Next season, League of Legends players looking to make the climb through the competitive ranks might be happy to know that Riot Games is removing inter-division promotion series from the game for the 2021 preseason.
This means that players will no longer have to play a three-game series to rank up to the next division in their tier. Many people complained that these series were extremely difficult to pass through among each division, which made climbing more difficult.
“At best, they were a source of relief when you won and, at worst a source of major frustration when you were bounced out for the fifth time in a row,” Riot said. “We wanted to revisit the original decision and solve for unnecessary frustration and climbing blocks between solo and flex queues divisions.”
Riot will be allowing players to roll over leftover LP from their rank up into the next division. But there also won’t be any inter-division demotion protection should you reach zero LP during your games. Instead, you’ll instantly drop down a division. This should help keep things balanced with the ranks.
This removal will not affect promotions between entire tiers. If someone is about to rank up from silver to gold, for example, they will still need to undergo a promotional series to earn themselves the next tier. Riot recently announced that they’ll be removing duo queue for master and above.
By removing duo queue for players above Masters, this guarantees that each match is balanced with five solo players that must rely on their game knowledge and mechanical skill, rather than having a teammate they’ve been grinding with over the season.
Don’t worry, though—if you still want to pair up with a friend and climb the ranked ladder, duos are still available to play in the flex queue. This is a great chance with players complaining to Riot to remove this possibility for years. The highest level in solo queue became a duo meta with players focusing on finding a partner to climb the standings. Multiple people got very high due to using either mid/jungle duo or bottom lane duo, which makes it unfun for opponents. In most cases, games would end being a stomp so this change is highly welcome.
Hopefully for League fans, this change will give players less of a frustrating time while in-between divisions, while also still providing a challenge when reaching the final hurdle to their next tier jump.