Remember when Shen was so good he could be flexed to river… RIVER SHEN

When Graves combo's your entire healthbar to 0 in under five seconds you don't usually think "wow this character that can be in this many roles is ridiculous!" it's usually just "this character is ridiculous!"

I feel like Pantheon wasn't getting enough attention in this vid compared to other champs since he was viable in all 5 roles at one point

I will forever play junglers in the top lane since I like their kits but I don't like jungle itself

"If you're a jungle main and you one trick graves rather than actually learn new champions for whenever you get autofilled top or mid", I don't think I've ever seen a jungle main get autofilled.

Think it depends how strong the champion is in relation to his main role, i.e if the champion has 50% wr + on his main role and slightly lower winrate on his flex roles, I think its okay, what I don't want a champ that can maintain a 53% + wr on 3+ roles at once, like panth or sett once had.

Op champs become flex picks because they’re op, then it’s bad Other than that it’s usually fine

Thats the reason why poppy support exist This game need to have creative playstyle to be not boring Creating a champion specificly for a lane ends up narrowing the potential new playstyle

Flex picks are a good thing for the game. Part of the game of league of legends is attempting to get a good matchup through champ selection. However there does exist a problem that could be misinterpreted as flex laners being a problem. This would happen when a mechanic is so overwhelmingly good that champions that can take advantage of it can win games simply by existing in game.

I think flex roles aren’t necessarily bad. It’s not bad to have the most often auto filled roles (jungle and support) contain flex picks, bc it lowers the number of jg diff/supp diff games. But it’s different when you find someone who is essentially escaping their primary role to bully someone else in their secondary role. Irelia was actually a strong example of this: she is pretty good in the toplane, but she stomps mid because mid is full of immobile squishies that she can out dps early in the game, and continue out dpsing bc most of these squishies have zero answer for her until they reach the late late game. However, the meta essentially shifted around her, and now she isn’t played as much mid bc people are bringing other toplaners to the midlane now, and mages are rare and/or played more often in the botlane.

So, something you aren't aware of, is that there is a general rule of thumb in game design that players will optimize the fun out of a game. Something Riot really struggles to understand.

Flex picks are the entire reason why Gragas is the most chad champion, consistently viable in 4 roles for almost his entire history 😎

I think “Why nobody uses”/“Why everybody uses” videos for runes would be awesome (like Conq or ravenous hunter)

I think the main issue is when a champion is so good that they can be flexed into other lanes like we saw with Rumble. Rumble was so unbelievably op that he could Mid,top, and jungle effectively. That is a problem. However when you have things like Lee Sin mid/top I think that brings in an interesting dynamic because Lee Sin takes some skill to play well. Despite how much people trash on the balance team my personal biggest issue is when Riot sees a champ being played where they are unintended and then they nerf said champion to force them back into the role they were "meant" to be played. We saw this with Pyke. They nerfed his lane sustain and made it so that he was almost unplayable in mid lane forcing him back as a support. It also bothers me when Riot says things like "we have been seeing a lot of diversity in the top lane" like the same 5 champions aren't always dominating that role and as soon as there is a good flex pick they nerf it into oblivion because it wasn't "intended".

Love my heimer MId... adc... support.... and Top. Just need to find a way to play him jg

I have so much fun playing Lulu mid instead of support because I'm not limited to support experience or income. Personally I think it's best if champions can be in at least two different roles, so if you're not a fan of one you can at least be the other

Flex picking is a really good thing to have, but the levels of flexing we have seen with Viego or Graves are really unhealthy. Flex picking is ok when you use the flex to vary your composition, but the latest flex picks have been used to dodge bad matchups for champs that are OP first pick so you have both the advantages of first AND a psuedo last pick advantage (as you will always send the OP pick to his favorite matchup from the ones present) I think we need to go the DOTA way and strengthen the differences between positions so flexing a character into the top or jungle has a big impact on what they do and what they build.

Hey man I just want to say that I started on your MapleStory videos and I am not going to lie about missing MapleStory content but I am glad that you are finding success with League related videos! It just so happens that these are the only 2 games I play consistently. Thank you for what you do!

could not have agreed more thanks for quality content. keep up the good work. wish you well

I think flex picks are essential. Freedom of choice and creativity make the game more fun. That said, they clearly need to balance some champs more to keep them from being domineering.

