I had a lot of doubts about the Tribunal when it was first announced. The idea of incentivizing players to punish one another seemed a little odd to me, even if I had played with hundreds of players who deserved a little wrist-slap. After using the system for a couple days, though, I have to admit, I’m kind of impressed.

The only reason I use the qualifying “kind of” is that the Tribunal’s real value can’t possibly be assessed until we can see some results. When Riot first starting banning players for bad behavior it seemed like games were about to get a whole lot nicer. However, the League of Legends playerbase was growing much faster than Riot and so the need for justice quickly outpaced the execution of that justice. The Tribunal has the potential to turn that around, hopefully expediting the punitive process for Riot and giving everyone a look at just how foolish the rage sounds when it isn’t spewed in the heat of the moment (it also sounds ridiculous then, but I can understand getting steamed here and there).

That said, it seems the Tribunal is an early success. I’ve completed my three cases in each of the past two days and actually enjoyed the process. It’s interesting to see the kinds of information that can actually be used to punish/pardon a player and the different ways each player in a game understands another player’s actions. I’ve already seen a couple complicated cases that involved a lot of bad behavior from all parties involved. It can be tough to reason out who, if anyone, should take the hit, and if the reported party is actually to blame.

Of course, I’ve also seen some very cut and dry cases. You don’t die 20 times in 20 minutes without trying, and you certainly don’t die that often several games in a row without some sort of effort. I’ve also been entertained and amused by the things people share on the forums. Part of the problem with ragers is that they disappear once the game is over and very few people are exposed to the ridiculous things they say. The Tribunal bumps that exposure by not only being thrown into the pool but also because players that see it are so keen to share it.

I’m really hoping we see results. It’s a cool system with some great potential. It would be a huge bummer if it didn’t work out. How has it seemed to you guys so far?

This is dumbfounding, but there’s also a lot of missing evidence so please, take it with a grain of salt. There’s a post on the forums right now asking that Riot “Free RickoniX,” a player who, according to the post, was recently banned for his leaves. How many leaves? Again, according to the post, more than 500.

From what little evidence can be gathered, it seems the account has been banned. There aren’t any games past November 23rd, and his ranked info has been deleted (I’m assuming. It also seems as though people know who he is, so this is either some highly forum troll work, or there’s some decent amount of truth to it.

Let’s leave the 500 number out of it for now, though. What’s an acceptable number of leaves? I’ve personally seen people over 100. So why aren’t they immediately banned. Even if 100 games is less than 5 percent of your games, as it would be in my case, why aren’t you immediately served at least a month long ban. I’d say it’s more likely than not you’ve ruined or negatively impacted a good 75 percent of those, in most cases more, which is just way too many. It would be easy to have some sort of ‘leave decay’ so that, should you stop raging or learn to manage your team or even just get a better internet connection, you could get back to playing the game without immediate threat of a ban.

To think that someone might be out there with several hundred leaves yet still playing the game is baffling.

I’m on the road to NYC today so this post will be short (typing on a phone in the back of a car isn’t the easiest thing). It looks like Riot wants to offer clemency to those of us who picked up a leave or two due to technical issues surrounding the Season One launch. As such, leave counts have been reset to their end of pre-season values. Here’s the official word from Riot:

Summoners!

As many of you are aware, some of the criteria surrounding leaves have changed since the launch of Season One. Due to player confusion around what resulted in a leave, as well as to compensate those players who may have been a victim of technical difficulties, with the latest patch we reset all players’ leave totals back to the value they were at the launch of Season One. Just remember, now that we’re all on the same page, the gloves are off! So no more shenanigans! Happy hunting!

It’s patch day again, bringing us a slew of changes to some of the less popular heroes, a much needed (though still lacking) TF nerf, and the new champ, Mordekaiser. The patch also gave us one highly undesirable feature: queue dodge penalties. Overall, though, I’d say I’m pretty happy about this patch.

My favorite part so far has been the Jax remake. I’ve played two games with him and he seems like he’s in a good spot. The extra HP makes a big difference and the Leap Strike change gives him a nice escapability buff. He’ll still struggle at times, as all melee DPS does, but the changes make a significant difference. Also, that Vandal skin is badass.

I’ll be taking a look at the Warwick changes later today. I had a Warwick in one game, but he was awful so I won’t say he’s a good judge of the situation. The mana changes alone should be a boon.

The TF nerf seems good, though it doesn’t address his real problem – map control. I played a game as Jax with Mundo, Ryze, Pantheon and TF in which our Ryze went AFK around level 9. We still stomped them, mostly because our TF held his port for the perfect moment in just about every situation. Sure, he does less damage, but when he’s stunning people consistently and turning even fights into landslides, I can’t help but think they nerfed him for the masses but he’s just as good for skilled players.

Mordekaiser actually looks to be a lot of fun. The fact that you can cast his shield on creeps makes him a bit like Dark Seer from Dota, though it’s only allies. That would be an interesting change if they feel he isn’t laning well. He does seem to harass decently enough, and his ult is pretty cool. I’m not going to spend the RP on him and all my IP has gone into runes recently, so I’ll have to wait for a free week to give a real analysis.

Lastly, the queue dodging penalty. This thing is so stupid I hate to even write about it. Every time you leave during champion select you get a leaver mark on your account. The first leave gives you a three minute queue penalty. The second brings it up to 10 minutes, though that timer does reset 8 hours after your first leave. I can’t understand why they would implement this when there are so many legitimate reasons to leave at champion select and no options to deal with those issues. AFK summoners are just part of the problem. There are also team composition problems, and the fact that matchmaking will still pair you with people on your ignore list. Add to all of this the fact that people are still dodging like mad and it’s pretty clear that a dodge penalty is about the worst solution Riot could have come up with.

You can find complete patch notes in the announcements forum.