Paranoia: “Yes, you’re trolling, but you’re also winning”

After Riot Games first banned and then unbanned a player who used a non-standard Nunu, there have been arguments in the League of Legends community about the fairness of that decision. In a column for Cybersport.ru, Virtus.pro captain Ivan “Paranoia” Tipukhov reflected on the ways in which new strategies emerge, and whether their inventors ought to be punished.

Nunu is an all right champion, but here he was used in a non-standard role. The player roamed all over the map with it. I think they were trolling. I’m usually annoyed by people who do that, but this person is playing at a high level, with a roughly 60% winrate with Nunu. This means it’s a tactic that works. Yes, you’re trolling, but you’re also winning, so why not use it? What if this gives rise to a roaming Nunu meta? We did after all have a toplane smite meta in Season 5. People didn’t start playing with Smite all at once, but one person tried and everybody went “wow, this could really work”. At first, though, it seemed the guy had forgotten to change his summoner spell, or was trolling too.

Such a strategy shift is a rare thing on the pro scene, but some do come to mind. There was one in Season 4, for example. Yevgeny “Darien” Mazaev was building various troll items, but it didn’t at all stop them from winning. So what does it matter what he builds as long as he wins? On the one hand, it might seem disrespectful; you’re ahead by 3,000 gold, and you waste it on useless items for your champion; that said, it does look fun, and the audience likes it. It’s normal in solo queue too, just as long as the player doesn’t go AFK or start griefing.

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I remember someone who played Rammus with Ghost and Teleport as summoner spells. He’d buy the Homeguard boot enchantment, which allowed him to teleport into the lane or roll into it with the speed bonus from the boots plus Powerball. His K/D at the end of the match was 0/80. This is the kind of dudes you’ve got to ban. But you shouldn’t touch those who are simply trying to win with an unexpected pick or unexpected plays.

In LCL Season 1, we played against Hard Random, for whom that match meant nothing at that point, while we were competing for the second place. We really needed to win it. As for them, they swapped roles in that game. Everyone who follows the scene remembers the jungling Kirill “Likkrit” Malofeev, the top-laning Alexandr “PvPStejos” Glazkov on LeBlanc, and Mikhail “Kira” Garmash playing Jhin. It was very disrespectful towards us, but actually, we had fun too, We used a non-standard strategy as well and won after 20 minutes, but nobody punished them for that. I’m against punishing players in general. You can fine the organization that allowed it to happen. Then the org itself will shake some sense into the player, and a situation like that won’t happen again.

Should picking carries as supports and vice versa be bannable? I don’t think it should. Let’s take the 2016 World Championship. Rox Tigers pick Miss Fortune as a support. No-one had used that champion in that role before, ever. But here they are picking her, and SK Telecom 1 are like, WTF? Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok even said on voice chat, “This must be a misclick. They made a mistake picking.” They thought their opponent was done for. And then they got stomped in two games with Miss Fortune. If RoX Tigers had tested this champion during practice and it worked fine, why not try using it in official games? The same thing may happen with Nunu.

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