“I don’t think graves should be allowed to do what he’s been doing for the past few weeks” This guy has been terrorizing the game so much that I saw him in almost 9/10 times in blind pick. Shoot, some games had him on both teams too. It’s ridiculous that he’s armor tanky, has waveclear, absurd kite, and assblasts all melee champs. He should not even be this problematic. When I think about an immobile champs worse nightmare, this guy is top 5. On that note, maybe do a video like this?? Lol. Best/worst champs against a certain architype, I.e. tanks, mages, assassins, etc.

did a search on your channel and genuinely surprised you haven't done a video of bard!

Looking forward to this one as a pantheon, seraphine, galio support main.... Riot hates me, help

I don't know after the pre season changes, but I remember when Pantheon was being used as Top, Mid, Support and sometimes even JG.

I just noticed you made Rotmg videos, I recently started playing it again. Great guides :P

That little piece of commentary on Vayne played in top lane... That's a very calculated move, and though I acknowledge that it is, it earned you my sub. Also I cannot believe you went through this entire video not mentioning Lucian, who's been played in all 3 lanes for years now.

Pyke at one point could be played in all 5 roles technically. Granted it was seldom that he was picked as a bot carry rather than a support.

Shen can play pretty comfortably in all roles but ADC. This is mainly due to how each aspect of his kit can be used in a variety ways allowing him to meet the conditions of those roles. His passive and HP scaling for top, great mobility for middle, river, and jungle, and being able to protect allies for support. He has strengths that are not role dependent, but each one he can strategize off of in order to fit the needs of that role.

Before watching the video I just want to say that my opinion is that once every pick is flex, then none will be. Let's try to stay away from the 53%+ winrate on three roles type of phenomenon though.

I believe I remember that, "Solo que players, in this game, just want to find whatever brings the most results, for the lowest amount of effort." was from your Aurelion Sol video. I could be mistaken though!

I remember hating Top Lane for a while, I’m a Singed otp. I felt so useless at some point I decided to play Singed jungle. It really does work, but he has plenty of counters, rather straight up better champs in jungle. However, I had fun with him in jungle. I have over 700 Singed games top lane, including games from separate game modes, and like 175 games of Singed jungle which is a hella lot. Mid Singed at the time was hard, Predator wasn’t as good and this wasn’t discovered/popularized until recently by Faker. Singed jungle, it’s possible to do Red buff and Raptors at the same time, and Blue Buff and Wolves. You get heal when Raptors and Wolves reset. Also, Blue buff and Gromp can be done at the same time at a certain level.

This really shows one of the huge differences between League and DOTA like heroes in DOTA can be played in different roles and no one really thinks it's broken. League it can be really broken if a character is able to play in a different role and it's really strange that people think that these games are at all similar. The share a genre but they're so different.

Appreciate the fire emblem music vars

One of my favourite flex picks is WW, especially in S11 where he had pretty much no chance to compete in jg because of tiamat changes and the general meta favouring 5/6 camp clears (you WANT me to do raptors?) I already played him a lot in top but now I prefer him both there and in mid lane, no one knows the match up and he has a better time there. There's a few bad matchups but it doesn't change the fact I enjoy him in those roles way more than jungle now

To that matter, I believe the only penta flex champion in League was Sett by the release. He was designed for toplane, but coud do Jungle and midlane as well, even played some competitive games at that role. In the botlane he was almost always the support until they discovered Fasting Senna and Sett was his "carry". Thats why I believe Sett was the only five role flex pick in the game(there is also Teemo, but nowadays is more like a meme than a fact)

Azir, can be played as a good flex pick in Top, Mid, And ADC. The problem is that most of the players who play him (including me) don't know how to play him in the first place.

Its been years since I played league. I remembered my flex pick back then which is Gragas that can go Top, Mid, Jungle, and Support

I do believe flex picks are 1 of the reasons why most "balanced" champions ( balanced meaning: Having 1 role, 1 lane, and 1 goal and as stats that are based on his role ( example- ADC: Low base stats into high growth continuing base stats late game, Support: High base stats growing less into stats given) ) are not given the same spotlight. But all I see is cons when it comes to flex picks as other champions cannot also shine their light, yes they may have been given a good 1st impression as hybrid laners but seeing as league is a competitive game ( in nature, competitive: going against someone else in a contest ) this types will outshine balanced champions in overall gameplay. In the popularity of things, people will get sick and tired of seeing the same champion in a tournament over and over again, thus this will downgrade the amount of people watching it overtime, they want something new like pure roles to be played as. People even cheered for teemo or even amumu or garen when they were first played in competitive Overall, I do hope the patchnotes fix this types of champions. Even if it just for 2 lane hybrids that will be fine enough for me since 3 it overloaded

The Problem is when its a situation like Graves was a few seasons ago, where he was constantly picked in every role but support, not because he was so versatile that he could do all good, but because he was overall so busted, that having him in a sub-optimal lane was still better than not having him in your team.

