A look into Blind Pick and Draft Mode

A look into Blind Pick and Draft Mode: by Eric “Volpe” Volpe

Every player regardless of match making rating, level, or years of experience has played through blind pick. Players learn their basics of League of Legends in Blind Pick, and while the mode could be “Co-op vs AI” or jumping into normal games from level one, the same rules of Blind Pick apply.

The rules of Blind Pick listed below are more guidelines but still commonly thought to be good manners to follow.

1. Call your role.
2. Don’t insta-lock your role if someone already called it.
3. Stick to “meta”.
4. Don’t like it, dodge.

The little level of teamwork and communication that would occur in a typical game made having a team where no one raged, dodged, or trolled was a rare blessing.

By putting five people together who don’t know each other, and think they must call and lock their role as fast as possible, bad habits are created. While this isn’t true for every player, a majority of lower level players get these bad habits from Blind Pick. This occurrence stems mostly from the fact a role is called and not discussed. By calling a role players will care more about locking their champion and role instead of talking to their team and figuring out what could be good for the team and what would mesh poorly with the team.

This idea of calling and lack of teamwork created by Blind Pick is then translated into ranked matches. Players rarely go into Draft Mode before playing ranked because of how long it takes to get into game and that they might not get to play flavor of the month or the new champion because of picks and bans. While that is understandable and a player should be allowed to play what they want within reason, a player will go into ranked queues not understanding that you need to work with the people on your team and not against them, even if it means playing the role you didn’t want to play.

When people in Blind Pick have their preferred role called and locked, it is normal to see a player either lock a champion of that role anyways, or pick a champion that isn’t helpful for the role they are suppose to play and hinder their team. This is normally done to try and get someone on the team to dodge the queue instead of playing an assumed lost game. While instalocking and picking improper champions isn’t just seen in Blind Pick but all game modes, Blind Pick has one issue over Draft Pick. A player who messes with their team and picks a champion to mess with the team can be reacted to in draft. If in ranked a pick is done against what was expected, players have much more time to react to the pick and try to make the game still work out without giving in to the troll.

The idea of being able to react is one that Blind Pick doesn’t offer to a player. Blind Pick is exactly how it sounds, neither team knows what the other one is playing, and this lack of knowledge can highly change the outcome of a game. The champions picked in Blind are much different than that of Draft because champions aren’t banned but also because the champion may be hard to counter with commonly seen Blind Pick champions. Even if in Draft Pick a player doesn’t get to counter their opponent the player is still given knowledge that could matter a lot.

The knowledge of what is being played matters greatly so a player and team can make changes accordingly.

 

A player is given various different rune and mastery pages, so if a situation occurs they're able to play a different lane. The best example is seen in mid lane. In mid the common rune setup carries health per level yellows and sometimes magic resist blues. A player going mid may want to change their rune page if they see an AD mid such as Zed, Riven, Lee Sin, Pantheon, or Talon. Each of these champions can play mid and would do very well if their enemy carries no armor. A simple change of runes due to the information given can be the difference between a mid laner losing the early game or winning the lane which can translate into a team winning or losing.

On top of the laning phase a team may want to make picks based off of the champions picked by the enemy. A team that sees a Malphite picked would probably not want to go full AD, and on the reverse a team that picked an AD top and AD mid would make Malphite a good choice for the enemy team. By being able to see what the team is picking and getting an idea of their comp a team can make it so they have an easier time fighting said comp. This is massively different than in Blind Pick because in Blind Pick a team could easily pick a full AOE dive team and the enemy have no idea and not be able to make any choices to stop the comp. By allowing the information of what each team is picking to occur, the pre-game gains much more depth and strategy that can make the difference between winning or losing.

With all of these negatives going into one single game mode it begs the question of why would it be so commonly played and used as the basics to learning the game. While Blind Pick does teach a player many bad habits and misconceptions on how League of Legends works as a team game, Blind Pick is still very needed to the starting community of League of Legends.

Riot keeps Blind Pick in League of Legends because without it various changes would be made. The most major is that there would need to be at least 16 free champions each week. The reason an increase in free to play champions would have to occur is because draft pick takes 16 champions as a whole. The 5 for each team and the 6 banned. If a player wants to play draft they must own 16 champions first.

Even if a change to free to play champions occur, the notion of picking and banning would cause a massive learning overload for new players. Players need to take the time to learn the basics of playing the game before going into a complicated process based off of communication and teamwork.

Draft Mode is important for players trying to learn the ranked aspect of League of Legends. However, this process is not perfect either. Draft Mode can cause issues just as well as Blind Pick. Without any way to keep the draft mode chat in check, players can be very toxic, trolling, and unreasonable without it ever going to the Tribunal. While the team can report after a game the damage is already done, LP is lost, the game is lost, and time is wasted. On top of this Draft Mode gives a false sense of entitlement due to the pick order.

Pick order is the best way Draft Pick has of giving each player a chance to pick their champion and fill roles as needed. With this system a player given first pick feels as if they’re the best on the team and last pick is normally forced to fill or play a role they aren’t good at. If a player doesn’t want to get the team against them they must keep to the pick order system regardless of what logical ideas they have or reasons of why they should not fill the position needed.

When looking at both Blind Pick and Draft Pick a number of negatives and positives can be seen in both. Each mode can cause players to feel bullied into a role that they don’t feel safe playing, and players can get a false sense of leadership or entitlement due to a concept mostly made up of luck due to either calling a role first or being first pick. Lastly, no matter what both game modes have a chat system that can allow players to be toxic to others without the actions ever coming back to haunt them.

While these systems are flawed in these ways both are still very good at what they are meant to do. Blind Pick help players get into the game without an overload, they can play what they feel they are good at and practice champions who are free to play or that they spent their hard earned IP / RP on. Draft Pick creates the competitive aura and system that allows players to know what it is like to be a pro player. Draft Pick allows a much more strategic aspect to a concept as simple as picking champions, and players who understand the system can utilize it to allow for counter picking, selecting proper runes and masteries, as well as creating the ideal comp to win the game.