Fearless Draft Reveals Riot’s Failures in League of Legends
Although it has allowed the trial of Fearless Draft in the LPL since 2024, it wasn’t until this year, when the LCK Cup 2025 also adopted this mechanism, that this special mode gained more attention. However, the reality has proven: Fearless Draft only further demonstrates Riot’s complete failure in balancing the game League of Legends.
Specifically, Riot’s inability to balance the champions in the game has created a significant disparity in win rates between the Blue and Red sides. The Blue side always has the more favorable and easier-to-execute picks, while the Red side has to choose counter champions. However, when applying Fearless Draft, and as the match goes to game 5, the number of options for the Red side is actually not that many anymore.
According to the overall statistics of the LCK Cup 2025, the Blue side does not have an overwhelmingly high win rate (61.5% – 38.5%). However, this is the data calculated across the group stage and the playoffs. In reality, looking specifically at the playoff matches and especially the finals or the matchups between the top 4 teams (T1, HLE, Gen.G, DK), the Blue side almost always wins.
Specifically, when the 3 teams HLE, Gen.G, and T1 faced each other, the Red side only won in 2 games. That was Gen.G (against HLE, group stage) and HLE (against Gen.G in the playoffs). Meanwhile, T1 could not secure a single victory when on the Red side, even at the 2023 World Championship, they were seen as a team that often made ‘strange’ picks to counter opponents when on the Red side. That season, T1 also had the highest win rate on the Red side (80%, prior to facing JDG).
In the finals of the LCK Cup 2025, Gen.G had to bring out champions that they likely knew were their players’ ‘weaknesses’, such as Trundle – a champion very difficult to execute combos with. Even when Chovy used Aurelion Sol, this champion was only the most feasible option among the remaining names, and Aurelion Sol had also been nerfed leading to its disappearance after a brief period of dominating the meta last year.
There is a high likelihood that Riot will not officially implement Fearless Draft across all League of Legends tournaments in 2025
With what the teams have shown at the LCK Cup 2025, Riot likely has enough evaluations and comments on Fearless Draft when applied to professional League of Legends. The overwhelming win rate of the Blue side, especially the 100% win rate in the finals between two teams considered quite evenly matched, has shown that the issue of champion balance has not yet been resolved thoroughly.
If Riot truly implements Fearless Draft, they need to ensure that any champion can maximize their potential 100%, whether on the Blue or Red side. Otherwise, Riot may need to address existing issues before considering the implementation of Fearless Draft in official tournaments.