Red Post Collection: Tentative Cinderhulk & Hecarim changes, Champion Select Problems & Team Builder Draft, and more

This afternoon's red post collection is shot in sweet, including Meddler discussing some tentative changes they are looking at for Enchantment: Cinderhulk and Hecarim, Reinboom with a note on the Hunter's Machete changes that have been on and off the PBE recently, and Lyte discussing where the future Team Builder Draft will factor in for current Champion Select problems.
Continue reading for more information!

• 4/23 PBE Update: New icon for The Black Cleaver, Purple Animated Victory / Defeat, Mark/Dash sound effects, and more
• Red Post Collection: Details on Ashe changes soon, Current status of experimental Mandrake Ward, 2015 MSI ruleset, and more
• LCS EU & NA Summer Promotion Tournament

Tentative Cinderhulk and Hecarim changes testing soon

In a thread lamenting the recent surge of of  Enchantment: Cinderhulk and smite usage in the top lane, Meddler stepped in to comment the team has tentative plans to fiddle with Cinderhulk's damage to jungle monsters vs other unites.

"Quote:

I'm already getting frustrated and it hasn't even happened yet. Whenever the support or jungler's get something nice that's going to help out our role the other players come in and abuse the crap out of it until it gets nerfed. It happened with Sightstone, it happened with Spirit of the Elder Lizard, and It's going to happen with Cinderhulk. Last night I had a ranked game where my support and top laner both went smite so they could go challenging smite Cinderhulk. Unfortunately it was amazing and we won. 

This is the last thing I need. Can't we do something so only those roles that the item is meant for can use it? I'm just tired of getting to a place where I enjoy Support or Jungle then it gets nerfed to the point I hate the role again

Our current thoughts on Cinderhulk involve changing it so that it deals more damage to jungle monsters than other units to bias its effectiveness in favor of junglers. I believe we'll be testing that next week, see if it hits the mark and whether other or alternative changes would also be appropriate."

When asked about Hecarim's dominance outside of his traditional role as jungler, Meddler also commented on tentative plans for Hecarim:

"We're testing some Hecarim changes at the moment with the goal of reducing his laning power without hitting his jungling. What that currently looks like is an increased mana cost on his Q, so it's not quite as spammable in lane, but with the reduced damage to jungle monsters removed so his jungle clears don't get penalized. Still exploring and discussing options though of course, so those exact changes aren't guaranteed to happen."

PBE Hunter's Machete changes

When asked about the removal & re-adding of the same set of Hunter's Machete from the last three PBE cycles, Riot Reinboom tweeted:

[1] "We're holding off on the change for now due to the shifts in the Jungle meta recently. It's still on the table though"

For reference, these now reverted Hunter's Machete changes decreased the base regen of the Jungler passive but granted greatly increased regen when the owner was below 50% health.

Champion Select Problems & Team Builder Draft

In a thread voicing frustration with the current champion select process and trolls encouraging other players to dodge, Lyte jumped in to comment on the upcoming Team Builder Draft feature the team his team is currently working on.

"Quote:

I've had two champ selects in row where people have decided to troll, and I was forced to dodge or waste 20 minutes and lose lp. Now I'm down 13 lp, cant play for half an hour, and the people who trolled are completely unaffected. At least let us report people in champ select so we can make an attempt at solving the problem.

We have been working on Team Builder Draft, which should resolve a lot of conflicts in Ranked queues today; however, we haven't mentioned this much yet but players that trigger a lot of queue dodges do get penalties in the game such as game bans or Ranked Restrictions to stop them from playing Ranked. 

I suppose we could do a post the next time queue dodge bans occur. After Team Builder Draft is launched, if there are still significant queue dodging issues, we may allow players to report a player and specify a reason if they do choose to queue dodge."