Talk:Lee Sin/@comment-24496127-20140716033238/@comment-9705522-20140718232144

^exactly. But Ill rephrase it a little, to make it clearer. League operates on the principle of "perfect imbalance". This is a paradigm that realizes that perfect balance is impossible. So it keeps the game imbalanced, but in a way that doesnt hurt the game. This balance principle works like rock paper scissors.

Basically, lets assume character A is currently the strongest, for whatever reason. Now lets also assume we have character B and C. B is strong against A, C is weak against A, but strong against B. Now you would probably want to pick B. After all, A is very common, and it means an easier game for you. Because of this, B becomes a more common pick, as it beats A. Likewise, A starts to decline, since B is popular. Now C comes in. C wasnt picked because it was weak against A. However, A is rare now. On top of that, B is popular, so people start picking C. Now the circle repeats, C gets more common, B gets rarer, A gets more common and so on.

This is what we call "Metas". The characters arent perfectly balanced for each meta, but due to this circle, the variety is kept intact, and the game, in a long term, has a perfect imbalance. Now here comes the part that makes Lee the problem that he is. Because all characters have to fulfill one condition. They need a weakness. A bad matchup. Someone who beats them. Otherwise, its obvious what happens. But lets see an example.

This time, we have A, B, C and D. Lets assume A B and C behave the same as before. But now we also have D, who represents Lee. D is strong against all 3, although not AS strong as the other might be, and is weak against noone. Now lets assume people start the circle. A, into B, into C. But now, D becomes popular. People realized that D is the only one who will always be good, so why not pick him up, and be safe from all the metas?

And here is where the problem comes in. Now the circle simply stops. Because there is no E that beats D. There is no weakness. The circle stops, because there is no response. Instead, we now have D, and whoever are the next more powerful characters. Instead of considering who to pick agains A, B, C or D, you can be ensured that your matchup is going to be D most of the time. Because of this, the entire principle stops applying, and you just pick whatever is next more powerful. This breaks perfect imbalance. Instead, its just plain imbalance.

And this is what we see with Lee. This is what was observed with Ultimecia.