This new Wild Rift feature could be exactly what League of Legends needs to fix ranked

When it comes to League of Legends solo queue, most players want Riot Games to fix its broken matchmaking system. The gameplay experience deteriorates in higher ranks, especially when players are forced to play with lower-ranked teammates. 

But it looks like developers from Wild Rift (League’s mobile counterpart) are trying out something new to tackle this situation. Jaren “DarkHorse4Life” Berbach, Wild Rift’s game director, talked more about this in the game’s recent Patch 3.4 preview trailer.

He said the developers have been keeping a “close eye on Legendary Queue” and will be bringing a new update/feature for players to try out. “High ranking, competitive players want to be confident that their teammates are playing their best champs, so we’re adding a new gate for Legendary queue based on your champion Mastery score,” he explained

With this new feature, Wild Rift players will be limited when it comes to picking their champions in Legendary queue matchups. They will be able to pick only those champions for which they have a high enough Mastery. After picking up a new champion, players will first need to grind other queues to become familiar with it and raise their Mastery points.

Introducing this feature might improve gameplay in League, especially at higher ranks. But there will also be some hiccups in implementing it across the board.

According to Statista, almost 98 percent of League players in North America are in the Platinum rank or lower. In this group, most are casual players who just log into the game to have some fun. Hence, it is not possible for them to grind up 161 champions (or even a third of them) to enough Mastery points. 

On the other hand, if the feature only gets added to Legendary queue (like in Wild Rift), the decision will not have much impact on the larger player base. Only players who have hit the Diamond rank can play in Legendary queue and this number is even less than two percent of the total League players in North America.

This topic was discussed quite deeply among the Reddit League community. Most community members have also come to the same conclusion regarding this Wild Rift update.

Still, the League developers should bring in this feature after modifying it to suit the PC game. It will encourage players to get familiar with more champions and expand their selection pool. It will also deter them from rushing to pick champions that they do not have much practice with, saving them from a potentially frustrating game experience. 

Until then, players will just have to wish that they get matched up with good teammates in League’s ranked queue.