When beginning a game of League, you're automatically dropped into one of two teams: Purple or Blue. While this fact may not seem important to a casual player or in early ranked games, it does, apparently, make quite a difference.

Recently LeagueofGraphs, a site dedicated to League of Legends statistics, released data based on over 10,000,000 games. The findings showed a 55.3% win rate for blue team in ranked 5v5 soloqueue. In fact, each category showed a definite advantage for the blue team.





Why is this surprising?

League of Legends is known to use perfect imbalance in their game design. Perfect imbalance refers to a design that allows for generally fair play and even matches. However, to keep the game interesting, it adds slight imbalance to champions or items. This imbalance evolves the meta, making players find ways to counter champions and tactics considered to be 'overpowered' .

While Riot has some exceptions to this rule, this is an impressive mechanic that has been integral to their success. The complaints about the map view from the purple team are nothing new, though. This data is surprising from a game that values balance and fair, perfect imbalance so highly.



Why does this imbalance occur?

Regarding ranked 5v5 solo queue on Summoner's Rift, there have been many speculations on why blue team has this advantage.

- Blue bottom lane gets river bush protection

- Bottom lane ADC receives golems; faster to level 2

- Blue has dragon-steal advantage

- Blue top lane has no tribush; makes ganking much harder if warded

- Purple team UI slightly blocks vision

Riot has previously stated that to make up for some of the disadvantages, the team with the higher total elo gets placed on the purple team. While this is a good attempt, it has yet to balance out. Even if most low-level players aren't exploiting the blue team map advantages consciously, they are quite obviously there.





But let's take a look back at these statistics. That's right, even on Dominion and ARAM, two maps without a bot, top, and mid lane worried about ganks, objectives, and bush positioning, blue team is still showing an advantage.



Perspective Issues

Not only are there troubles with the map, but the static camera view has proven to be an issue for the purple team. Most people will see their perceived center in the lower left corner due to being right handed. Playing from down-to-up often feels unnatural. While reliable statistics have not been released as of yet, it is clear that horizontal maps like Twisted Treeline feel the most natural to most players and is understandable as our vision is horizontally developed (hence which monitors are developed at 16:9, not 9:16 ratios).

There is one argument that may explain a lot of the advantage and give some great advice for future games. The hitbox of a champion is a cylinder that protrudes upward from the map, a flat plane. The camera's perspective gives a tilt to the camera that can skew your vision, making these cylinders appear closer than they really are. This means that while the enemy may appear one way in the isometric view, it doesn't always mean their hitbox will align with that view. A great example of this flaw is in skillshots. On the purple team, Ezreal's Mystic Shot may feel uncomfortable because you really do have to adjust the way you read the hitboxes.

Another instance of this is warding. When wards appear to be in the bush but end up just outside, it can be blamed on a skewed perception of the map. A great tip to aleve this is looking to the reticle beneath the ward before placing. When it turns green, you can be sure it will be placed inside the brush.

Practicing with friends or on bots is one way to improve downward skillshots and laning.



Will the map change?

Rumors of varied map views seemed to be circulating, but died off rather quickly. Riot doesn't seem to have much intention on changing the viewpoint. Although a map reversal so all players began on the bottom left corner might be a great fix to the problem, the map's geometry and texturing (such as reversed bushes) would have to be optimized for this reversal as well as some redesigns. For example, the signs around the dragon pit and baron would need a revamp. It may sound simple, but features like that can be tedious.

The best option is to use blue team games to your advantage and learn ways to counter the blue team strategies when playing purple. Adapting to the game's trials is part of progressing as a player.