Pick/Ban Immortal proposal

Not sure if dark design or just an idea, but I had a thought about possible pick/ban systems. Now, I know I'm not a proponent of pick/ban, but for the sake of argument let's assume it is a valid design option for Immortal.

Anyway, I don't think MOBA-style pick/ban systems map to Immortal that well, and also think they suffer some drawbacks:

1. They create a weird feast-or-famine dynamic w.r.t. bans. If someone doesn't know their opponent (i.e. in matchmaking), all they can do is guess, probably guessing the flavour(s) of the month, and hope that is useful. This also means people whose mains become flavour(s) of the month are essentially forced to go off-main to play at all until the trends move on.

2. They feel generally bad to deal with, partly because of reason 1 leading to known players feeling that they have to play their # of bans+1'th best character or bust, and partly because it doesn't really do a good job communicating that you are expected to be ready to play more than one character in general, which can make it feel like you were sold a bill of goods as soon as your character starts getting on the ban block

3. Because they enforce no mirrors, that forces a pick order, and there's no way to make ordering fair in 1v1, and while it is sortof doable in 2v2, as a 1-2-1 pick order, that's still one team getting their entire team all at once, which isn't as fair as how 1-2-...-2-1 works in MOBAs

In fairness, though, I will point out the primary benefits of ban systems, as I see it, which are

A. To dampen power spikes that can occur with particular Immortals or Immortal duos

B. To give players some ability to avoid dealing with matchups they find miserable

in order to show that my systems still preserve this.

Because of this, I propose a couple different pick/ban systems that solve these problems, one that I think works better for 1v1 and the other for 2v2, and also assert, to solve problem 3, that mirrors should be allowed. Yes that can violate benefit B in theory, but I think that my solutions will generally avoid that problem.

1. (for 1v1) Pick n, ban m, choose from remaining. This solves problem 2 at a stroke, since the expectation for how many Immortals one should be comfortable with is baked into the system explicitly, and also largely solves problem 1, as the choices available to ban from will be a set of Immortals the opponent will actually care about being unable to play. This should largely preserve benefit B, if not maximize it, as the only time when it would be relevant is if two players have more than n - m Immortals in common, and so wouldn't be able to guarantee banning out the mirror assuming the players didn't want a mirror match, which they actually might. This should also preserve property A, and as it solves problem 1 I argue it preserves that property better than blind banning, as the options available to ban from are all relevant to the opponent, so the power spikes being dampened are relevant.

In case there needs to be a strong no-mirror matches guarantee, with the pick n ban m system, if n >= m + 2 then it would be feasible to have a "I don't care just make it not a mirror match" option for the final choice that, if one player picks it, just gives them an Immortal from the remaining n-m Immortals that isn't one their opponent picked, and if both pick it, gives each a different random one from their set. This would allow a strong no-mirrors guarantee for those who want it without requiring a pick order.

For specific numbers, I think n=2 to 4 and m=1 or 2 are healthy ranges, and that Pick 3 ban 1 would be a good balance between the agency of each player, as it sets the expectation as laid out previously that players will be playing an entire faction or a set of immortals that all cover similar playstyles, and as each faction will have at least 3 Immortals, so faction mains will be fine. It also gives a bit of leeway to the picking player in a way that ex. 3-ban-2 or 2-ban-1 would not, as in those cases the banning player is picking for you, which will likely feel worse, but the exact numbers are up to experimentation.

2. (for 2v2, possibly 3v3+ as well) Pick n, opponent splits into m teams, choose team from the m choices given. For the same reasons as solution 1, this solves problem 1. This also mostly just sidesteps problem 2 as no Immortals are being banned, only certain Immortal combinations are being restricted, this fully preserves both properties A and B when it comes to synergies, and preserves them better than straight banning as it's the specific team makeups that are being contained, though this does break down if there are Immortals who are broken or miserable to play against regardless of their partner Immortals, and also only prevents mirror matches as far as the whole team composition goes, rather than per-Immortal. Arguably these could be dealt with by adding a step to ban i Immortals before splitting into teams.

For specific numbers, I think n=4 or 6 + i and i=0 or 1, with m=n/2 by definition. This gives players 2 or 3 teams to choose from, and still preserves the benefit of allowing each player to be a faction-specialist, while not being too overwhelming to choose or split from. I think Pick 4 split to 2 makes sense to keep it simple, and also means that i can be increased even to 2 without losing the faction specialist allowance.

Credit where due:
-pick n ban m idea comes from competitive Sakura Arms/Furuyoni, a Japanese competitive LCG that I discovered via its upcoming translation by Level 99 games, and which uses pick 3 ban 1 for tournaments (though in that case you merge the remaining 2 choices rather than just picking one of the remainder, due to how the game's setup works)
-pick n split m ways comes from Gifts Ungiven, the Magic: the Gathering card