After testing out Teamfight Tactics‘ new ranked mode on the League of Legends PBE, Riot has lowered the number of players that can queue up together from five to three at all ranks. This is a change that will most likely be welcomed by most of the League community.
Ran “Stimhack” Cao, a data scientist for Riot, confirmed the news a day before the release of Patch 9.14, which would be the first big patch for TFT since its creation. This update will bring multiple big changes to the game mode, including ranked, and a plethora of balance changes to items and champions alike.
Stimhack said that “due to some concerns,” the party size restriction will be locked to three players. These concerns were not specified, however, but it might have to do with those five players having the ability to help each other in games to gain more LP. She also said that Riot will be evaluating more restrictions as players rank higher up the ladder.
Many thought that having the ability to queue up with five of your friends was too much for TFTs ranked system, seeing as players could manipulate games in order to rank up quickly with the help of some teammates. If five of the eight competitors know each other, then they could most definitely skew the game into a select player’s favor.
By lowering the party size to three, it gives other players who aren’t partied up a fighting chance to win. Additionally, this lowers the chance for people to push and pull games in their favor. We should expect more changes to the ranked TFT system as the game progresses through its beta period.
