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Briar classic splash art
Image via Riot Games
Category:
League of Legends

With Briar’s release, LoL players are once again asking Riot to add one feature

That could create other problems, though.
Image of Mateusz Miter
Mateusz Miter
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Published: Sep 14, 2023 08:45 am

Briar joined League of Legends‘ vast roster on Sept. 13 with the release of Patch 13.18. Players immediately tried her in solo queue, which prompted the community to ask for one vital change to the game.

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Many players agree it would be best if new champions in League were disabled from solo queue for a week after their release. They claim a lot of people take new champions straight into ranked mode, creating huge disadvantages for their teams since they don’t yet have the knowledge on how to play them. “Story as old as it can be,” the author of the discussion claimed in a Sept. 13 Reddit post.

Block freshly released champions from ranked queue for at least a week
byu/lightningINF inleagueoflegends

In their explanation, the author mentioned how they had a mid lane Briar who first-picked her in ranked. The player then proceeded to feed and fall behind in CS, basically giving away the game for free.

One of the first skins for new LoL champion Briar.
Briar is looking to conquer the Rift, but so far she hasn’t done well. Image via Riot Games

Therefore, the author of the post believes new champions should be disabled in ranked for a while after they go live. “Since Riot refuses to punish trolls then at least they should not allow to use a champ that people are not familiar with right after its release,” they wrote.

However, in case that’s too much, they also proposed to “have to play a specific number of unranked games to be able to play that newly added champion in ranked.”

Like they said, it’s a story that comes around with the release of every new champion.

A bunch of players agree, but there are some who provide some counterarguments. One player claimed Riot wouldn’t go for this solution since it doesn’t solve the problem. The developers reportedly know players who play ranked almost never shift towards other game modes, although we couldn’t find confirmation of the information.

Naafiri character art from League of Legends
Naafiri was also horrible when she first came out, and then she proceeded to dominate both mid and jungle. Image via Riot Games

On top of that, some underlined it’s important to have new champions played in solo queue since it allows the developers to balance them. “The best players don’t play norms, so the data norms give isn’t as good,” they said.

When it came to stats themselves, Briar is in the race for being the worst newly-released champion in the history of League. Early data from Sept. 14 suggests she has recorded an abysmal 35 percent win rate in the jungle.

So, the only advice we’d give you is to ban a new champion once for a few days after it comes out. It feels like the only solution.

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Author
Image of Mateusz Miter
Mateusz Miter
Freelance Writer at Dot Esports. Mateusz previously worked for numerous outlets and gaming-adjacent companies, including ESL. League of Legends or CS:GO? He loves them both. In fact, he wonders which game he loves more every day. He wanted to go pro years ago, but somewhere along the way decided journalism was the more sensible option—and he was right.
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