Hey everyone, the picks and bans phase of a Smite ranked game can be the make or break time for most teams. If you don't ban the overpowered gods, your team could lose. However, if you don't pick a good team composition, your team could still lose. A lot of people say that some games are lost at the picks and bans phase. So you might be thinking, how do I know what I should ban and what is a priority pick that you should get as a good first pick?

Bans:

In season 3 of Smite, ranked conquest gets two bans at the start of the match lobby and depending on if your team is picking first, it will determine what you ban. Banning may take a bit of research or experience to see what is overpowered in the current meta. Most of the time, you can ask your team what they prefer to ban and 9/10 they’ll tell you to ban the normal bans. After the first two bans, there will always be something good to pick up for the team that’s picking first so you may want to ban accordingly and see if someone on your team wants something specific before banning it. After the 3rd player of both teams pick their God, both teams get 2 more bans. This is where you’ll have to think about the team compositions more. Look at the gods they chose against the gods you chose.

If you have an Aphrodite solo and they have an Odin, chances are that the Odin is going solo to counter Aphrodite. You’ll still need to know what gods are in the meta, but it's always going to be like that for bans. If it isn't clear what gods are going a certain role (like if they have an Odin, he can go either jungle or solo) then ban something that doesn't coincide with that role. It's always better to go for safe bans and not waste your ban, than to go for bans that are a bit more risky. Banning is your time to mess up their plans.

Picks:

IMPORTANT: Everyone should know that in ranked you aren't guaranteed the role you call because of priority pick. This means that the people that pick gods before you, can pick their role before you too. So unless you're top elo, you aren't ever guaranteed the role you call.

When you're first pick, you can choose whatever role and God you want, but that doesn't mean that you should go around taking other's roles and picking your God up. Generally, people expect the top elo to pick what's leftover of the overpowered gods since there still will be a couple after the first banning phase. However, this isn’t necessarily the case every time. Before you pick a god, you should see if someone else wants a god or one of the overpowered gods that are leftover from the bans. Then, if no one responds you should pick for yourself and don’t assume someone wants something. It’ll just end up creating confusion. I’ve had games where the top elo player picked Khepri just because he was open.

When the last player went to pick his god, he didn’t even know the first guy got Khepri for him. When picking for your role, after you know what it is, you should know who’s in the meta, counter matchups, who you’re comfortable playing as, and a god that goes well with your team’s composition. For example, if you’re choosing a jungle or solo and there’s a Zeus on your team, Odin would be a great god to choose because they get trapped in your fourth ability while taking damage from Zeus’s fourth ability. There are plenty of other situations like this, especially for picking supports and ADC’s, but I’m not going to go into any others. That’s for you to think of and test yourselves.

The last thing I want to say about picking gods that I can’t stress enough, is pick something you’re good at and you want to use. Even if there’s an overpowered God open that you don’t want them to have, don’t worry about it. Use your best god, play against them like normal, and have fun. A lot of people don’t like to have fun in their games if they’re losing and I can understand that. However, at the end of the day this is a game and it shouldn’t ruin your day when you lose. I had a game recently where my team was getting destroyed in every way. They were even able to tower dive, kill us, and get the tower for free by 11 minutes. However, it was just me and someone else in a call and we just started making jokes and laughing about how badly we were losing. The other players might’ve been angry, but I don’t mind losing a game every now and then if I have fun while losing. Most gods I do the best with are ones that I love using and I have fun with.