Could you not summarize support Gragas as very similar?

Both GP and Gragas boast subpar winrates. (objectively a weak champ and thereby unemotional at all)

Gragas is a safe, selfish pick because he's a tanky and mobile support who "accidentally" manages to leach a fair amount of CS. His teamfight impact is selfish and safe as well, compared to more conventional supports. Oh, and if you build him glass cannon, he's really dependent on making sure top and/or mid does really well.

If it only takes one ability to make a champion fit a teamcomp, why does that not apply to gangplank? (both have similar engagement and disengagement value).

Furthermore, GP ult allows him to have some global presence to counter the Karthus. What do you need to do when you're getting 3v2'd + Karthus ult? Run away. GP ult helps you do that and prevents additional deaths. This is "yet another" thing that GP does in that particular matchup.

I totally understand where Pacov is coming from and can see why he was upset with my pick but I think the important thing is that when I pick GP I am not trolling. Maybe when some one else picks him it is trolling but I actually have a decent amount of experience with him and have had success playing him.

People need to stop complaining about internal tier lists.

Unless you are in high Diamond or something, you simply aren't good enough such that tier lists matter that much.  A very well played tier 3 champion at least as good as a kind of well played tier 2 champion at our level of play.  We just aren't good enough to consistently exploit somebody like Gangplank's weaknesses in the long term, so the game comes down to individual skill on champions just like it always does.

I mean, I agree that in theory GP isn't a great champion.  But he has a higher winrate than Lucian and Renekton when I checked yesterday.  You know why?  Because tier lists matter a whole hell of a lot less than individual skill on that champion.

I mean, I probably wouldn't encourage a new player to learn to play something like AD Sion top, but if somebody happens to already be good at somebody not currently popular, I don't have a problem with them playing it. (The guy we were playing with the other day is not good with the champions he plays top and is still learning them, so thats another issue...).

Plus, there are a lot of bigger factors that you should be worrying about at champ select.  Namely, team composition.  We have all this complaining about people picking champions that aren't high enough on somebody's tier list, but we ignore MUCH larger problems.

Take last night.  We first picked a top/jungle combo of Nidalee/Eve.  Come on.  Thats TERRIBLE unless we are going for some kind of extreme split push, no teamfighting at all comp.  We get no CC, no front line from our jungle/top.  Nidalee could poke in principle, but Eve can't, so we don't really have siege either.  Then we quickly follow up with a mid pick of Malzahar.  So that doesn't fit at all with split pushing, so we have a nothing comp.

But because those are 3 champs that don't violate anybody's tier list, nobody says anything despite the fact that the game is basically unwinnable (unless the other team is openly incompetent).  But if somebody had picked something that made a better team comp and therefore gave us a better chance to win, but happened to violate a tier list, we would get a 2 day ongoing thread about it.

(I'm not saying that the game in question was lost because of team comp since everybody lost their lanes, but the game would have been lost even with good lanes due to comp).

Well, I don't think I'm personally going on and on about tier lists as much as I simply believe GP is a weak champ.  It's his jacked up kit that is just smeh.  And I don't believe a game is lost because of a single pick. In the instance I've been talking about, I believe we needed a stronger pick.  But, skip all that and lets talk about tier lists and the meta then.

Now, I generally don't get too sour when I see someone take an arguably weaker champ (based on some tier list or experience).  I'm actually generally ok with that and its fun to play various champs in various roles.  I personally generally dislike meta changes like dbl bruiser bot and just don't find them fun. No tier list involved there... just something I generally don't like.

I also dislike picks that force you into behaving a certain way - all really enforced by a champion pick.  That's not to say some of those picks are bad; I just don't like em.  For instance, a ww jungle means no pressure until he hits 6.  Knowing that, lanes have to adapt and are typically put in a position of having ganks from the enemy team and none for you team.  In short it puts you into a position where you can fall behind, but then have the expectation of getting back ahead once ww hits 6.  Another example is ww mid.  Sure, its a champ that you can pick, have good sustain and do fine, but you generally need a jungler's attention to make anything of that ww mid unless its you are up against a baddie..  Nothing really wrong with doing that, though.  Just not my preference.  WW mid isn't conventional, but it works and he can provide tanky engage for the team later.  GP can win his lane and provide very little later imo. 

But continuing in that, there are gains the team gets out of not just composition, but certain champs.  For instance, a fizz that's either doing well solo or because his jungler got him ahead is a major threat to the enemy team in pretty much all lanes.  A gp is a threat to the other mid laner and that's about it (sure, he has some minor power with his ult, but its just not that good).  Anyway, the biggest benefit I'd expect out of a gp mid lane is for him to keep the enemy mid busy and unable to roam/impact other lanes.  Except if its karthus, then he can still impact other lanes.... so the most I can really hope for is that karth it kept from csing and leveling a bit early/mid.

