User blog comment:HeresyHorus/Syndra, a tale of a lost potential/@comment-12314620-20131029213549

As many have already pointed out, Syndra is actually really powerful and a major reason she isn't played in current meta is her vulnerability to assassins, buffing her would just make her ridiculously strong.

Complaining about her passive is just stupid, we have much worse passives in league and as someone already mentioned it makes her powerspike on lvl 9 just that much bigger. She doesn't struggle early game either because of her low cooldown high range spells which allow you to get decent farm against pretty much anyone.

Also complaining about "cheap" champions is just stupid (many on your list are getting nerfed anyway next patch those being Kassadin, Zed and Fizz). League needs champions that are easier to approach (although not all mentioned earlier are the "easiest" champs to start with if your opponent plays early properly) for new players but it's healthy for the game for  those champs to remain even somewhat relevant even in higher levels of play, however many "easy to approach" champions have very linear kits (Yi, Talon, Xin, Garen, Darius, Nasus, Annie, Ryze, Akali...) which means that they are often somewhat limited in their options on how to combat the opponent making them quite predictable for a weathered player to play against, while still remaining powerful if they manage to get in a position where they can use their kit to it's full potential.