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Riot is always looking for new and exciting ways to upgrade production quality for competitive League of Legends. Sometimes the new ideas are outstanding and everyone loves them, other times, like at the new champion select at this year’s Mid-Season Invitational, not so much.
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This new champion select layout is what greeted fans in the first two matches of the play-in stage of MSI 2018, and they were not happy about it. Instead of the usual full screen, this layout focused more on the players and their reactions, but at the expense of clarity in which champions would be played in the game. Not only are the icons for champions smaller and more compacted than normal, but the bans sitting at the top make almost no sense whatsoever.
Thankfully, Riot heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth from fans all the way from Twitter to Reddit to Twitch chat and decided that this particular experiment was a bit of a mistake. By the third game of play-ins the old champion select was back, and everything was right with the world again.
We sincerely appreciate your feedback on our test of a new broadcast look for champion select. We are reverting to the original champion select and will consider all of the feedback we received as we continue to iterate and improve the broadcast. Thank you and enjoy #MSI2018!
— lolesports (@lolesports) May 3, 2018
It’s admirable of Riot to attempt to constantly keep fans interested and excited by changing up production and never letting things get too stale, but sometimes the old ways are okay and the new solution isn’t quite as good. But it’s a testament to the poise and experience of Riot’s esports team that instead of arguing with fans, or insisting that its way was best, they simply listened to the feedback and promised to keep improving.