A champion balance myth that many believe is false

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In League of Legends, there is an assumption circulating among players: difficult-to-play champions in LoL, which are mainly played as “main characters”, have a higher win rate than other champions and are therefore weakened more often. But is that true?

What is this myth?

  • LoL has 164 champions. Some of them, especially the difficult ones, are often played as “main champions”: That’s what it’s called when a player mainly plays this one champion and specializes in it. In extreme cases, one speaks of a “one-trick pony.”
  • Players who only play this champion do very well with it and therefore achieve particularly high win rates. Above all, “difficult-to-play champions” like Yasuo are such “main champions.”
  • As a result, the champion’s stats are very good, Riot Games rates them as “too strong,” and then nerfs them.

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    Balance boss says: Myth about main champs is not true

    Is that correct? No, that’s obviously not true. LoL developer Matthew Riot Phroxzon Leung-Harrison says in a video podcast he has been studying this point intensively for a year and a half (via youtube). The man has been the lead game designer for LoL’s Summoner’s Rift team since December 2021 and is responsible for game balance.

    He’s looked at champions played by people with very high Mastery values, so you can assume that the hero is their “main character”.

    With a hero like Yasuo, these “main players” would make up about 15%, who are also very good at handling the hero. But even that 15% doesn’t add up as much to the stats as players think:

    “Most of the people in the ranks are in a low mastery range. 30-40% of players who play a champ are with them in 0-15 games.”

    The developer notes that the impact main players have on their champion’s win rate is offset by people playing this difficult champion for the first time and failing with it.

    The developer says they’ve done this research fairly thoroughly, and only one champ has an exception: Katarina’s win rate from people with high Mastery is about 0.4% higher. With Evelynn it is roughly 0.1%.

    People with 25,000 Mastery and up are offset by people failing their 1st game with a hero.

    The podcasters he speaks to explain the effect:

  • A beginner would play against a main character who looks incredibly strong with their hero and wins
  • Then the beginners would switch to this champ because they also want to be as strong, but then they don’t get a foot on the ground

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    How is this discussed? Reddit is talking about certain champions that were difficult to play in the “release” state but could dominate if a main player mastered them, such as Aurelion Sol or Taliyah. But these heroes were then quickly nerfed by Riot Games.

    Such one-trick ponies don’t always have it easy either:

    Twitch streamer just plays a champ in LoL and Riot nerfs him dead – But he just can’t leave him

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