WBG’s Victory Highlights the Terrible Mechanics of the 2025 Season
On January 12th, the professional League of Legends scene roared back to life as LPL 2025 Split 1 officially kicked off with a lopsided clash between WBG and OMG. With a superior roster, WBG did not allow OMG to create any surprises and secured a straightforward 3-0 victory. It’s important to note that WBG shares a group with another formidable opponent, JDG, so this win gives Xiaohu and his teammates a significant advantage in the race for the group’s top spot.
Not stopping there, WBG’s victory also led viewers of the tournament to discover one of the worst mechanics of the 2025 season. WBG’s wins were relatively “one-sided,” and OMG offered no significant resistance. The reason for this is that once this team secured the new objective called Atakhan, they gained an overwhelming strength to snowball the game and secure victory. Even in the third game, when OMG had a strong start and secured the Power Chain, once WBG claimed the Atakhan objective, they could easily win shortly after.
Clearly, from the perspective of the viewers, the Atakhan objective is a terribly designed mechanic as it almost eliminates the excitement or surprise of the match. Essentially, the bonuses it provides are too strong and give the team that secures it far too many advantages to win. Furthermore, claiming this objective is closely related to the teams’ macro handling and map movement capabilities. Therefore, strong teams with systematic playstyles (like WBG in this match) can easily suppress their opponents and eliminate any emotional “comebacks”.
League of Legends Needs Major Changes in the Future
Essentially, since the 2025 season landed in League of Legends, the gaming community has sensed the imbalance of the game. A series of statistics in ranked mode show that the win rates of mechanics like the Power Chain and Tier 3 Boots are extremely high. This means that the snowball effect in League of Legends, which was already strong, has become even more pronounced, making matches far too predictable.
It should be noted that in professional matches, players will know how to fully exploit even the smallest advantages to win. And when the game provides them with too many tools to snowball (Power Chain, Atakhan buffs…), players can end matches in an incredibly short time. Clearly, from the perspective of tournament viewing experience, audiences do not want to witness too many “one-sided” and predictable matches like this. Hopefully, Riot Games will soon have a reasonable adjustment plan to improve this issue.