• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 06:51
CEST 12:51
KST 19:51
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt2: News Flash10[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt1: New Chaos0Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - Presented by Monster Energy17ByuL: The Forgotten Master of ZvT30Behind the Blue - Team Liquid History Book20
Community News
Weekly Cups (March 23-29): herO takes triple6Aligulac acquired by REPLAYMAN.com/Stego Research8Weekly Cups (March 16-22): herO doubles, Cure surprises3Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool51Weekly Cups (March 9-15): herO, Clem, ByuN win4
StarCraft 2
General
Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - Presented by Monster Energy Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool What mix of new & old maps do you want in the next ladder pool? (SC2) Aligulac acquired by REPLAYMAN.com/Stego Research Weekly Cups (March 23-29): herO takes triple
Tourneys
RSL Season 4 announced for March-April Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly) WardiTV Mondays World University TeamLeague (500$+) | Signups Open
Strategy
Custom Maps
[M] (2) Frigid Storage Publishing has been re-enabled! [Feb 24th 2026]
External Content
Mutation # 519 Inner Power The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 518 Radiation Zone Mutation # 517 Distant Threat
Brood War
General
BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Pros React To: JaeDong vs Queen [ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt2: News Flash Gypsy to Korea How Can I Add Timer & APM Count?
Tourneys
[ASL21] Ro24 Group E [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL21] Ro24 Group F Azhi's Colosseum - Foreign KCM
Strategy
Fighting Spirit mining rates What's the deal with APM & what's its true value Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Other Games
General Games
Starcraft Tabletop Miniature Game Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Darkest Dungeon
Dota 2
The Story of Wings Gaming Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
G2 just beat GenG in First stand
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread Five o'clock TL Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread NASA and the Private Sector Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books [Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion!
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion Cricket [SPORT] Tokyo Olympics 2021 Thread General nutrition recommendations
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
[G] How to Block Livestream Ads
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
China Uses Video Games to Sh…
TrAiDoS
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Iranian anarchists: organize…
XenOsky
FS++
Kraekkling
Shocked by a laser…
Spydermine0240
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Electronics
mantequilla
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 15878 users

The Case for More Bans

Blogs > aboxcar
Post a Reply
aboxcar
Profile Blog Joined May 2013
United States447 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-12 07:00:34
September 12 2015 06:59 GMT
#1
Proponents of fewer bans typically argue that this increases hero diversity. If there are more bans, they say, too many heroes will never be seen. But what this really means is too many imbalanced heroes will not be seen. What about the lesser powered heroes? Why don't people advocate for them? Few bans means a small pool of overly powerful heroes will always be ban-picked, and drafting strategy will necessarily revolve around them.

More bans will actually increase hero diversity and allow more strategies to be played.

- With more bans to remove overpowered heroes, there is more flexibility to play other strategies. Teams can develop their own style.

- More bans will give more leeway for respect bans. While this may be unpopular with the fans to see a player's heroes banned out, this actually forces a larger strategy pool and thus more diversity.

- If a strong strategy shows up in a tournament, instead of other teams struggling to adapt to the meta of the tournament, they can use targeted bans. Again, this means more varied preparation is required, not just preparing strong heroes.

Icefrog, please consider bringing back the six bans at the start!
everything that rises must converge
TechSc2
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Netherlands554 Posts
September 12 2015 09:39 GMT
#2
More bans means a lesser team can ban out the strong meta hero's and win with a cheesy strategy. More bans doesn't equal better games, it usually means less quality games because you can never practise all hero's equally, so you have to focus on 3-4 hero's max per role to be able to stay competative.

With more bans there is also no strategy in your pick/bans, since your opponent doesn't have to choose between a good ban against the picks, or respect bans, he can just do both.

NO, pick/bans are good as they are now.
Twitch.tv/TechGTV / Twitter.com/TechGTV
TRAP[yoo]
Profile Joined December 2009
Hungary6026 Posts
September 12 2015 09:55 GMT
#3
On September 12 2015 18:39 TechSc2 wrote:
More bans means a lesser team can ban out the strong meta hero's and win with a cheesy strategy. More bans doesn't equal better games, it usually means less quality games because you can never practise all hero's equally, so you have to focus on 3-4 hero's max per role to be able to stay competative.

With more bans there is also no strategy in your pick/bans, since your opponent doesn't have to choose between a good ban against the picks, or respect bans, he can just do both.

NO, pick/bans are good as they are now.

you make it sound like every team has 20 bans and can do whatever they want...
i wouldnt mind 1 or 2 additional bans for every team to see a more diverse heropool
FTD
LennX
Profile Joined October 2010
4568 Posts
September 12 2015 10:45 GMT
#4
I don't mind seeing an additional ban in the first phase. Overall we will have 6 bans, 5 picks which is still ok
Mute user function on TL; http://www.liquiddota.com/blogs/491245-mute-annoying-users-in-lr-threads
Mafe
Profile Joined February 2011
Germany5966 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-12 11:51:39
September 12 2015 11:51 GMT
#5
The number of bans is just one factor. The order of picks/bans also matters.
On September 12 2015 15:59 aboxcar wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
Proponents of fewer bans typically argue that this increases hero diversity. If there are more bans, they say, too many heroes will never be seen. But what this really means is too many imbalanced heroes will not be seen. What about the lesser powered heroes? Why don't people advocate for them? Few bans means a small pool of overly powerful heroes will always be ban-picked, and drafting strategy will necessarily revolve around them.

