Picks and Bans: Countering or Team Play?

With the new Ranked system just around the corner, I started getting to work on my - not too awesome - ELO, which is about 1150~. Every game had about the same bans (Malphite, Shen, Amumu, and recently Kha'Zix more and more), but the team comps that ensued from these bans have gotten really strange.

Not only have AD Casters been taking over the midlane more and more - to my great displeasure, as I am a seasoned AP Mid player - but the picks in my ELO range have been more and more about counterpicking, rather than for the sake of the team.

I'll take this one game as an example. I was Duo-Q'ing with a friend of mine, and his alltime favorite champion is Yorick. Yorick's nemesis, and team fight beast, is Cho'Gath, and as such, the latter was quickly dropped from the game, leading to Cylosix instalocking Yorick. After a series of picks and bans without a certain mid on the enemy's part, I was like "Hm.. Brand? Pretty stable mid... wait, screw it. Karthus." Expecting some kind of assassin champion - Katarina, Evelynn, something of the kind - the enemy last picked an AP Tristana, who is a burst goddess... but that's about it.

Admittedly, early game was dreadful. Enemy Jungle Pantheon was a wrecker, contibuting to two kills in a row on top and mid lane respectively, which set us back a reasonable amount. By the time I got back in lane, Tristana had two levels up on me, and was in such an advantage that the last time I checked my score before the end of the game, I was 2/5. I was pretty sure the game was over, since we had no fed ADC or anything. Nothing on our part was fed, and I had to admit I got counterpicked pretty well. Additionally, their Xin Zhao was able to poop all over Cylo's Yorick, which led to a fed and farmed Xin, able to roam. Sad days.

But that's when 'picking for the team's sake' came in. While Tristana had rediculous burst, she had absolutely nothing to contribute to a teamfight with. Sure enough she'd be able to kill someone within the blink of an eye with Buster Shot, but after that, she'd get caught and pooped on really quickly. And to top it off, Tristana got fed off of all lanes, including botlane, resulting in an underfed ADC for the enemy. Having one fed burster and one fed bruiser is not enough, as it turned out. Yorick got the hang of things during team fights, where he'd copy our Miss Fortune, who'd get focused real fast because she was farmed, and had a few kills.

What broke the game for the enemies was not really the fact that the wrong people were fed. It's their lack of a good team composition. We had Wall of Pain racking up with Bullet Time and Dragon's Descent, and an Absolute Zero. The enemy kept focusing the ADC, and while I Flashed onto their team and died because "Oh, wild Karthus appeared!", I had the advantage of 7 seconds of free cast. Requiem hit everybody hard, and either cleaned up the entire fight with a number of triple kills or left someone bleeding to get finished off. Not to pat myself on the chest, but I could have picked Xerath to fulfill my selfish damage-dealing and long-range killstealing needs. Instead, I took something for the team, which eventually led me to 20/11 and us to the win.

So this made me wonder about a few things. Are there really that big a differences between high ELO and low ELO (aside from the obvious skill level)? At IEM Katowice, Evelynn, Kha'Zix, Elise and Lee Sin were pretty much standard bans in nearly every game, whereas Shen, Malphite, Amumu and Cho'Gath are the bans I have seen recently in ranked play. Additionally, where Elise and Olaf were permabans or picks in the group stages, so do my Ranked games have Kha'Zix and Evelynn as permabans 0r picks.

So I'd like to know. Do picks and bans revolve around team fight and team composition and use, or are they a point of selfishness? Is a Karthus ban a waste of ban, or a prevention of team fight domination and frustrating yes-or-no escapes? Is a Shen ban a good idea due to his amazing lategame prowess, or could you counterpick him and spend the ban on a different champion; Elise perhaps? And is it wise to pick a Nasus against anything, or a Karthus against anything, or are those too, wastes of picks?

What justifies a good pick or ban, is my question. Do picks and bans come from early game domination - I'm looking at you, Shaco - do they come from pure power - Kha'Zix and Pantheon - or are they a result of careful elaboration and picking, ending up with team fighting beasts like Galio or Karthus or something of the sort? I'd like to know your view on it. What are criteria for a pick for you, or criteria for a ban? And what justifies a pick? Skill? Counterpick? Late game utility?