[2022] Quick Gameplay Thoughts 2/11: Champion Releases

Big shoutout to Blake and everyone else involved for making this great article and awesome champion, super excited to see her out there for everyone to enjoy!

yep

We've had champion release plans for a while, I think Pyke was when we started doing them. Skimming through it, we had plans for:

• Too Weak In Lane
• Laning Phase is Low Interaction
• Too Strong in Lane
• Too Tanky (or hard to punish) in the Midgame
• Late Game Presence Too Strong
• Fails To Function in Team Fights
• Team Fight Presence is Too Potent With Little Risk (fishing for Qs/Rs is sufficient)
• Optimal Build is Pure Tank
• Much Stronger at High MMR
• Much Stronger at Low MMR
• Played in a Solo Lane
• Too snowbally
• Leaves Lane / Roams too much
• Allied duo laner doesn’t feel like the lane is a collaborative effort
• Using R successfully proves too difficult; many games end without a single reset
• Pyke burst against squishies is too high. For instance, in normal situations Pyke can burst a squishy while missing E or Q
• Long term ban rate is too high
• Pro play presence is too high/low

That said we learn a lot about a champion when it releases like is mentioned in the article, so the plans can sometimes change quite a bit from the ideas we had about what we'd do pre-release.