As some of you may know, Riot announced a new Gamemode last week called “One For All”.  This mode hit the PBE a few days ago, and I have had some time to play around with it and form an opinion.

To start, I just want to explain what “One For All” is in my own words.  One For All is a 5v5 battle on the Summoner’s Rift, where each team consists of 5 of the exact same champions.  The game is played out like any other game on Summoner’s Rift, and there are no changes in items or objectives.

The Pregame Lobby – A team captain gets to ban 3 champions from the game, just as a normal draft lobby is conducted.  This results in 6 total banned champions for that game.  After the banning phase, each player gets to choose a champion which is then up for vote.  Each player’s respective team can see their vote, however, the other team cannot.  It is a majority rules system, so whichever champion has the most votes will be the champion that is played by all members of that team.  If there is a tie, or no majority, the game will randomly choose from those which are tied for the most votes.  Potentially you could have 5 different votes, meaning it will be a 20% chance for each of those champions to be chosen.  Each team votes on their own team’s champion, so it’s not a mirror match 5v5.  This means you could potentially have, for example, 5 Garen’s Vs. 5 Syndra’s.  You could also have 5 Garen’s Vs. 5 Garen’s.  It depends how the vote goes, and it is blind to the other team.

The Game – The game is conducted like any other League of Legends game on Summoner’s Rift.  Depending on the champion selected, however, the meta will differ.  Some teams will have a jungler, some will not.  Some teams will go 2-1-2, which means two champions top lane, one midlane, and two bottom lane.  Sometimes you will even see all 5 players go mid, making it somewhat of an ARAM.

My Thoughts – I like the idea of this mode, mostly because it gives players something fun to play that differs from the current meta.  I do think, however, that the game is decided too quickly based on which champions are playing which.  Hard counters exist in League of Legends, and if you are playing 5v5 against your counters, you probably don’t have a chance.  The fun factor of this game can die quickly when one team has complete advantage over the other team just from level 1.  Some games are close, but for the most part they have been very short and one sided.  This makes it a bit frustrating at times, and has already somewhat kept me out of that playlist.

I would almost like to see the champion select be random.  I think it would be more fun if every player on each team had to choose a different champion, and then the game randomly chose one of those champions for the team.  This means teams could not always pick the “most OP champion”, because it would still end up being a game of chance.  It would also force variety in the playlist, which I think is a big part of the potential fun the playlist brings.  Once players find a few champions who excel at this playstyle, we will probably see little variety in champions chosen.  My idea would force games to be a bit more random and exciting.

What are your thoughts on One For All?  How do you think Champion Select should work?