to player support and they’ll talk about what happened with you and unlock your account. From there, you can immediately go back to playing.

We want players who enjoy playing off-meta picks but massively disrupt their team to learn and adjust their communication on their own, without being banned. As long as a player is working towards their team’s chances of winning, we won’t punish them for non-standard play styles. That said, there are clear differences between meta breaking and straight up trolling. We stand firm that people who intentionally troll and disrupt games in League will end up banned.

-WookieeCookie

There are a lot of ways to play League of Legends, and sometimes when you bring out your patented Jax support in ranked, people don’t like you - even if you know it works! The best way to avoid these kinds of situations is to talk to your teammates in the pre-game lobby, especially those most directly impacted by your pick.

If you’re playing a support with smite in ranked, it’s probably a good idea to ask your jungler and AD Carry if that’s okay with them before loading up on the Rift. You’re not just bringing an odd champion to the position, you’re planning on playing the position differently than pretty much anyone else. In the previous examples, the Support Singed with Smite and Support Nunu with Smite would frequently abandon their AD Carry to counter jungle the enemy.

As WookieeCookie said in response to that particular Support Nunu:

Riot Gromp said it best in the previous post when they stated: "...common sense and good sportsmanship say that experimenting players need to clearly communicate intent and win conditions to their teammates."

Though it didn’t happen much, this was still important to fix. After all, Riot encourages playing things that aren’t exactly meta: we wouldn’t have gotten Miss Fortune support without this kind of experimentation.