I am a Sion player and I can tell you he can run EVERY role in league. Sion is a Tank Bruiser Assassin Support! I always run smite and TP no matter what lane/role I am in.

5:38 that triple ward killed me

Vars i love u for using Fire Emblem songs in your vids, especially if it's from Tellius games :D

I was mostly a top and jung player back when I started way back, but I am more used to the champs that are now considered mostly adc and support, though I do run some of them back in top and jung on occasion as while they aren't the strongest in their past roles anymore, some of them can still fulfill those roles if played properly.

that's one of the reasons i love warwick and play him as my main. you can play him top, jungle and mid you can play him AD or AP one of the simpler champs kit wise one of if not the best built in sustain of the game built in fear that also acts as damage reduction (35% at lvl 1) and when you start upgrading your W you become the best flex pick of the game since you're pretty much everywhere at once with the huge speed boost when you play him top or mid, even if you can't manage to get priority over your opponent, you can always be on the same power level thanks to your E fear and dmg reduction and when managed correctly you can even turn back on your opponent with an easy kill at lvl 6 as soon as you get your sheen, tour Q deals at least 400 dmg if not 500 and you regen 90% of said damage even if your brought to low hp, guess what ? your healing is tripled and your atk speed is boosted so you can easily get back to full hp and if not, you can at least survive infinitely even when facing ranged matchups, using your Q and E allows you to sustain a ton of damage and still get gold from minions when fed, you suddenly become a 1v3 machine just because of the massive sustain you have at full build, you Q does at least 1k damage every 2s which you heal 900 hp of, so unless someone manages to burst you by surprise you're immortal. and even if an assasin manages to catch you, with your R you just deny their burst, remove half their hp and regen almost all your hp, then you finish with a Q and get to your next target. and the best thing IMO is if you face an ennemy team that's all focused around AD then with a combination of GA, death's dance, sterak's, thormail and your E, you're pretty much taking no damage at all while still dealing thousands of damage to everyone. thank god WW doesn't deal AoE dmg because then that would be turbo broken

Weren't you premiering a let's talk season 12? I can't find the video x. X

I haven't fully finished yet. But to answer the question in general, YES. If you couldn't play characters in other roles then the game is forcing you to do a certain thing with no innovation. Players don't like being forced into doing something with no creativity. That's what keeps the game fresh and evolving. So to take that away I can confidently say that League will die faster than is projected. Great video and I'm glad you shed light on how flexing picking is beneficial and what it's implications are.

One thing I still don't understand is how mages are not considered as mainly botlaners, APCs if you will, specially in this meta were if you are not a skirmisher or assassin when mid, you cannot literally play.

As a lux main i remember before the buffs when i picked her mid someone in my team would say "pick a real mid", then when i picked her supp, someone would say "pick a real supp"

What program is used to capture these videos and being able to move the camera around? This looks awesome

Is the beginning music the same music that’s in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance because it sounds so similar to it? Thanks for the video ❤️

I like the part where you flame vayne top, it gives a lot of personality to the video

The car animation was really cool, did you make it?

That happy chime noises part hit home 😅

Everyone playing these meta Champs in every role while I still torture my team with autofill neeko

That feel when you play some patches ago buffed mordekaiser jungle (his passive now works on any jungle minion and can be turned on by 1 q) and feel like a true gigachad when enemy jungle can't counterpick you, your top just chillin without teemo pick and surr 15 happens

About lane phase being ignored so early, I have seen my enemy team aram down mid at 14 min. It's mad

There are a few Champs who are viable in a couple different rolls and are competitive to a degree in each, (Ekko, Akali, Irelia, etc) but there have been a few Champs who at times were Top tier competitive in 3 or 4 rolls at once, such as at the start of S11, Pantheon was one of the best Top, Jungle, Mid and Supports all at the same time, partially because of his much better itemization, quick camp clear speed, his lane strength, ability roam anywhere with R, and his blocked turret damage. When things like this happen, it becomes an obvious balance nightmare, as it becomes impossible to counter pick, because in the Pantheon situation, if someone counter picked Pantheon in mid, then he would lane swap with top or jungle and carry anyway.

