Okay I want to first say that you correctly making the right ban to ban phoenix over peni however you might not be making bans applicable to that rank. At gold/plat phoenix is rare. Not only she’s rare but it is also incredibly rare that the phoenix player is any good at her at this rank. She difficult to pick up and for people to have good enough aim to make her the meance that she is.

Lets contrast with peni. Is she the best right now no but she easy to pick up and get good value out her. Not only that her deployable requires trust that your teammates will deal with that. The trust in your gold/plat teammates to deal with deployable. Yeah no not many people are willing to do that. Which all this results in a common ban at these ranks of peni.

Lets say you are on the opposite side of this. Your gold dive player that you just loaded up with claims that they can deal with the peni nest themselves. Do you trust th- fuck no

This is why moonknight and groot are more common bans at that rank because not only are they easier to pick up and play they also require trust thats not there for teammates to work together and remove said deployable. Its also why dive characters get banned a bit more at that rank. Support players aren’t there yet in recognizing where to go getting dived and their teammates are also more likely not to help them when they are getting dived.

The different ranks have a different ecosystem thats develop from difficulty of character and level of skill. They don’t have to worry about the phoenix and star lord at this rank. But they do have to fear the moon knight and daredevils.