The most important mode in League of Legends is ranked play. Currently, there are only a few requirements to play for your rank. Riot wants to change that to combat smurfs.
What do you need to play ranked in LoL? Currently, there are two requirements to be able to play both Ranked Solo/Duo and Ranked Flex. The account must be at level 30, and you need at least 20 champions, as 10 will be banned and then 10 must be picked.
Smurf accounts simply need to level up their account. This usually happens in bot or ARAM games. Riot is no longer interested in this and wants to introduce a new requirement with the next patch: New accounts must now also play 10 matches in Summoner’s Rift, meaning Draft or Quick Play, in addition to the previous requirements.
If you are not interested in the stressful MOBA gameplay, then you should check out the new mode:
A step for beginners and against smurfs
On X.com, RiotPhroxzon announced this change. He explains that the change has been planned for a while, but some adjustments needed to be made. He also talks again about the reasons for the new restriction.
They have problems determining the skill of new players when they only play ARAM or bot games. At the same time, this should also help with alternative accounts that are otherwise placed too low and completely overwhelm beginners and new players.
Riot Phroxzon mentions in the tweet again that they want to continue to combat purchased and boosted accounts. Vanguard is also there for this purpose. Vanguard has already caused hardware bans.
They also want to closely examine players who consciously try to misrepresent their skill so they can play with worse players. How exactly the measures against this will look is not mentioned in the tweet.
How does the community react? On reddit, the majority of the community is responding positively to the announcement, even if some are calling for even stricter restrictions.
- comfortreacher:
Good change, it didn’t really make much sense to play ARAM/bots and go straight into ranked
- WoonStruck:
Based. Their matchmaking algorithm could actually start placing people properly now. It should probably be 20-30.
- Zyver87:
A good change that should have happened years ago
What do you think of this change? Is it good, or should Riot take even tougher action against smurfs and purchased accounts? Let us know in the comments. Smurfs seem to be a big issue for Riot in 2024, as they are trying to combat them using various methods: LoL is adopting the best change from Dota 2 in recent years and wants to ban annoying teammates
