The champion bans thread.

[Migey]

Bans.

I don't understand them. Well, I do, but what I don't understand is what people do with them. Today, I saw a Sona, Orianna, Karma, and Varus ban, of all things. Why do people ban certain champions, which are either very unthreatening compared to others, or very easily counterpicked (see Darius)?

Personally, I prefer to ban champions which can be VERY threatening to teams later on. Malphite, Blitzcrank, Teemo, etc, all are champions which bring a lot to turn things in the favour of an entire team throughout an entire game, rather then just a vaguely irritating laning phase. So who do you like to ban and why?

[Deepsidedj]

i like to ban tanks cos they make the game boring, i usually ban malphite garen rammus jarvan etc

[Rampant Rabbit]

Banning Sona isn't a bad choice, but I can think of plenty other good (and perhaps better) ban picks.

I mostly ban champions depending on what I'm planning to play, and also for my team mates if it's clear as to what they will play.

Just banning OP/broken champions also is an option if I want to play it safe.

[Isrozzis]

I usually ban the standard NA bans. Which would be shen, morgana, malphite, blitz, and then two of your choice. A lot of people ban alistar but I don't really mind dealing with him. Though if I have second pick, I often let morgana go through just so I can pick talon.

Jayce is also a good ban right now, because he can dominate top lane with relative ease.

[slackjawsix]

i think alistar should be banned his ability late game to run in and knock the whole team into the air is pretty damaging

[Deleted]

Come on, you're asking why people ban Darius and then, in the same post, you imply that banning Teemo is sensible due to his late game teamfighting potential? Oo

[akts]

Teemo

AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA
AHAHA
Aghahhahaa

Excuse me... AHAHAHAahahhah.

Oh, my stomach. Sona, Vlad and Orianna bans actually make sense, Varus and Teemo not so much. Anyway, people ban what they don't want to play against. I for one ban yoric and lee.

[Deleted]

I usually ban champions that I don't want to face when playing solo, but if I'm playing with a team I am a bit more careful on what I ban.

[Silverocean]

At My Elo the main bans are

Shen,Malphite,Blitz,Morganna(sometimes),Rengar,Alister

I think these are the safe bans imo

[Axethor]

My bans are fairly standard with a few personal ones. Malphite, Alistair, and Morgana are the standard 3. Usually one or both are banned by the enemy though so my fillers are Kassadin and Yorick.

Alistair I ban not because he is annoying to face as a support, but because of his insane ganking power from the jungle and his team fight potential. Malphite is for pretty much the exact same reason. Morgana for her team fight potential, but if I'm first pick and going mid or our mid can trade with me, I'll take her. Kassadin and Yorick are because I just hate playing against both of them.

Now why no Blitz and Shen?
No Blitz ban is because no one I face is going to have the skills of Xspecial or MadLife and land every pull. Also, just take Leona or Taric and you pretty much wreck the point of Blitz bot lane.
No Shen ban is because I really like to play jungle Shen and I punish every team that lets me take him. It's also my way of letting the enemy team eat up their bans so I can use mine on other less important bans, like Yorick.

[Makoblade]

Ban whatever you don't want to face, simply enough.

Shen and Blitzcrank are extremely obvious bans. Unless you're playing AD/Support, there's no reason to trust your teammates to be able to deal with Blitz in solo queue, and shen because his kit doesn't require much player skill to become a game changer.

Last ban is situational, generally i'll get rid of alistar because he's just annoying as a jungle, although malphite has similar capabilities to shen in that he is trivial to play impactfully.

While morgana is a relatively easy mid to play decently, she really has no place beign banned unless you are not confident in your own play mid.

[Deleted]

While morgana is a relatively easy mid to play decently, she really has no place beign banned unless you are not confident in your own play mid.

Morg is banned because of her teamfight potential (which is as easy to employ in a gamechanging fashion as Malph's or Shen's), not because of laning.

[Isrozzis]

My bans are fairly standard with a few personal ones. Malphite, Alistair, and Morgana are the standard 3. Usually one or both are banned by the enemy though so my fillers are Kassadin and Yorick.

Alistair I ban not because he is annoying to face as a support, but because of his insane ganking power from the jungle and his team fight potential. Malphite is for pretty much the exact same reason. Morgana for her team fight potential, but if I'm first pick and going mid or our mid can trade with me, I'll take her. Kassadin and Yorick are because I just hate playing against both of them.

Now why no Blitz and Shen?
No Blitz ban is because no one I face is going to have the skills of Xspecial or MadLife and land every pull. Also, just take Leona or Taric and you pretty much wreck the point of Blitz bot lane.
No Shen ban is because I really like to play jungle Shen and I punish every team that lets me take him. It's also my way of letting the enemy team eat up their bans so I can use mine on other less important bans, like Yorick.

The thing about blitz though is that if you miss fifteen or twenty grabs, oh well. But once you finally land one then you are probably going to get a kill or force a bunch of summoners. Or late game, if you get one grab on someone it's a 5v4, and your team is usually going to win. He's just so frustrating to lane against (I main AD) that he's a guaranteed ban from me.

[Axethor]

The thing about blitz though is that if you miss fifteen or twenty grabs, oh well. But once you finally land one then you are probably going to get a kill or force a bunch of summoners. Or late game, if you get one grab on someone it's a 5v4, and your team is usually going to win. He's just so frustrating to lane against (I main AD) that he's a guaranteed ban from me.

I don't know. I understand the not trusting your teammates part for solo que, but when I play an ADC against blitz I'm smart enough to not stand in grab range, or at least be able to quickly dodge behind minions or my support. When I support against blitz I always make sure to play Leona and stand in front of the ADC if I feel he is being stupid. It really is quite simple. Sure late game and teamfights the grabs become a problem, but if I'm playing Alistair, Skarner, Malphite, or any sort of initiator that's not Ashe I want to be grabbed so he does my job for me.

[Deleted]

In regards to banning Blitz, today earlier I had a game we lost because of one grab. Not the enemy grab though, the Blitz was on our team and decided grabbing a separated Amumu during our retreat from a disadvantageous situation in late game was a good idea. I think I needn't say what followed.

I like to ban Blitz exactly for this reason - too much of a wild card, a double edged sword. Might get picked by a skilled enemy and win the bot lane for them, might get picked by a derp on our side whose mission in life is to grab all the Alistars and Amumus.

[Axethor]

And this is why I don't ban Shen. Not because I don't consider him a threat, but because I can play him well. I wish I had taken a screenshot of the actual victory screen but I though about it after I left so we have this nice lolking screen cap instead.



Not impressive on it's own, but I pretty much set up Eve and Ezreal for the entire game through early ganks and only had to worry about top. I also had a clutch ult to bot lane that turned a 1-0 for them into a 0-4 for us. Ez was alone and got caught (he was fed at this point), I ult in to save Ez while my team moves in, taunt 4 of them and they all die. So while this is a perfect example of why TO ban Shen, it's why I personally don't ban him.

And yes, I like jungle better than top lane.

[lovecraft]

outside of normal bans, I tend to ban jayce, ez or rengar

[Deleted]

Standard strong champion bans, ban the people you/your team hate to play against and ban champion-counters eg if you want Irelia, you may want an Olaf ban. Possibly the same with Ahri banning Ryze.

[Deleted]

Ezreal, Shen, Malphite, Evelyn, Jayce and Katarina. Champions that i generally just hate dealing with.

[Toxigen]

Shen
Malphite
Blitz
Morgana
Jayce
Evelyn

These are the banned champs in 90% of my soloQ games.