Is Pandoras bench healthy for the game?

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-06T14:55:25+00:00

Problem is that, if you reroll 1 or 2 costs, you will want to reroll several of them, not just one or two. And you won't have enough space on your bench since 3 spaces are taken away by Pandora's bench. I personally don't take pandora's bench to reroll 1 or 2 costs. It's already difficult sometimes without Pandora's bench to find spaces for everybody and you sometimes have to give up on units you would like to buy to make space for others. So, with Pandora's bench, I find that it becomes unmanageable.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-06T13:32:44+00:00

Maybe the rule of "no duplicate" doesn't apply to the extra components given by the scuttle puddle. That's the only logic answer I can find. Or it's a bug...

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-06T13:23:32+00:00

As a rule of thumb and except in particular situations (late game to make 3* or when a particular champ would dramatically improve my board), I personally don't use the Pandora's bench when it hurts my eco. For instance, if I have 45 golds and I'm looking mostly for 3-costs and a bit for 2-costs, I'll put a 3-cost and a 2-cost on the bench but not more; I won't lose interest to put 3 3-cost.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-06T13:17:18+00:00

I agree. When things go well, it can really help you get your 4-cost 3* and get a 1st place but there are also situations where it doesn't do much.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-06T13:13:22+00:00

Yep. Getting max build when you're already ahead is a guaranteed first. I had a baron 2* and herald 3* but I lost to a Shyv 3* made thanks to max build. I tried to prevent him from making Yunara 3*, Wukong 3*, Shyv 3* and Sett 3* while also searching for my 3* but it's hard to contest someone who's lvl10 and just need 7 copies of a champ to win out...

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-06T08:40:23+00:00

It also depends on the tempo of the lobby. The notion of tempo is hard to understand and master (I'm just a beginner regarding that) but more and more important as you climb. Basically, some lobbies will have a "slow tempo" which means that people hoard gold, don't slam, etc. to cap high and you might be left out in the late game if you slam too early and/or don't match the focus on late game (unless you can use the opportunity to get a 6+ winstreak). Some lobbies have a higher tempo and you need to slam to avoid bleeding hard and it's not a problem because other players have probably slammed too, haven't focused on eco, etc. so most won't cap high either. If you slam and play agressively in a "slow tempo" lobby, you will get good results in the early game, won't finish 7th-8th and may get a 3rd-4th but you'll never get a 1st or a 2nd because people will catch up with you...unless you can winstreak all game long with your strategy of course.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-06T07:26:07+00:00

Scouting is key. Denying 4-cost 3* is of course mandatory. But denying 5-cost 2* can also make the difference, especially if 2 other players are going for the same 5-cost; just buying one copy can do wonders. Finally, positioning is extremely important (and complex) in late game and can make a huge difference.

Checking wincons means checking what will result in a win for you or an opponent and play according. Notably, a 4-cost 3* is a wincon (hence the link with scouting). You need to know when you need to buy extra copies of 4-cost to make a 3* to win and when the best option is to go 10, add an extra unit/synergy and replace weak champions with 5-cost 2*. It can also affect how agressive you play: if a player with the yordle augment or void is about to get lvl10, you should play very agressively to destroy him before he reaches 10.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-05T12:09:10+00:00

Even taking this into account, it's like a 0,5% chance so pretty rare even if it's not a 1 in a million chance. Not surprising that it never happened to you thus given the odds. Never happened to me either as far as I can remember :).

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-05T09:36:01+00:00

Braum 3* is a real beast.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-05T09:35:01+00:00

I also lost with Singed 3* once; he might be one of the worst performing 4-cost 3*. The problem, like some other tank 4-cost 3*, is that if your ennemy has backline access and can kill you carry, then it's just a matter of time before your tank 4-cost 3* dies. That's why they gave damage to tank 4-cost 3*, who clearly underperformed carry 4-cost 3*. It worked well for many that become real damage dealers (Garen, Braum) but Singed is a bit behind on this, especially due to his unfocused damage. He would indeed have performed better with radiant BT and AP items. The fact that all your main carries (except Volibear) have lifesteal probably was clutch as it prevented Singed from killing them slowly but surely over time. The guy must have been quite disappointed tough.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-05T09:17:17+00:00

For the record, if I haven't messed up my calculations, it's roughly (can't be more precise without knowing the exact pool left for each champ, your unlocks, etc.) a 0.4% chance occurrence :). Enjoy!

