LoL mastery update, explained | Why LoL fans hate the new Mastery Points changes

There were heaps of different changes dropped into League of Legends in the huge midseason update shared in League Patch 14.10, but no change has been more hated—and maybe misunderstood—than the one to Mastery Points.

These changes mean new emotes, harder-to-complete challenges, and a whole lot of miscommunication about Mastery conversions.

League fans up in arms over Mastery Points changes

1) Sage Challenge is now harder to complete

The Sage Challenge in League requires you to obtain full Mastery with different champions. The more champions you have full Mastery with, the higher your Sage rank will be. Previously, you only had to reach Mastery Seven with your champions, but now, because of the Mastery changes, you need to reach Mastery 10.

Players are understandably upset that they now have to spend time earning even more Mastery Points to reach the maximum level. And, they are even more upset after one player posted the total amount of Mastery points you need to get every champion to Mastery 10, which they calculated to be just under 14.5 million Mastery Points.

Unfortunately, this also means any challenge tied to League Champion Mastery will also be affected, such as:

• Maven of Strings: You now need to achieve a Mastery of 10 as Sona to achieve this.
• The Bounty Hunter: You must achieve a Mastery of 10 as Miss Fortune to get this.
• The Frost Archer: You need a Mastery 10 with Ashe to get this.
• Master Mage: You must get Mastery 10 on different mages.
• Master Marksman: You must get Mastery 10 on different marksmen.

And many more. So, if you go into your Challenge list or notice you no longer have a title for achieving max rank in the Challenge, this is why.

2) Conversion misinterpretation, miscommunication, or both?

In Riot’s Champion Mastery Guide, the devs explained if you already had Mastery scores before Patch 14.10, your old score would convert into Mastery experience, and you’d get Marks of Mastery proportional to your achievements.

Although this sounds like if you were at full Mastery Seven before this update, you’ll now be Mastery 10 after Patch 14.10, this isn’t the case. At least, not entirely. Players have found that after this patch, some of their champions are still at Mastery Seven, while others were upgraded to Mastery 10. So, there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer.

The dev blog about champion mastery also mentioned players would get a “big one-time infusion of levels to represent your history of dedication to your champions.” Unfortunately, many players interpreted this as they could choose one of their champions with lots of Mastery Points to get this infusion, but that’s not how it worked. But that doesn’t mean many players aren’t wishing they “could choose which ones of your old mastery you wanted to keep.”

While this is a new system, and there are bound to be bugs, errors, issues, and pains, more transparent and straightforward communication would have been appreciated, especially regarding infusion and the Mastery conversion.

3) Unappealing Mastery crests, emotes

We’ve all seen those players who enjoy spamming champion Mastery emotes, and we’re either jealous, or it fuels our rage—or both. But with Mastery crests and emote changes, it’s safe to say that no one will be jealous of seeing those spammed because, as many players have commented, they are “so ugly,” with one player even going as far as saying they “are uninspired and feel like they [came] from a mobile game.”

4) ‘Mastery reflects real accomplishment, not just grind’ feels like a joke

With how many Mastery Points you need to reach Mastery 10, earning these now feels like more of a grind than ever. Although many play League for the sake of playing League, there are some who also really enjoy earning achievements and are completionists. So, these changes have caused many players to feel “demoralized,” and like everything went from being skill-based to, as one player put it, “play more and get rewards.”

Even though Patch 14.10 went live on May 15 and featured many changes to League, the changes to champion masteries, Mastery Points, and challenges are some of the most hated changes to League outside of the many battle pass reward kerfuffles.