League of Legends has always had events. They usually come with new skins, new lore entries or new champions. Events used to be much more experimental than they are today. One event even removed a champion from the game entirely because the story wanted it that way.
What event is it about? In 2015 there was a special event for the city of Bilgewasser. The pirate city is known for all kinds of criminals. The Burning Tides event told a story in 4 acts about Miss Fortune, Graves, Twisted Fate and Gangplank.
The story told was also represented in the game in the form of various content. The ARAM map has been visually changed, even with a new announcer voice. Probably the most bizarre event at this event was the death of Gangplank.
At that point in the event, Miss Fortune supposedly killed Gangplank inside the lorry. She then gained power in Bilgewater. The skin Captain Miss Fortune is also based on this story. As part of Gangplank’s lore death, the champion was also removed from League of Legends. But this caused problems, especially in e-sports.
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Nobody could train with him
Where is the problem? If you started the game at the time, it just said: Gangplank is dead and has been disabled in all queues (e.g.: Gangplank is dead and has been removed in all modes). Gangplank was removed for a week and then came back with a rework that completely changed a style of play.
This caused a problem with e-sports matches, because it wasn’t playable on the test server either, otherwise the reveal wouldn’t have been so exciting. In subsequent e-sports events, Gabjokabj was immediately playable, even before he was back on the live servers for everyone.
Nobody could train with him or against him. A week is simply not enough time. The successful German Twitch streamer and former professional player Tolkin tells his own story about it in a stream, which you can see in this clip:
Actually, Champion and new patches are being rolled out carefully in e-sports. The Worlds, for example, are delayed because the professionals are of course preparing with their own picks and counterattack strategies.
If you were to change the patch every 2 weeks, even in the professional sector, training and preparation would be impossible.
What was the event like apart from this situation? The community remembers the event quite positively. The new lore was implemented into the game in a way that was interesting and fun for regular players. The new skins were good, a Gangplank skin was even free, the new game mode was unique and the players also liked the then new ARAM design.
Many people want an event like this again. The fact that a champion is removed for a week will probably never happen again, the game is too competitive for that these days. Whether we’ll ever get old game modes or even patches back is questionable. MeinMMO editor Nikolas Hernes tried to analyze it: LoL: Players want a game mode that WoW successfully brought 5 years ago – but can it work?