Top 10 Reasons to Ban Champions

Hey guys, I'm on a super wonky sleep schedule at the moment, so here I am typing away at some crazy hour! For this week's Top 10, let's revisit one of the most important aspects of ranked queue: the ban phase.

Banning champions is the one time in the game where your ban skill isn't determined by your technical mastery of the game, but instead almost entirely by the mental prowess you have. Years of experience culminated together, and your reasons for banning a champion are likely one of the following:

Introduction

Hey guys, I'm on a super wonky sleep schedule at the moment, so here I am typing away at some crazy hour! For this week's Top 10, let's revisit one of the most important aspects of ranked queue: the ban phase.

Banning champions is the one time in the game where your ban skill isn't determined by your technical mastery of the game, but instead almost entirely by the mental prowess you have. Years of experience culminated together, and your reasons for banning a champion are likely one of the following:

YOU think a champion is overpowered

The number one reason you ban a champion is the most obvious, which is that you think that champion is overpowered. Whether that's true or not is a different matter, so let's move quickly and not dwell on this one.

Your teammates think a champion is overpowered

Here we start getting a little tactical. If your teammate thinks a champion is overpowered, you might decide to ban that champion. Maybe you're not entirely sure what to ban, or maybe you just want to make your teammates happy and rage free.

The best reason for doing this is that you're banning a champion you BOTH think is overpowered. Nice!

Enemy smurf wants to play

Did someone just queue dodge? Did you see an ally on your team just before the dodge with a 22-2 win rate with Rengar and a 22 KDA? That doesn't sound pleasant. Maybe you want to just ban out Rengar before discovering how he got such outrageous scores....just in case.

Allied troll wants to play

Going back to the research, maybe you looked up your ally "iliketoplaynewchamps" and noticed he lost his last 15 ranked games in a row with Taliyah mid. Maybe he did not indicate which champion he's planning on playing this game, but maybe it would still be best to take her off the table...just in case.

Cuz Teemo

Sometimes you're playing top lane and just imagine Teemo killing you over and over while spamming laugh.

BAN

Tired of these shenanigans

Are you tired of seeing Lucian in every single game you play? Maybe just ban him for the sake of variety. He's pretty damn strong either way.

Another angle to this one is maybe you got invaded by Nidalee and gave first blood the last five games in a row. Perhaps this game you could ban her and take that one out of play as well.

The Long Con

Do you want to play Malzahar but just KNOW he's going to get banned every single game? Maybe start off the ban phase with something like a Gragas ban. You know, one of those arbitrary bans that leave the enemy team wondering, "okay...who are we forgetting..."

Just be sure to let your teammates in on it too.

The Tactical Long Con

The advanced version of the long con, maybe you want to play Kindred and tease out that Gragas ban, and then your team follows up with an Azir ban. Polish that off with an Janna ban, pick Taric and Kindred, and proceed to dominate. 

More on that combo here.

Just watch out for the double long con where the enemy team ends up with Lucian, Malzahar, and Ekko.

Can't dodge pulls

SSJSuntastic can't dodge pulls.

SSJSuntastic bans Blitzcrank.

SSJSuntastic is smart.

Be like SSJSuntastic.

Anti-One-Trick-Pony Spray

Now I'm not saying this is a NICE thing to do, but say you friended some guy that only plays Singed last game, and you noticed he's in champion select too.

All's fair in love and ranked right? If anything tell someone else to ban so he doesn't remove you from his buddy list. *WINK*

Do you have any other reasons for banning champions? Which reasons dominate your ban phase? Comment below!