I like the drafts in Dota 2 more. Way more heroes can be used as flex picks. It's good to see more freedom than simply bot, supp, jungle, top and mid.

I was wondering if you could talk about the AD/AP ratios and why a champ that would normally build AD has AP ratios on some abilities and vis versa

I think flex roles are fine as long as it is natural, especially if said naturalness comes from making concessions away from a different play style. What made viego so ubiquitous was his q passive, allowing him to one-shot even tanky targets just by buying DPS items. That meant he could effectively go anywhere, as he was able to fill out the job needed for each position. He was able to provide pressure top lane, because of his ability to duel enemies quite well and can damage towers quickly if left alone. He can jungle, because of his ability to clear objectives and gank well. He can mid because he can roam effectively and he can provide kill pressure if left unchecked

Flex picks are fun but in cases like Corki, I feel like he needed some changes to be viable in both Mid and bot.

The bg music is giving me pokemon tournament vibes-

as a talon i will agree with this i dont want to learn jngle champ so i always dodge when put on jngle but thx for the buff on talon jngle make it easy for me to flex to two role with one champ

i think there should be more enchanter and tank supports that can be flex picked. Usually if a support is flexpicked its a mage support, but it would be cool to see something like braum venture into other lanes

I've been noticing some nice Fire Emblem OSTs in the background...

I like to play Syndra and I've played her in every role, yes, even in the jungle, with quite some success.

I think you should have talked about gragas. Can be flexed on 4 roles. Top,jgl,mid and supp. And that wothout being broken

Oh I just thought it meant flex as in show off. I really only heard it when relating to pro play and someone chose off meta because they were really good/like the champ

Pantheon even until now can be considered a 5 role flex pick but what's interesting is that due to his lack of power in the late game, there is a tradeoff between role power and versatility. A more specialized character can run him over if he's unable to take control and end the game before he falls off too much. Sadly the same Cant be said for most flex picks.

I also would like to point out that sometimes flex picks counter other flex picks, like Kayn is mostly a jungle BUT kayn top exists for a reason

That's the funny thing, I main TF, and I've at one point in ranked had more success with him top than I was having mid, but nowadays top is the only role I don't feel comfortable playing him

I do love ke the change of zed/talon/qiyana in Jungle. I played qiyana jungle before and now it's actually much more viable. It also just feels like the assassin's work well in jungle better anyway. Graves is broken tho

I missed a mention of pantheon in the video, the chamo thst could go top, jungle, mid and support (technicly he still can go those 4 roles), he was disgusting

Honestly I think the this is a hard way to balance but it just goes to show for ingenuity. Veigar is typically a mid laner but can be taken bot and support (support being with the right know how he operates differently in that position) but he has some matchups in every position that cause him issues (Katarina, Sivir, Ezreal, Morgana, etc.) Making him pretty balanced in all those positions and prevent him from cheesing his non meta roles like how Ziggs can dominate bot lane. Swain although I love him is not really a good example because Swain can basically be taken everywhere excluding jungle and have few vey bad matchups excluding a few but most of those are poke champs or champs that have high mobility. Swain loves to trade which makes it hard for fighters, tanks, and assassins and can lock you down for long enough that even if he can’t trade with you he’ll make it so you have to engage his jungle or god forbid a lockdown or healing support. Making him hard to counter in general. Swain only loses if he gets poked down or he becomes a target early on.

I only hate seeing flex picks if the flex champion can build the exact same items in both roles. I like seeing creativity in itemization so most flex picks are pretty cool by me.

In general I am against flex picks. Most of the time champions are(more like should be) designed with a role in mind and some weaknesses (and strengths) that go with that role. If you design a mid laner to be weak early but a beast late game, he shouldn't be able to erase his weakness by going jungle. That for me is a balance/design problem. The other flex that has happened many times is champions that are given a good early game, with high base stats and they end up as supports. That for me just seems sad for the champion, although it usually coincides with the champion in question having some hideous matchups in his supposed role.

