Has Fearless Draft in League of Legends already become stale?

When the Fearless Draft format was introduced to League of Legends esports, it promised to shake up the stale pick/ban phases and diversify champion pools. The concept, initially brought by esports pioneers such as Nick “LS” De Cesare, was created with the goal of preventing teams from choosing the same champions over the course of best-of-series, which often led to highly repetitive gameplay, especially at the highest levels.

Despite the initial success and the increase in unique champions played (for example, the Mid-Season Invitational this year had 109 champions played or banned, 21 higher than last year’s edition, the excitement is wearing thin. Teams have now found the best compositions in the meta, and without major shifts by the game developers, players are using a similar pool of champions in every series.

This article will explore why Fearless Draft reached this point, why some fans and analysts feel it’s already grown stale, and whether tweaks—or a total rethink—might be necessary.

Fearless Draft is a champion selection format used in multi-game series (best-of-three or best-of-five), where champions played by either team in a previous game cannot be used again in the same series. After great success in the first part of the season, Riot Games has decided to extend it to the rest of the 2025 campaign, including the year-end League of Legends World Championship.

With 10 champions being picked in every game, a five-game series would forbid teams from choosing 40 picks from the four previous games, plus the additional 10 coming from the last ban phase. With 171 champions released in the game, this format heavily pinches teams’ ability to form well-structured team compositions, and weaknesses tend to arise from sub-optimal drafting execution. 

Despite its bold intentions, some members of the LoL esports community, including LS himself, have already started voicing concerns about the limits of Fearless Draft. While it initially brought novelty, that excitement has largely fizzled.

Among some of the common complaints, the main ones are related to the repetitive drafts in the first games of each series and the commonly one-sided games in match deciders, usually caused by sloppy drafts or lack of great mechanical prowess on the leftover picks. 

While the latter happens fewer times due to the lower frequency of matches being fully played out, the repetitive drafts don’t really differ from the draft approach of previous seasons. Picks are being overutilised, and as soon as teams find the optimal picks or team comps, they will continue to stick to them. 

Moreover, with the presence of Fearless Drafts, statistically strong and weak champions will continue to be played regardless of their power state as they are usually chosen to fulfil a given role in the game, which is almost entirely related to the kit design rather than numbers. 

A perfect example is Vi. Despite being nerfed repeatedly this year, the champion continues to be an evergreen pick in professional play due to how reliable her ultimate is. While she won’t show up in game one drafts in most cases, her priority goes up as soon as other junglers are removed from the equation. 

Even though Fearless Draft has been improving LoL esports, its drafting format may still need some tweaking, especially if the issues persist in future years.

One of the more extreme solutions was the Ironman format, where teams would have both picks and bans carry over throughout the series. In a best-of-five series, that would lead to a total of 90 champions removed from play. The main downside of this format is the sloppier drafts, which can potentially lead to more one-sided games. 

A potential short-term fix would be to increase the number of bans from each series, ideally to six or seven champions per draft. This would force teams to consistently reconsider all aspects of the drafts, as strong teams can pinpoint all the viable picks in a given role or team composition and deny the enemy from going for it. It would be a more balanced solution compared to Ironman, and it won’t twist matches as much. 

For a five-game series, the other potential suggestion would be to bring back blind picks in the match decider. Each team can make bans at the start of the game, but then it will be down to the teams to find the most optimal combination. They are more likely to train specific comps that can be brought out in those scenarios, raising the overall quality of games. 

Fearless Draft brought much-needed change to the League of Legends pick/ban phase, and the results have been more positive than negative so far. But its flaws are becoming more apparent after half a season of action.

While it’s unlikely we’ll see changes implemented mid-way into the season, there is enough time to reconsider the negatives caused by Fearless Draft and try out new things to make matches feel more refreshing. Whether it’s using different formats at different times of the year or restructuring the current drafting approach, things must be somewhat tweaked to keep interest high.