If you’re one of those League of Legends players that rushed to grind up enough IP to buy 16 champions to play solo queue—we’ve got bad news for you. You’re going to have to buy four more.
The original requirement for owning 16 champs solved two problems. Firstly, it increased the chance that players have played the game long enough to culminate some knowledge about the game itself and at least a few champions. Of course, it’s possible to buy champs with RP, so this isn’t necessarily true, but it’s a nice floodgate for those that would rather jump into ranked without taking some time to understand how the game works.
Secondly, it ensures that players have enough champions in their arsenal to practice and make it through the six bans of the ban phase. Therefore, now that 10 bans are coming to regular games, it makes sense that the amount of required champions to play ranked would also increase. As for when all of this is happening, it could be very soon, according to Ben Forbes, a comms specialist at Riot.
With huge changes arriving with the midseason update in Patch 7.9, it will probably be shortly afterwards, in Patch 7.10 or 7.11. The benefit of adding 10 bans to regular games is obvious, as long as it doesn’t make the pre-game take too much longer. It brings the opportunity for deeper strategy by allowing teams to ban champs that counter their specific team comp, rather than just those that are OP at the time. It also forces players to develop their champion pools. If there’s a higher chance that your champ will get banned, obviously it’s a good idea to learn a few more.
If you were one of those folks that rushed to 16 champs to hop into ranked, don’t worry, there are probably some 450s you haven’t picked up yet. If you have them all already, then it’s time to get grinding.
