The last time Riot created a Tanker, specifically Ornn, was 5 years ago.
Yes, you didn’t read mistakenly, the last TRUE tanker in LoL came to the Rift in 2017! Spectacularly, that champ was Ornn, which appeared on live servers on August 23, 2017, which means it was 5 years since the last tanker in our game. A lot of Bruisers, Assassins, Marksmen,… have been created, while Tankers have seemed to be forgotten.
Tankers do not bring many benefits to Riot
In a game like LoL, showing skills is obviously the aim of most players. As a result, hyper-carry champions are definitely the beloved ones of players, especially casual ones. Champions which require high skills and are able to create amazing plays such as Lee Sin, Yasuo, Zed,… are always hot picks in every elo. Meanwhile, tankers specialize in protecting teammates, especially the ADC. This role is not favored by many players as the satisfaction of carrying the whole team is definitely much larger.
Clearly, Riot Games is just an enterprise and they need money to maintain. So, income from skins plays an essential role in their earnings. As mentioned above, the number of tanker lovers is relatively low, so their skins would have difficulty becoming one of the best sellers. All in all, ignoring tankers is apparently reasonable from Riot.
Tankers are too difficult to balance
If you can still remember, right after items were all reworked, Amumu with Sunfire Aegis became a true monster due to his unstoppable power. He was too tanky to be slain, but his damage was also enormous.
At the moment, Sunfire Aegis is still too OP, even stronger than it was in the past when not only tankers but also bruisers and assassins can make use of it. Yone, Diana, Master Yi,… are some examples of this unbalance condition. A sustainable champion dealing huge damage is undoubtedly unacceptable.
Throughout recent years, with their “200 years of experience”, Riot have created some perfect champions and the latest one is Zeri. If this problem still exists till the next tanker appears, it will replace Zeri to become the OP king. The next tanker coming to the Rift has been revealed, so let’s see what Riot is bringing to LoL.