What is LoL Quick Play mode and how does it work?

The newest League of Legends game mode, Quick Play, is finally here to make queueing up for five-vs-five matches on Summoner’s Rift a much faster experience.

Riot Games has long been testing a way to get League players into matches a whole lot faster and with Quick Play it seems the developers have succeeded. On Nov. 7 it was out with the old⁠—in this case, the long-standing Blind Pick lobby⁠—and in with the new, with Quick Play hitting clients in several regions.

Here’s how League’s new Quick Play mode works.

League’s new Quick Play mode, explained

Quick Play mode allows League players to skip champion queue entirely and immediately load into games on Summoner’s Rift. Whereas most modes have role selects and a drafting phase, it’s simply “lock and load” for the newest lobby⁠—choose which role and champion you want to play and away you go.

This is very much supposed to be a casual League mode, with champ combinations and deep strategy thrown out the window. Instead, you can expect to see everyone picking which characters they want to play the most in that lobby.

I have been eager for Quick Play to arrive for some time because it gives us the perfect testing realm; you’ll always get the role and character you want to try.

Once you’ve landed on the Rift⁠—hopefully with a much shorter lead-in time⁠—the game is played nearly exactly the same as Blind Pick.

Blind Pick and Quick Play differences

There are very few differences between this new Quick Play mode and the old Blind Pick format, with two teams of five League players facing off on the Rift. Like Blind Pick, there can certainly be the same characters on each team.

Unlike Blind Pick, however, Quick Play has a shorter Surrender time: You can vote to end the lobby in question from 10 minutes, though you’ll need four out of five players to accept for things to shut down. Like other Rift-based modes, this shrinks at 20 minutes, with just three “yes” votes needed past then.

When the game starts, players will also be given indicators to show them which lane they are playing for the game. It will be the same as you picked pre-lobby.

Why isn’t Quick Play available in my League client?

Riot is staggering the official release of Quick Play out across League regions starting from Patch 13.22 on Wednesday, Nov. 8. If you cannot see Quick Play in your client yet, your region has likely not yet been given access.

League Quick Play matchmaking

The new Quick Play queue is going to be using “the same MMR you had for Blind Pick queues,” the devs explained in a blog post in October. They decided to carry everything over because the new mode is basically just an evolved version of the old casual playlist and things didn’t need to change.

Your hidden Quick Play rank won’t affect Ranked Play standings.