How do you deal with Smolder without perma-picking him?

Hello everyone,

I'm a Diamond 4 ADC main on EU Nordic & East and lately I feel completely trapped by Smolder.

Because of his infinite scaling, the true damage and the execute, it feels like if I don’t pick Smolder, and the enemy team does, the game is automatically super hard or basically doomed.
I currently perma-ban Twitch every game, because I really hate that rat.

Because of this, I’ve started to feel like I have to pick him every game. I used to enjoy playing other ADCs like Varus, Jinx or Miss Fortune, but now whenever I think about locking them in, I just imagine the enemy picking Smolder and outscaling me with crazy true damage and an execute on top of that.

So a few questions for you:

- How do you mentally deal with this? Is it just a mindset issue on my side?

- Are there ADCs that you feel do well into Smolder later on, or is it more about team comp / jungle pressure / ending early?

- Do you just accept that if the enemy gets a fed Smolder, you play to survive and hope your team deals with him?

I’d really like to go back to playing champs like Varus, Jinx, MF without feeling like I’m trolling my team for not picking Smolder.

Any advice or perspective would be appreciated.

Thanks!