All Random, All Mid; The new place for Rage?

Disclaimer: this blog represents the opinion of the author and not that of Team Dignitas.

Like many others, I was excited by Riot’s introduction of the Howling Abyss and all the content that came about due to the Freijord Update. Obviously the content I was looking forward to the most was the introduction of the ARAM queue because instead of having to deal with the old method of creating a Custom Game and waiting for the teams to fill up, which could take a while.

The old method just endured a countless number of queue leavers due to the other team’s champions being considered “overpowered” or they didn’t like the champion they randomly received (the whole purpose of ARAM). This was the main concern when Riot brought in their new queue and brought about the Re-roll System in order to combat the leavers (something that has been achieved). Okay, so there are occasionally the odd one or two leavers but not as often as it was using Custom Games, which I’m sure most ARAMers will agree on.

Now for me personally ARAM was this mode where I could get out the stress of Ranked Queues after having a couple of bad games or as a warm-up to my Ranked Games. This meant not taking them as seriously as I would by; trying out some item builds, playing champs I wouldn’t normally play and just talking to the others Summoners. Now this worked great previously, but after ARAM become its own queue I believe this stress-free zone has been taken out of it unless I’m in a party of three or more. The number of ARAM games I’ve been in now where I’ve been called a “noob” or been told to “learn how to play” is countless, I’ve even been told to go the League of Legends: Noob Academy. 

And as I stated earlier; I use ARAMs to try out items on Champions that I wouldn’t typically use, to have fun in a game I love to play and relieve the stress of Solo Queue whilst the other Summoners on my team seem to be there to be extremely competitive. Now, don’t get me wrong I like to be competitive but ARAMS is my stress reliever where I have fun, not where I want to be shouted at for building AD Ahri or AP Varus.

I personally do not know whether it’s the fact Riot made ARAM a queue or there has been a sudden change in Summoner attitude but for me ARAM has lost its fun environment. Now I know my friends feel the same way as they only play ARAM when there is 5 available to them so they know they can still have that fun element and without that possibility of someone raging in chat only over RaidCall.