Personally, I play Normal Draft exclusively, but not having to deal with the toxicity of champion select in LoL is reason enough for me to forego all the reasons I prefer Draft, at least during the Team Builder live beta, which is going on right now. I enjoy the counterpicking process of draft, I also hate mirror matches, and the inability to ban out overpowered champions is nice and sometimes crucial. My hope is that Riot gets the basic version of Team Builder out there ASAP and begins trying to figure out how they can make this sort of experience work in Ranked and Normal Draft.
Even without all those things available in Team Builder, I considered prolonging my break between Season 3 and 4 until Team Builder went live due to the frequent toxicity found in champion select. As someone working a full-time job, there are only a few 40 minute games I can fit in any given night and it’s hard for me to justify wasting my life in a 40 minute game with someone who has decided to troll at champion select. It’s just not worth it dealing with a game you know you’re going to lose. Even wining in spite of someone on your team making the experience terrible isn’t much consolation. It just feels bad.
To make matters worse, dodging during champion select forces me to wait to roll the dice again and some nights you’ll encounter these players so many times in a row that the wait time for your next queue could end up being as long as a full match would take to complete anyway. I’m also only capable of playing a couple of roles in League, so getting stuck with a role I can’t play often means I’m going to unintentionally ruin the game for everyone else and help contribute to our eventual loss and I’d rather not suffer 40 minutes of verbal abuse at worst or just plain feeling guilty for screwing things up for my fellow players. This means I often end up dodging queues to avoid dealing with trolls or playing bottom lane and it takes me that much longer to get into a match as a result. Obviously, for a player like me, Team Builder is a bit of a god send.
Heck, one of the reasons I haven’t bothered with Ranked is that the toxicity associated with champion select is even more frustrating in an environment where you’ve actually got something to lose. Someone deciding to troll while you’re in your promotion series is far worse than having to deal with it in a normal game. The same is true for being stuck in a role you can’t play. For me, ADC just isn’t possible. I’ve always lacked the RTS-based micro skills needed for a role like ADC and now that I’m getting older, my mechanics are even worse. It’s just not doable for me (even though I love many of the ADC champions). Sure, some players will accommodate you if you explain the situation, but having to rely on that in an environment that is often toxic is not ideal. If Riot can figure this one out, they will probably find themselves with a ton more players interested in Ranked play while also dealing with one of the game’s largest issues.
I do have a couple of ideas on how to make Team Builder work in a draft environment, but you’d have to limit some of the functionality. Essentially, you would only have people agreeing to the arrangement of roles when queuing and then champion select would play out as it normally does. This doesn’t solve everything, but role selection is one of the main points of contention and I think that going this route would improve things considerably. This would also allow teams to make use of the additional time to plan out what they’re going to do before they even go into the queue, such as discussing bans or potential team compositions, without having to worry about a timer ticking down.
Ultimately, I’m just glad that Riot Games is tackling this longstanding issue in earnest. For me, a concrete plan to improve the champion select experience while simultaneously dealing with the toxicity the game is well-known for is far more encouraging than any plans for new champions, balance changes, or anything else Riot could have in store for League. I’d love to feel like I can just get on and play some LoL after work and not have to take a break every few months due to pent up frustration. With Team Builder now on the horizon, that may be possible much sooner than I would have thought.
Have you tried out Team Builder? What do you think of it so far?
Michael Bitton / Michael began his career at the WarCry Network in 2005 as the site manager for several different WarCry fansite portals. In 2008, Michael worked for the startup magazine Massive Gamer as a columnist and online news editor. In June of 2009, Michael joined MMORPG.com as the site's Community Manager. Follow him on Twitter @eMikeB