I'm in gold 4, and about 3/4 of my fights come down to whoever goes first wins before the other guy gets a turn

I am certainly not Gold 4, I try to stay out of Gold as much as I can because I don't like the blocking of champions mechanic... but I am finding myself pick Blizzar with WuKong more and more because the super fast teams I run into are so damn squishy. 

As long as I can get WuKong back up, I win. So I just ban anyone that can block revive. 

I do think that a champion or gear that give an insane amount of 1st round reflect damage would be a nice way to deal with the speed race. Otherwise they just have to keep adding mechanics that block damage or death. They tried to do it somewhat with things that block AOE damage but now they are circumventing that with skills that attack a single targets in order. AKA Thor. 

If it would be straight forward. Waiting half the bar until the opponent shows a reaction... its annoying.

Worst decision to force the participation here. The other arena quests already sucked, but it did not get better with this one.

Yeah find somewhen a time slot is possible, but I like to play when I want and not when the game forces me to.