[Tactics] Picks and Bans

There's no set strategy for picks & bans, but there are a few pointers I can give you.

I'll assume that you don't have a premade team with a set tactic but are either solo, duo or 3-man queueing ranked with no specific tactic prepared.

##First Banphase

The first two bans (on both teams) are usually used to get rid of the strongest Gods in the current meta. Who that is changes constantly, check tier lists, pro streams or just usage statistics to get a feel of who the best performing Gods are. You can, of course, always just ban Gods you personally don't like to face off against, but you'll probably do better in the long run if you focus on strong picks over personal preference (at least in the first two bans).

##First Picks

Depending on when you banned, you'll either get first pick or second and third. Once you've got a grasp on how ranked works, you should take first, second and third pick into consideration when banning. I wont go too much into detail, but the gist of it is: If your enemy has first pick, leave more than one top pic open. If you leave just one open, they're likely to take it, and you'll have to pick "what's left", where as if you let 2 or even 3 top picks through the banning phase, you're guaranteed at least one or two top picks yourself. This is obviously a gross oversimplification, but I hope you get the idea.

Other than what I mentioned above, first picks are pretty similar to first bans, in that you want to get your team a few strong priority picks. **This is not time to pick your out-of-meta, personal preference God**. I'm not saying you shouldn't play something that's not considered strong atm, if you're certain you'll do well go ahead, but leave those picks until later. Go for Gods that are likely to be either banned or picked up by the enemy. Athena is a prime example of this in many ranked games: Due to the large ammount of strong picks currently available she often gets through the first ban phase and is usually picked up within the first 2-3 picks afterwards. Communication is key here. Look at who's available and ask your teammates if anyone wants to play them (if you don't want to play them yourself). At lower levels, this might not work, as your teammates might not feel comfortable with said Gods, not have them mastered or simply wont bother to answer you. While I did suggest that you pick top priority Gods early on, you shouldn't pick something that you're not willing to play without your teammates having agreed. I often see someone lock-in khepri "for support" only to end up having to play it himself because the desiganted support either doesn't have Khepri mastered or just doesn't want to play him. So once again, communication is key.


##Later Picks

This is where most of the top priority Gods are likely to have been taken. If it's your time to pick, look at what roles are still available and consider both your as well as the enemies' team comp. Look for synergies (e.g. your teammate picked awilix, get someone with knock-up if you can) and for possible counters (e.g. Bellona into an AA heavy team). You should stilll communicate with your team and see if they have a specific God that they want you to pick for them, but if they don't you can just go for your own picks.

##Second Banphase

This is where every game is different. As I see it, there's two paths to go. Once again, this is an oversimplifcation and it wont be as clear cut in a real ranked game as I seem to make it out to be, this is meant as a general overview.

###Priority Bans

Similar to the first ban phase, you'll target the remaining top picks **for the roles that they haven't got yet**. So if it's your turn to ban, and the enemy has a Thor, Bellona and Athena, none of which are likely to be played in Mid or as ADC, you want to look at strong Mid picks as well as ADCs to ban. Pretty much the same as the first time around, with the focus being on the roles your enemies to still have to fill.

###Counter / Synergy bans
Rather than just ban the most common / strongets picks in specific roles, you can look at your & your enemies' specific line-ups and look at their strenghts and weaknesses.

####Counter bans
Look at your own team and think about what could counter them.

E.g.: You have Kali in the Jungle, Bakasura in Solo and Chronos mid. Your opponent has not yet picked a Solo laner (as far as you can tell). Your team is very AA reliant, so someone with a Disarm would counter you quite hard. If Bellona hasn't been banned, ban her to ensure that your team wont get countered too hard.

In this example (which is obviously very hyperbolic), your whole team would've been partially countered, but that doesn't have to be the case. If your teammate picked Aphro for solo, you probably want to ban Odin even if noone else on your team has healing, etc.

If your team has good communication, you can also ban according to picks that haven't gone through yet, although this can be a bit risky. If your team communicates you that they want to play a God who has a specific hard-counter, ban that hard-counter preemtively so as to allow your teammate to pick his God without the threat of his hard-counter being picked afterwards. This can be a bit risky though, as your enemy might see through your tactic and/or pick the God your teammate was going for.

####Synergy bans
Look at the enemy team and think about what their strenghts / weaknesses are and which God could compliment those well.

E.g.: The enemy team has picked up Janus, Apollo and Bellona. Janus and Apollo give them great global prescence, making for strong and quick rotations. If Athena hasn't been picked / banned, you probably want to ban her so as to not give them an even more global prescence.

E.g.: The enemy team has Vamana, AMC and Bastet. While they have a lot of damage, they have relatively little CC. Look at Gods (for roles they haven't picked) with good CC (e.g. Athena, Isis, etc.) to ban to force them into suboptimal picks.

The first example is a lot clearer, because there's a few target bans that you can go for. The second example is a lot less clear, as there are quite a few options they could go for (although the general principle still holds true).

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In most cases, you wont go for one of the options above but for a combination of them, meaing that you'll go for target bans that target specific high-priority Gods who would work well against your team / with thier team. A good example of a very common target ban is banning Geb if your team has Athena. Geb is a very strong pick on most line-ups, so you could consider him a top-priority pick (once the first few picks and bans have gone through). He is also, however, expectionally strong against Athena, as he can counter her taunt with his shield, so this is a good example of a combination of priority and counter bans.

##Final picks

This is completely dependant on what happened before. Here you just pick whatever God you need. As always, if possible, pick a God that works well with your team, but at this point you might just have to pick whatever's left. Final picks are often given to Solo laners, as Solo laners tend to be in a 1vs1 situation (or as close to one as you'll get in a MOBA) for the longest ammount of time, making counter picks especially effective for them. It also helps that there is a relatively large variety of strong Solo laners, which means that not having an early pick (and thus possibly having the top picks banned / taken) isn't as detrimental to them as it is to other lanes.

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I hope this helps a bit. As I mentioned multiple times, picks and bans isn't a hard science and every game you'll play will be different, so don't take this set in stone rules but more of a guide line to orientate yourself by.