Ranked game (2024)

For Wild Rift, see Ranked game (Wild Rift).

Ranked game is a competitive PvP queue type for what is otherwise a Normal game but with certain matchmaking limitations. League of Legends uses the League system to facilitate the ranked ladder—as players complete matches, they earn and lose points, called League Points, that influence their standing in the ranked ladder of the queue.

The Ranked Solo/Duo and Ranked Flex queues have the following prerequisites:

• The player must be at least player level 30.
• The player must have have access to at least 20 champions, all of which must be owned.
• The player must have played at least 10 full Normal Summoner's Rift games.

Ranked queues are always available except for maintenance and end-of-split periods.

Players entering a ranked ladder must first play a set of provisional matches. The results of these matches determine the player's initial tier and division within the League system, for the current split of the season.

Queues[]

Solo/Duo Queue[]

A ranked ladder where players can compete alone, or with the help of another player. This exemplifies an environment that hones individual skill.

Players whose hidden Match Making Rating (MMR) corresponds to the Grandmaster and Challenger tiers cannot queue with each other (visible rank is irrelevant). In the Korea and all China servers specifically, this limitation is expanded to include MMR that corresponds to the Master tier.

• Classic 5v5 Summoner's Rift (10-Ban Draft pick)

Flex Queue[]

A ranked ladder that enables any sized party in a team, except for parties of four. End of season rewards differ from Solo/Duo queue.

• Classic 5v5 Summoner's Rift (10-Ban Draft pick)

Ranked Restriction[]

If a player exhibits unsportsmanlike behavior during a ranked game and is subsequently issued a penalty higher than a warning due to it, they are additionally temporarily restricted from playing further ranked games.

The restriction lasts for 5 games. The player must play this number of normal games in order to lift the restriction. Remade games do not count as a valid game for the purposes of ranked restrictions.

History[]

Dynamic Queue (V6.1–V6.22)[]

At the beginning of the Season Six ranked season^[1], shortly after the release of patch 6.1, the two ranked queues (Solo/Duo and Team 5v5) were both replaced with one queue, and their ladders were combined. This new Dynamic Queue allowed parties of any size (1 to 5) to queue up and be matched together; non-solo parties would be matched with solo players. Dynamic Queue was in place for the entirety of the Season Six ranked season.

• Classic 5v5 Summoner's Rift (Team Builder 6-Ban Draft pick)

This system quickly displayed heavy, foundational problems: it did not accurately reflect player skill levels, a major issue was uneven skill matchups, there were long queue times due to role popularity imbalance—which birthed Autofill, an auxilliary matchmaking system still in place today, albeit with many improvements—and lack of team coordination as well as heavily disruptive behavior which inherently resulted from this system of matchmaking (on top of other issues at the time, such as insufficient moderation) were frequent occurrences. It also placed solo players at a severe disadvantage in terms of matchups and League Points rewards. Many players reportedly voiced their concerns against these issues before the introduction of the system, and felt increasingly frustrated as the season proceeded and as Riot continuously modified Dynamic Queue with the goals of enhancing the quality of all aspects of the system and alleviating player frustrations.

Despite Riot's greatest efforts, Dynamic Queue was eventually and ultimately unsuccessful in serving its purpose of embodying matchmade competition, and was removed at the end of Season Six's ranked season, but returning at the start of the next season as its spiritual successor, Flex Queue (which has received various changes since then, such as not allowing parties of 4 and improvements to role and party-size parity, among others).^[2]

Media[]

See also[]

• Rank (League of Legends)
• Elo rating system
• Team drafting

References