The pick and ban phase in any game of Smite is the most undervalued part of the game. Ensuring your team is the best it can be and the enemies' team is as weak as possible can make the difference between victory and defeat. With this in mind, we asked our star jungler Anders "QvoFred" Korsbo for his tips and advice on this often undervalued portion of the game.

The Main Factors

Meta and the Strengths of your team

A word that's often overused and misused when talking about competitive online games. A 'meta' is best described as the game within the game, a constantly changing concept of what characters/items are the best. At a competitive and ranked level, meta should be the first thing you consider when drafting.

As QvoFred says, "It’s most important to draft according to the meta and then to both the strengths and weaknesses of your own team as well as the team you are against."

Tier lists like the example above can be found online and can help you keep up with the ever-changing meta

Meta is important, but if your teammate can't play the god that is considered the 'strongest' meta-wise, it is always better to let them play the gods they feel the most comfortable on or have the most experience on. A god being played by someone with hundreds of hours on them is always going to be better than a 'better' god being played by a player with no experience.

Similarly, don't let yourself get forced into playing gods that are the best right now. Drafting a god and a comp you'll be comfortable in is more important than having the most meta team.

Team Assets

The next level of things you should be considering is the actual assets your team has at its disposal. As QvoFred mentions, "Factors such as damage, CC, lane pressure, and lane match-ups can also be beneficial if you can fit it into the draft."

A selection of five gods drafted together by a team that's proficient on the gods they've picked does not necessarily make a good team. When drafting your composition, you need to ensure it has the assets to be a good team, as mentioned above by QvoFred. A team without damage won't be able to win fights against the enemy team. Without Crowd Control, even a team with the highest possible damage output wouldn't be able to peel for their carries and confirm the damage they are capable of doing.

Understanding each god in the game and what they provide is paramount to drafting a good team comp. All gods have a good balance of Damage, Crowd Control, Pressure, Mobility, and various other assets and this should be reflected in your team. Leaning your team too much onto one asset can lead to your team having a weakness that would be too easily found and exploited

Drafting around one

Smite right now has a lot of gods with hypercarry potential, the ability to win games almost by themselves. The relevance and presence of these gods has lead to many teams trying to build their draft around them, where every role helps and facilitates the hypercarry to allow them to win the game.

According to QvoFred, "This doesn’t really happen very often in SMITE. Although if you were to build a comp around a role it would most likely be a hypercarry in either the ADC, Mid, or Jungle roles. Probably in that order too."

ADCs like Artemis have the potential to win entire games by themselves if supported by their team sufficiently

The ADC role right now is the most viable for this, as new and buffed items allow them to get huge in the late game. However, this strategy is rare in Smite as QvoFred mentions because of the risk. Banking your entire game on one god/player means if they don't pull their weight your chances of success drop hugely. This strategy can work in premade teams but should almost never be attempted in solo queue.

Bans

There are two main types of bans in Smite, bans for gods that are too good to fall into the enemy team's hands ('Meta Bans') and bans that deny gods that would directly counter your team ('Counter Bans')

Counter bans also come in the form of countering gods you know the enemy team members like playing. However, these situations will be very rare in a ranked environment.

Bans are split into two phases and conveniently usually correspond to the two types of bans as QvoFred mentions. "In the first phase, you want to take out either strong meta picks or your opposition's most valued gods. Then in the second phase, you want to take counters to your comp into a lot more consideration, as well as meta or comfort picks again."

The first phase is all about taking away the most powerful gods right away and not letting the enemy team have a definite advantage over you right from the start. The second phase is where you look at what the enemy team already has and try to guess what they would want to pick in the future. For example, if they've so far picked three strong but risky gods, they're going to want a good support to peel for them and protect them. Therefore, possible bans are Geb or Khepri.

Priority Picks

Similarly to the bans, the picks are split into two phases and in much the same way, the two phases differ in the gods you should be picking.

QvoFred mentions some important gods to consider in your first phase. "There are some very strong flex picks right now such as Ne Zha, Zhong Kui, and Baron Samedi."

Flex picks are gods that could take multiple roles and could be played in multiple ways. Picking these in your first phase can give you lots of options for your eventual composition and also keep your opponents guessing as to your plans. Furthermore, flex picks are usually very contested so picking them early ensures they aren't stolen by the enemy team.

Your second phase of picks is best left for less contested picks that you know your enemy won't try and ban out or pick themselves. Another way to use your second phase is to pick niche gods that can counter the enemy team's picks, especially if you have the final overall pick, as this is a pick your enemy cannot respond to.

First or Second Pick?

On that topic, there's a lot of talk about the fairness of the first pick compared to the second pick. While they are balanced overall, they are quite different according to QvoFred. "Choice of first or second pick has a major effect on god priorities for sure."

Overall, the first pick team gets to secure important gods first in both roles. However, the second pick gets to fire back with two gods at once. If you manage to secure two solid gods even though your first pick opponent secured a very powerful god, it's often a situation that still benefits you.

The second pick in this situation allowed Team Dignitas to answer SK Gaming's strong first pick Athena with two solid picks.

Early/Late-Game

While all modern team comps have some late-game focus or solutions, a few seasons ago it was common to see team comps based around the early game. It is much less common these days, but according to QvoFred, still a possibility. “It is for sure still viable, but a lot harder to pull off, especially in Europe. European teams tend to be a lot more confident in relying on their late game compositions as well as playing from behind.”

Early game team comps are filled with gods like Anhur and Isis who excel at pushing and punishing in the early phases of the game. However, these team comps were hit hard by the anti-snowball changes that occurred near the start of this season. These team comps rely on building an insurmountable lead early on and winning the game before the enemy team can make a comeback. This scenario is still possible, but it is risky and difficult, so should only be attempted by teams with good communication and experience with it.

Solo Queueing

As much as these tips are helpful, implementing them in a situation where you're queuing for ranked by yourself can be difficult. Uncommunicative, inexperienced, and ignorant teammates can lead to situations where a good plan for a draft and composition just falls apart. So, what are some things you can do to ensure you have at least a passable composition?

“Ban top meta ranked picks for starters,” says QvoFred. It’s important to not let the enemy team get free powerful gods which would put your team at an immediate disadvantage.

“Then make sure everyone calls a role and there is a discussion going on in the lobby,” he adds. If you start talking and set a precedent, often it’ll make your teammates feel more comfortable with it and allow them to open up more and start real discussions about composition and strategy.

"The most important thing to do is to have the person who is the highest pick priority to pick from the top tiers. If you or another player are the top pick for example but want a lower priority pick, then pick for your teammate and trade later." This cannot be understated as it can mean the difference between a powerful team and a weak team. No matter the skill of your team, a weak composition will make it hard for you to win.

Drafting can make or break your games in Smite. If you follow the tips listed above, you will find yourself winning more and more games just from the picks and bans phase. Thank you for reading, and thanks to QvoFred for his expert insight!