A counterpoint is that occasionally, a team of squishy (even medium-range) champions ends up against a team of strong bruisers that just DEMOLISH them before they can get going. Like, you'll have a team with Yi, Teemo, Draven, Karthus, and Kog'maw versus a team like Jax, Singed, Blitzcrank, J4, and Rumble. While normally the longer-ranged first team would have an advantage, you can sometimes see the tanky high-early-damage team just jump on the squishies and demolish the other team before they can really leverage their poke.

Nautilus and Blitzcrank's grabs are unusually powerful on PG, since the 'awkwardly shuffle around before a teamfight phase' is what the majority of the map consists of.

Edit: Also, playing 'true melee' champions like Udyr, Garen, and Volibear is just infuriating. Bushes are nice, but if your only ranged option is "flash onto the other man", you're going to have trouble. At least one of the enemy 5 champions is going to have some kind of CC to keep you away, and god forbid you underestimate the damage that tower does and try to dive it early.

The most annoying poke champions usually go tear anyway.

Would it honestly? I have not boughten Chalice once in my last 50 all random games, even on mana destroyers like Ziggs. Tear is a much better option most of the time.

2 or more tanks, Soraka, Nidalee

It's actually possible to run out of mana with a tear.

It sure is, but by then if you haven't gotten some kills and farmed some gold to go die and buy, then you are obviously doing it wrong.

All poke vs. no poke
Definitely hard. Usually all poke champions aren't super strong late game, but if you have no sustain early on, it's almost impossible to survive long enough to make a comeback and if it's really all poke vs no poke, the amount of harass damage is overwhelming.

This is compounded by the fact that the way the health runes are stacked gives the advantage to the more aggressive team holding the opposing team at their tower. The extra rune gives them bonus sustain which makes it even harder to break out of the poke superiority.

All CC Team vs. No CC Team
Less brutal early on, but if you get a matchup where you have all carries or supports and no hard CC, some champs just become unstoppable (Yi, Kat, etc.) Especially brutal with AE stun. This one is compounded by the fact that Proving Grounds is pretty much a constant teamfight so the cooldown on something like Banshees, cleanse or sash makes the item far less useful in sustained group combat.

Sustain
I'm mixed on this being frustrating, but as was mentioned earlier, items like chalice or tear which give significant amounts of sustain to certain champs can really change the pace of the fight. Especially on healers where good mana sustain can really equate to complete health sustain for their entire team, this can get overwhelming at times.

Can you have the matchmaking automatically remove games that are full from the search que? I also find myself constantly doing the same thing for custom maps:

Search for: Aram
Sort by: # of people. Scoll down to the 9/10 and click till one lets you in.

It havent spent a ton of time with it, but can you do an advanced search and remove other maps from the search criteria so you only get proving grounds... in addition to sorting by how many spots are left open?



As for In-game matchups, the most abusive matchup i have seen by far is a heavy poke comp. Nidalee, Jayce, Khazix, (Kha slow on the W easily sets up the nidalee spear and the jayce Q), combined with a Veigar (Large AoE Stun) or Karthus (Large wall - slow) to disengage. Throw in a single bruiser who can peel and you can constantly seige the enemy without taking damage yourself.

Casters with ranged, AOE, CC have a lot of power. I'm thinking of Lux, Fiddle, Cho'Gath and the like who can poke hard, and disable from distance.

If you're a melee character like Udyr, Tryndamere or the like, you're really, really screwed.

That's where your other 4 teammates come in. If every melee could deal with range that would destroy the game's balance.