Ranked seeding changes for new League of Legends accounts pushed back to 2021 preseason

"We're seeing a few more challenges than expected."
Image via Riot Games

League of Legends players frustrated with smurfs taking over their solo queue games will have to be a bit more patient.

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League lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter explained today that the ranked seeding changes for new accounts are being pushed back to the 2021 preseason patch.

“We’re seeing a few more challenges than expected translating normal MMR into ranked MMR due to the nature of the two queues,” Scruffy said. “We’re going to do the necessary work to correctly translate between the two MMRs so we’re seeding ranked players much closer to their skill level—the core goal of the project.”

Riot previously explained that players are all given a “fixed placement” toward the bottom half of the solo queue curve. But a smurf account starting from the same rank as a beginner is problematic and causes matchmaking quality to suffer within the “highest-populated skill level.”

This new ranked seeding feature would use matchmaking rating (MMR) from normal queues to provide a ranked MMR for a player’s first competitive matches. So if a player performs well in normal games while leveling their account to 30, they’d be placed in a higher solo queue rank.

But translating normal MMR to ranked MMR proved difficult for the devs and Riot is postponing it until the preseason. Players can expect division promotional games to be removed then, too.


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Andreas Stavropoulos
Staff writer for Dot Esports. Andreas is an avid gamer who left behind a career as a high school English teacher to transition into the gaming industry. Currently playing League, Apex, and VALORANT.