The 2016 season of League of Legends has ended, and the 2017 preseason is now live. I played less LoL in 2016 than prior years (just a little over 100 ranked games in 2016), and didn’t really follow the meta or patch changes as often as I have in the past. I finished the season in plat (funny enough in a promo series), but lower in plat than I have been in the past.

Not following the meta mostly limited my champion pool. In the past I had 2-3 solid options for mid, top, jungle, and support (and 1-2 eh options for ADC if badly needed, though that went away with the new queue system and role selection), while this season I only really felt comfortable on Malz, Amumu, Braum, and Leona. On the plus side at least of all those champions were viable, though I don’t love the skill changes that hit Malz during the season. The big downside is that counter-picking is pretty hard when you have only one option, and in the event of a hard-counter already picked, things get real dicey.

I don’t foresee any major changes to my play time in 2017. LoL will still be a game I play a bit, but I don’t see myself diving deep back into it and pushing back towards diamond levels of play, baring some major changes (not likely) or other games not holding my time much (EVE is still going strong, and eventually Civ VI will be something to really sink serious time into).