More bans will actually increase hero diversity and allow more strategies to be played.

- With more bans to remove overpowered heroes, there is more flexibility to play other strategies. Teams can develop their own style.

- More bans will give more leeway for respect bans. While this may be unpopular with the fans to see a player's heroes banned out, this actually forces a larger strategy pool and thus more diversity.

- If a strong strategy shows up in a tournament, instead of other teams struggling to adapt to the meta of the tournament, they can use targeted bans. Again, this means more varied preparation is required, not just preparing strong heroes.

+ Show Spoiler +
Icefrog, please consider bringing back the six bans at the start!

This point is just as much right as it is wrong: It would devalue the strategic aspects of dota, but value the ability to play different heroes higher. Preparation should be more than just preparing to play certain heroes. I would argue that pro teams should be able to play 80%+ of all heroes reasonably well so that they can pick then even without much preparation. What's the point of finding new (pocket) strategies if they can be counted by something as simple as 2-3 bans, which would still be available after the "imba" heroes are banned?
In my opinion, if a team analyzes dota better than others and finds good strategies which (all) the other teams dont see, then this team deserves to have a big, and not just a small, advantage.
Reson
Profile Joined July 2014
530 Posts
September 12 2015 18:36 GMT
#6
On September 12 2015 18:39 TechSc2 wrote:
More bans means a lesser team can ban out the strong meta hero's and win with a cheesy strategy. More bans doesn't equal better games, it usually means less quality games because you can never practise all hero's equally, so you have to focus on 3-4 hero's max per role to be able to stay competative.

With more bans there is also no strategy in your pick/bans, since your opponent doesn't have to choose between a good ban against the picks, or respect bans, he can just do both.

NO, pick/bans are good as they are now.


There will always be strategy even if we go back to 3 bans first phase (still 5 bans total) but it won't be as single strategy dominant. Alliance may have still won TI3 (first year the after the ban change), but if we had 3 bans first phase we would have gotten to see More Stuff out of them. They won't have won more than one time against a team with that "cheese" strat if the team had 3 bans.

The current pick/ban order opens up the top heroes and favours using bans to respond to picks.

The previous pick/ban order sets the stage for what can be picked and each team has to respond to opponents picks with picks.

Post TI2, Dota became a lot more strategy dominant and play/execution made the difference mainly when teams were able to break even strategically. Pre-pick/ban change, play/execution was the critical factor while strategy was what gave teams that were even with each other a slight edge.

TI4 VG is another example of a team riding one strategy to success. Again, they may have had other things prepared but by the time they were forced to show it by a team that understood their strategy well, they were already heavily outmatched by Newbee.


The 2 ban first phase (among other things) may have led to more heroes being picked overall but it reduced the incentive for hero diversity within a team. The same applies to strategy. This dilutes the strategic depth of the game. Strategic creativity is more evident when there is an established norm to go outside the box on.
synapse
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
China13814 Posts
September 12 2015 19:36 GMT
#7
are we adding the extra bans to the first ban phase or third phase?
:)
makmeatt
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
2024 Posts
September 12 2015 19:55 GMT
#8
On September 13 2015 04:36 synapse wrote:
are we adding the extra bans to the first ban phase or third phase?

I think from box's case it should be the first one, so that some heroes can get sort of an auto ban.
"Silver Edge can't break my hope" - Kryptt 2016 || "Chrono is not a debuff, you just get rekt" - Guru 2016
TheYango
Profile Joined September 2008
United States47024 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-13 08:55:54
September 13 2015 08:54 GMT
#9
On September 13 2015 04:55 makmeatt wrote:
I think from box's case it should be the first one, so that some heroes can get sort of an auto ban.

Strategically, first-phase bans are the least interesting. Since they don't interact with any picks already made by the opposing team, they can only really be used to ban powerful meta heroes, and don't really directly interact with the opponent's draft.

If bans were to be added, I don't think first phase is where they should go. "Too many OP heroes to ban" is a balance problem that can be corrected through better hero balance. Ban phase design should be focused around adding strategic depth to drafting, not around being a safety net for poor balance.
Moderator
aboxcar
Profile Blog Joined May 2013
United States447 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-13 17:02:47
September 13 2015 16:58 GMT
#10
On September 13 2015 17:54 TheYango wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2015 04:55 makmeatt wrote:
I think from box's case it should be the first one, so that some heroes can get sort of an auto ban.

Strategically, first-phase bans are the least interesting. Since they don't interact with any picks already made by the opposing team, they can only really be used to ban powerful meta heroes, and don't really directly interact with the opponent's draft.

If bans were to be added, I don't think first phase is where they should go. "Too many OP heroes to ban" is a balance problem that can be corrected through better hero balance. Ban phase design should be focused around adding strategic depth to drafting, not around being a safety net for poor balance.