I really enjoy your content. Keep them up.

Hmm, the background music at the beginning sounds familiar, is it Xenogears?

Personally, I do not only enjoy flex picks, I believe they should be encouraged as much as possible. The game wouldn't get boring just because you'd see the same champions every other match; in fact, I'd argue that even now it feels like there's very little variety when considering that there are almost 160 champions available, with the difference that if your role ever felt repetitive for that reason, you could just take your main to another lane to spice things up. I also don't care if it makes counter-picking more difficult, since it'd actually encourage adapting to the situation you're presented with instead of always just taking the easiest route. Besides, the overreliance on abusing matchups is an issue that stems from the overall design of the game and its balance, so people should be focusing on finding a way to solve it at its roots instead of complaining about off-meta/flex players. Speaking of balance, the reason why many have begged for certain champions to be nerfed to the point where they'd only be viable in one role is _not_ that they disliked their versatility, but rather that they could only be flexed efficiently because they were extremely overpowered. Being flexed so often was the result of being too strong, not the other way around. You have no idea how many times I've wished to play a certain champion, but had to give up because they couldn't be flexed in any of the roles I play. As a person who enjoys diving into many different playstyles for the sake of variety - a jack-of-all-trades of sorts, although there are a few subclasses I simply can't stand - I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that I'd like every champion to be able to be played anywhere, although I do reckon that some people wouldn't enjoy it as much because they prefer sticking to one thing (and that's perfectly fine) and they'd be frustrated if they had to, for instance, rotate lanes every game because their lane opponent hard-counters their champ (e.g. a marksman put against an assassin).

and heimer sitting in his little corner of turrets beaming everyone who dares come near

When i started this game it was basicly a free for all. Double Bruiser bot was meta back then. Double top was nearly as common as junglers. Over time the meta shifted and became the solid structure it is right now with defined roles. in my opinion it is great when champions can flex in multiple roles. After all i think the structures right now are very much limiting the enjoyment of the game. For me it would be perfect if basicly every champion could appear anywhere. That said i know this would be a nightmare to balance. Still i think it would be cool if stuff like jax trynda bot were a valid option again instead of getting the x9 or in this case x8 rep stapled to your name.

me who watched the yuumi teleport, smite jg shorts: let's try it out

I personally play neeko in every role except jungle, I just like having versatility in champ as a comfort pick

I feel like flex pick can reward player to think outside the box sometimes. I main Poppy and I have never played her top. Sometime I play her jungle but most of the time I play her support. It is not the best pick, but botlane players just don't know how to deal with her at all.

9:41 really looks like galio sent yone flying

Flex picks are good so long as you are forced into playing the character in the late game differently because of the choices you have made earlier in the game. Morganna and Lux being flexed between mid and support for ages comes to mind.

I play jarvan top. He's really darn fun up there

Awesome vid very informative. The background music was really distracting and annoying to be honest felt like a self-destruct sequence in a Dino Crisis game.

I am an otp Ezreal (500k mp) and I usually go with ezreal Mid and sometimes Top, support sometimes work and Jg is almost a troll pick for me, altough I kinda wanna try Ezreal jg more

Yeah, I think they should be more encouraged, even. Signed, A Salty Sett Jungle Player

One of the most interesting pro games I saw was uol playing twisted fate jungle. Flex picks is what makes the game interesting

Surprised that Pantheon isn't mentioned considering he was viable in all 5 roles once (still viable in 2 roles)

This sounds like a Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance soundtrack

I'm surprised Gragas wasn't mentioned but I can't think of another champion who's good in 4 roles

This reminds me of me playing Anivia in every role lol.

I love flex picks almost as much as I do off- meta picks. Nothing I love more than going Hybrid jhin top, Katarina ADC, Aphelios top, Qiyana support, Aatrox jungle, full tank katarina, bruiser pyke etc. If anyone has any suggestions for fun off-meta picks or builds please let me know!

6:45 just Sett things in the background :D

I like that flex picks are a thing, but to a certain degree ofc. Being able to go top, jung and mid is a bit much, but being flexed 2 places is fine imo. I actually tried to make Graves work in top before it was being played in worlds, but never had too much success, and I love that I am able to play him top now without getting flamed and griefed.

What about adcs going mid? Most specifically Tristana and Lucian

When sett came out was in top mid jungle and support