Anyway, here's where you START to get into tier lists, but also think about team comp.  I can put champs into tiers based on how they would do in a certain role, vs a certain matchup, in a certain comp, etc.  There's nothing wrong with that and its good to be able to think about all of those things.  That said, some champs are certainly better than others at certain things.  I don't get terribly bent out of shape when people aren't picking god tier champs in the slightest.  A god tier champ might be rubbish when played by someone in our group.  Not a big deal and nothing to be dogmatic about. 

I guess my main thought is that I don't super care about tier lists (either?).  I also agree that I would very much like us to think more about composition.  That's more problematic when someone like karl can't muster the words "I'd like to play jungle," ofc.  And when we have certain folks with us (eg that fella that went eve... idk, sy going whatever he felt like). 

But here's where we hit some crap:  let's say I've been playing support all night. I want to play top as nidalee for a game.  OK, now we get some guy that has decided they want to play eve (nothing to do with karl refusing to say "I'd like to jungle" hue).  Well, now I'm in a position of having to be like well... guess I won't play nidalee now (even though I've been playing support all night and just wanted to do one thing for fun...).  So, I have to beg off and go play some other champ. 

So, what should we be trying to do more proactively to get better team comps?  Some of the MC folks just want to play w/e they want to play (I enjoying playing with those particular folks quite a bit less and don't invite them as often).  Thoughts? 

The problem is that literally every champ warps the team into behaving a certain way.

Leona forces botlane to be aggro, even if they just want to sit back and take it easy. Kog'maw alone creates "protect the Kog", even if there are many ways to play a PTK comp. An enemy picking Ryze top or Kass mid requires your jungler to be proactive about ganking those lanes pre-6 or else they're done for. And neglecting other lanes in the meantime.

Like the discussion we had less week or whatever, mid + jungle picks along completely dictate the pacing of your teamcomp for the first 15 minutes.

Overall, perhaps this entire conflict could be resolved by just playing Ranked 5s. At least then everyone is coerced into trying hard

Another alternative (as benevolant!leader!pacov) that you could do is just start hosting more games on TeamBuilder. Let teambuilder be your "okay fuck around and do whatever" queue and then draft is more serious. :shrug:.

i know that you've been supporting a ton recently, and it's pretty natural to want a more "Authentic" game when you don't have to support. i think that's perfectly natural (and going Nidalee in the Nid/Eve thing was probably fine). But if there's one person every game who is in "fug it mode, i'm playing Teemo jungle" every single queue, these issues are going to continue persist.

Either everyone needs to care about team comp and try to make a dedicated effort (and that means more than just your lane matchup), or no one should.

also... when the crap are you going to join us again for games Hedgie?

my internet is pretty crappy sporadically. Frequently during the hours y'all are on.

You pretty much covered exactly why I made the comment re: ww.  We reach the same conclusion - its not necessarily bad, mind you, but it requires adaptation.  You also note that most of those champs I don't currently play.  Worked through them, did a bunch of math, testing, playthroughs, etc.  Decided to drop most of them BECAUSE of the adaptation required. 

One game where you played ww mid, other lanes were struggling quite a bit and I wanted to try to get them back into it.  But then there's mr ww at mid wanting a gank because he can't do anything without one.  Champs that can't do anything without a gank are weaker than champs that can solo.  Again, it ain't a bad thing, per se, because that ww comes in handy later on and, at the least, can typically hold his lane.  But that also removes a bunch of damage from the team comp which means other lanes need to do well so there is more dmg to compensate. 

I agree re: ww jungle warping team comps less than nid... kinda anyway. 

Played a couple ranked last night.  

Got my Plat 1 back c:

"Got my Plat 1 back c:"

YAWN... when you are you going to sack up and grind out diamond? We could try duoing a few times again if you want some one that isn't terrible 75% of the time.

Morgana as an initiator:

I have always thought of her as more of a pick specialist with her Q or a go in 2nd type of champion with her ultimate. She is not reliable for starting fights. Flash+Ult+Zhonyas to start a fight is very unrealiable when compared to all the champions I listed (not to mention only possible late into the game). Pretty much all the champions I listed require only two spells to do the same thing without using flash (but it can be used if necessary). She is strong at getting picks and pooring on the CC after a fight has already started but not at being the heart and soul of our team fight engage.

Banning lee singah:

Sounds like a plan.

You're a much better jungler than I am Karl, but I've had some experience playing Lee and have a talent for kicking dangerous enemies towards Pacov and Hedgie when they're low on health.  I will teach you.

I think Eve is built pretty tanky nowadays after her SotEL right?  I'd disagree that your jungle stable is an huge issue though.  You don't play the big three but you do play their counters like Udyr...