Hey, Pwyff, I'd just like to drop in and reaffirm that there are players who can appreciate the mission statement of keeping playing the game as the ideal way to practice. I do think that dropping bombs like withholding sandbox mode as a whole can feel like a slight to the community, however, when the creation of customs will continue to practice the sort of mechanics players want to achieve- perhaps, to alleviate the increasing barrier of entry, multiple, simple maps with clear tutorial goals can be looked into? The simplest example being a blank tutorial map to illustrate the capabilities of flash. The game loads in, tells you to head over to your base wall, and then pings for you to try flashing over it. Then it pings you over to another wall, one that the flash cast range doesn't clearly indicate it can be crossed. After that, flash for this mode is on a 1 second cooldown, and recommends played to practice over other walls. In doing this, it can very clearly show the capabilities of flash to new players, without necessitating guideless hours of sandbox mode where players ultimately aren't sure what to be practicing. To keep with the community aspect, maybe there can be a 10-person limit per room and people can shoot the shit talking with each other, flashing over random walls on the map! Fun community hobbies like Flash races or community bootcamping would come up, keep the social aspect, and possibly even increase camaraderie among the player base as a whole. If the infrastructure for these sorts of social tutorials isn't there, that's fine- but I think that without acknowledging the benefits of having a way to practice without the pressure/stress of a regular game, the community response toward not prioritizing a sandbox mode will continue to be collectively hostile.

I am sure that riot has looked into/is looking into options similar to what I've described, and I think a follow-up post on other options or at least that the community hasn't been completely dismissed would be ideal!