1) First phase non-interaction is only superficially true, but actually the opening of a dota game is much more the first bans than the first picks.

In the most familiar and simple case where the opening is banning heroes everyone considers overpowered, this directly dictates the first picks. What to let through and what to steal; what not to pick, what to bait.

Consider old metas where there were few viable offlanes. In today's game, this might be banning Clockwerk and Darkseer and stealing Earthshaker, leaving nothing good for the opponent.

The notion that first phase bans are not strategically interesting is quite callow. Mostly likely we are only under this illusion because of the current sorry state of first-phase banning (and first phase picking). First phase bans have the power to open and close the rest of the game to a far greater extent than the first picks. Consider the extreme case of Captain's Draft mode.

2) While in an ideal world, balance is more even and also quickly applied, this is not realistic or practical. There are many, many heroes in Dota and the distribution of power is naturally fickle and untameable. This is exacerbated by Icefrog's tendency towards hard counters instead of soft ones (the merits of which are a separate topic). Furthermore, due to the frequent nature of tournaments, it's not easy to haphazardly push balance patches.

Pragmatically, more bans is the elegant solution.
everything that rises must converge
BluemoonSC
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
SoCal8910 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-13 18:49:07
September 13 2015 18:45 GMT
#11
On September 13 2015 17:54 TheYango wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2015 04:55 makmeatt wrote:
I think from box's case it should be the first one, so that some heroes can get sort of an auto ban.

Strategically, first-phase bans are the least interesting. Since they don't interact with any picks already made by the opposing team, they can only really be used to ban powerful meta heroes, and don't really directly interact with the opponent's draft.

If bans were to be added, I don't think first phase is where they should go. "Too many OP heroes to ban" is a balance problem that can be corrected through better hero balance. Ban phase design should be focused around adding strategic depth to drafting, not around being a safety net for poor balance.


where do you think they should go, then? i def don't think they should go in the first ban phase. maybe if the 2nd pick/ban phase was spaced out into 2?

so first phase: 2 bans, 2 picks.

2nd phase: 1/2 ban, 1 pick

3rd phase: 1/2 ban, 1 pick

4th phase: 1 ban, 1 pick
LiquidDota Staff@BluemoonGG_
Buckyman
Profile Joined May 2014
1364 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-09-14 05:43:31
September 14 2015 05:37 GMT
#12
Would the extra bans even be worth the extra few minutes they'd add to the pregame? I don't think so.
Elyvilon
Profile Joined August 2008
United States13143 Posts
September 15 2015 20:31 GMT
#13
On September 13 2015 17:54 TheYango wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 13 2015 04:55 makmeatt wrote:
I think from box's case it should be the first one, so that some heroes can get sort of an auto ban.

Strategically, first-phase bans are the least interesting. Since they don't interact with any picks already made by the opposing team, they can only really be used to ban powerful meta heroes, and don't really directly interact with the opponent's draft.

If bans were to be added, I don't think first phase is where they should go. "Too many OP heroes to ban" is a balance problem that can be corrected through better hero balance. Ban phase design should be focused around adding strategic depth to drafting, not around being a safety net for poor balance.

There is no way to balance a game with over 100 characters and not have some be significantly better than others.
Liquipedia
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
RSL Revival
07:00
Season 4: Playoffs Day 7
MaxPax vs RogueLIVE!
Tasteless2241
ComeBackTV 599
CranKy Ducklings132
Rex119
3DClanTV 85
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Tasteless 2241
LamboSC2 177
ProTech140
Rex 119
MindelVK 40
Codebar 20
StarCraft: Brood War
Larva 478
Mini 242
Soulkey 210
hero 170
Pusan 162
Last 142
Hyun 119
Dewaltoss 106
Hm[arnc] 94
sorry 92
[ Show more ]
Light 92
Shinee 87
NaDa 47
Sharp 44
sSak 38
Free 38
zelot 30
Sacsri 26
Movie 14
HiyA 14
Dota 2
XaKoH 892
XcaliburYe431
canceldota68
Counter-Strike
edward80
byalli56
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor159
Other Games
singsing2026
Organizations
Counter-Strike
PGL10929
Other Games
BasetradeTV212
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• LUISG 24
• CranKy Ducklings SOOP2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Jankos1608
• Stunt468
Upcoming Events
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
3h 9m
BSL
8h 9m
Afreeca Starleague
23h 9m
Wardi Open
23h 9m
Replay Cast
1d 13h
Sparkling Tuna Cup
1d 23h
Kung Fu Cup
3 days
The PondCast
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
[ Show More ]
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
BSL
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Escore Tournament S2: W1
WardiTV Winter 2026
NationLESS Cup

Ongoing

BSL Season 22
CSL Elite League 2026
ASL Season 21
CSL Season 20: Qualifier 2
StarCraft2 Community Team League 2026 Spring
RSL Revival: Season 4
Nations Cup 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026

Upcoming

CSL 2026 SPRING (S20)
IPSL Spring 2026
Acropolis #4
BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
CSLAN 4
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
CCT Season 3 Global Finals
IEM Rio 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.