Written by: Sergio 'Bonnene' Alarcon  

When analyzing pick and bans in competitive play, it’s important to note what side you are on, which champions are OP in the current patch, and what style of team composition you wish to run. Blue side has the advantage of first picking a priority champion, or taking away a strong pick from the enemy team; however, red side also has its advantages – of which the option to do a  2-for-1 trade is included. This means they ban in such way that blue side needs to decide which champions they prioritize, and what they are willing to give up.

There is plenty of strategy behind the pick and ban phase in competitive that involves not only giving up champions to bait a certain pick, but also picking something that the enemy may not expect. With this in mind, let us take a look at how the pick and bans between Invictus Gaming and Vici Gaming in week two of LPL panned out to further help understand how it works.

Due to a last minute roster swap from Song “RooKie” Eui-jin and Zeng "Pokemon" Tao to Baek "Save" Young-jin and Liu "Zzitai" Zhihao, Invictus Gaming lost their bans in this particular game. With IG being blue side they got the first pick, but what do they want? By not having the option to ban anything this game a lot of top tier picks have been left open, and by looking at the bans of Vici Gaming were Rek'Sai and Azir, which are considered almost necessary red side bans.  They also banned Sivir, a heavily favored pick for AD carries as it provides engage both disengage and disengage, Sivir also brings wave clear and pushing power with ricochet and boomerang blade.

So what does IG pick then? In their first rotation they decided to go for Jarvan, which is an obvious choice as it is considered a strong, if not the strongest jungler in current meta. Here IG could have opted for either Lee Sin for early pressure or Nunu to further boost the Tristana pick later in the draft, but they would then have to give up Jarvan,

VG then decides to pick Janna and Kassadin, due to support player, Cho "Mata" Se-hyeong being a very strong Janna player, as seen in his time at Samsung Galaxy White, and Kassadin being a flex pick. The role of flex picks in competitive is to have a champion that can be played in different lanes, thus making the opponent insecure and reducing the chance of being counter picked.

In their second rotation, IG went for Nami and Tristana. Not only did Ge "Kid" Yan go for the hyper late-game carry, but he took away one of VG’s Li "Vasilii" Wei-Jun’s strongest champions at the moment. For the support role, they could have gone with Thresh, which would provide peel and engage for the Tristana, but would have left out Nami’s heal to keep Tristana healthy in lane.

The Nami pick here serves as a safe lane partner for an otherwise poor early game champion, and also as a great disengage tool to keep the Tristana safe in team fights. The Tristana pick for IG made Vasilii pick Caitlyn to use as a lane bully along with the pick of Lee Sin for a strong early-mid game jungler to help the slow and weak power of the Kassadin and Caitlyn during the early to mid stages of the game.

For their last champions, IG locks in Gnar and Xerath to offer the team a strong front line and also give them a champion that is strong in both defensive and offensive siege, helping the Tristana achieve late-game status. Lastly, VG decides to save their last pick for the top lane and picks Rumble, a solid counter and safe pick against Gnar. In VG’s composition,  Rumble also fulfills the role of zoning and mid game damage where Caitlyn’s power spike is relatively slow and needs time to ramp up.

The pick and ban phase in competitive League of Legends can be difficult at times, and with so many champions and more being added, the way teams draft constantly changes. League of Legends is also a patch based game where a certain patch often benefits a champion in some way. When one champion gets strong, teams try to counter it with various team compositions or with champion picks.

A big portion of a game can be decided in pick and bans, and we can see teams win or lose there. Many of the top teams in every region do not only win because of superior play, but many of them also win by just out picking the enemy team. 

This is the introductory piece to Sergio's "Pick&Ban" series.  If you enjoy it and would like to see more, follow @bonnenelol for more content.