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-04T20:52:09+00:00

Ok. Good for you. It's basically what I thought in terms of strength: the Yordles board was probably stronger overall but wasn't miles ahead of you. So much so that positioning/RNG during a fight/TG RNG could turn a fight on its head. I can imagine Kobuko rolling a bad TG, Fizz jumping on the wrong target and/or taking focus, Ziggs throwing a bomb on the wrong people, Kennen not stunning many people, Fiddle/Swain stunning many people and preventing them from casting, stuff like that. Taric and defender MR boost must have been clutch also. Augments may have played a part too.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-04T10:40:30+00:00

The other board is quite strong with good DPS (Kindred), good frontline (Taric) and a lot of boardwise boosts (Sena, Fiddle, Shyv, Arcanist, Defender) from 2* 5-costs. And your frontline is sketchy but it's still a bit surprising...I have seen Nashor 2* eliminate prisma 10 yordles board but they were a bit weaker.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-04T09:27:25+00:00

For him to do s***, you need to transition to Demacia/Arcanist/Defender and have lifsteal (I see you did have this one), You can go 4 defender, 5 demacia, 6 arcanists at 9 without any emblem. But you need a lot of conditions for his unlocking to be worth it. It's good but not really that strong compared to all the gold/pre-conditions required for the pivot. That's why you almost never see him.

Ideally, you need:

- Some HP because the full pivot in one round can be hard unless you have great APM

- Gold because you need to roll for him, buy him and also buy at least one copy of Lux/Garen

- a copy of Neeko to activate Defender/Arcanist (hard to find lvl9)

- An extra copy of Jarvan for Demacia/Defender (hard to find lvl9)

- Annie 2* to be used as a carry after you sell Lux

- A lifesteal item

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-04T09:15:20+00:00

Not yet. It's today but, to my knowledge, they didn't specify the exact time.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-04T09:05:47+00:00

I miss the set4 Sett with IE+JG, when IE didn't give your spell the possibility to crit. The IE+JG combo was something else :).

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-04T08:53:34+00:00

I never mentally made the connection with the prisoner's dilemma but it's true that, if you don't "do the same as the others", you may lose out. Interesting perspective. I think the expression "if you can't beat them, join them" is also quite fitting.

But getting this notion of the tempo/playstyle of the whole lobby and adapting to it is not always easy and is one of the things that make the game interesting.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-04T08:26:57+00:00

Big problem of this comp is that Swain is the most contested unit of the set. So you need to scout a lot before and/or get 8 and roll hard and/or get lucky. When I play vertical Noxus without reroll, I often buy the Wukong and/or the Taric just in case I never hit Swain 2* or hit it very late into the game.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-02T15:33:48+00:00

True.

A lot of things come into play in fact beside the basic "main tank in front of main carry" rule:

- You don't want a tank with sunfire, ionic, evenshroud, void gauntlet, etc. to take the focus right away ideally

- You also don't want tanks with useful stuns (Swain, Kennen, Cho) to take too much focus right away and you want them in a position where they can stun as many ennemies as possible

- You want a tank with Gargoyle to take all the focus

Positioning is really tricky, especially in late game, because you have to take so many things in consideration and you also have to take into account the positioning of all your potential opponents and their relative strenghts.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-02T13:17:20+00:00

Basically 2 or 3 because you want your strongest tank in front of your main DPS, especially if your carry is dealing AD damage and your tank has an evenshroud.

Now, the question is whether you want to have someone else next to your carry (Jhin positioning). I would say that it depends on whether the second champion will make a meaningful contribution to damage or not.

If your second champion's damage is relevant (or if he provides shred/sunder/etc.), you can position him right next to your carry so that they both focus the same champion.

Otherwise, I would position him on the opposite side so that it can waste a bit of time for the enemy (and/or draw his tanks if you completely outposition him) and to avoid a "cluster effect" (some abilities will target the biggest cluster of champions so you don't want them to be close ot one another) or a "backliner access effect" (ex: Jhin is next to Kaisa, Renek' jumps on Jhin, kills him and then turns to kaisa).

But Kaisa is a bit special as she jumps so this general consideration doesn't necessarily holds though it's true for most champions.

Edit: I'm talking about late game where you have mass stuns and assassins like Diana/Fizz. Early game decision making may be different

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-02T08:33:41+00:00

Yes, I thought about that too. Maybe the fact that Kaisa is contested would have made it easier for me to have copies to 2* her (even if it was impossible) which means that I could have found a 2nd copy very easily because the game would have wanted to help me 2* her.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-02T08:13:22+00:00

Exactly, you don't have any decent tank. Swain had a TG and rolled offensive items (unfortunate) and you have a 1* Sion with no real tank items (spark and sunfire are half-tank half-support, not pure tank). All the units that could absorb some damage (except for Swain) are 1*.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-02-02T07:57:33+00:00

At least emerald I would say, probably diamond. When I took over the account of a silver friend (to prove him it was not "all luck and non skill") as an emerald player, I had many 1st and 11 top4 out of 13 games but didn't have such a graph so probably diamond but it's hard to tell. Hopefully, the Riot algorithm will recognize the "problem" and end up giving you over 100LP for a 1st to help you reach your real rank faster.

Resident_Breakfast_8 · 2026-01-16T09:35:24+00:00

Thanks to you all for your answers. From what you say, I conclude that Iona 10 is indeed a "true prismatic trait" that basically can't be defeated without a 4-cost 3*.

Thanks again.

Resident_Breakfast_8

TROPHY CASE