LoL: Riot Updates Ranked Distribution, Placement Games & Promotions

There are exactly two types of League of Legends players: The ones who play Ranked and the ones who don't. In exchange for one side, being allowed to keep their sanity, there will soon be a brand-new rank for the others ones to achieve. Great, isn't it?! Check out what Riot is planning to change for the upcoming second Ranked split of 2023 right here!

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LoL: Riot updates Ranked distribution, placement games and promotions! | © Riot Games

Playing ranked in League of Legends really is a precarious situation, and many players get highly frustrated over their rank and how the corresponding system works. For the second ranked split of 2023, Riot announced a bunch of adjustments regarding said issues, which sound quite exciting!

Reaching one of the highest ranks in LoL is many players' dream. However, getting there is far more comparable to a nightmare rather than a dream! Will the next big update bring change to the current ranked system?

Let's take a look, at how Riot is trying to change ranked this time!


LoL: Riot Updates Ranked Distribution, Placements & Promotions

The new updates are meant to fix the current ranked distribution, by adding a completely new rank, changing placements and promotions! A lot of players are not sure what to think of said updates, but there will for sure be a lot to discuss surrounding it.

And I am kinda scared to read through all of it …


Less Placement Games

The beginning of a new season in League of Legends is always something super exciting! You can start a fresh climb by playing a ten-games-series to declare your starting point. This is meant to help you, to reach your true Elo faster in order to improve further on.

However, Riot introduced a split in this year's season. Means, we will have another set of Placement games after the first split. Since this reset will be rather gently, where is no need to play a whole 10-games-series to get you back to your rank. Starting with split 2 of 2023, there will only be five placement games at the beginning of each season.


Promotions Will Be Removed

After reducing the Promotion games to three instead of five, Riot has had enough of them by now and is removing them completely for the upcoming second split!

Promotion games have always been a breakpoint during your ranked climb each year and could decide if you will reach your new peak rank. Losing said games due to someone running if down mid lane, disconnects or just by losing regularly, is probably the most frustrating thing in League of Legends.

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Losing your Promos is just too painful to watch ... | © Riot Games

We won't know for a while whether this change really is improving the ranked situation or if it's just promoting the Elo inflation even more. Time will tell.

Emerald – The New Rank

It's debatable whether a brand-new rank is a good or bad addition to the current rank system, but it's here now and there's no going back. One thing can be said for certain, it will definitely shake up the next split! The new rank will be named “Emerald” and is placed between Platinum and Diamond! Emerald will represent a roughly similar percentage of players as Platinum does today.

In general, Riot is trying to flatten the ranked curve and go for a much more even distribution among ranked tiers. During recent seasons, the overall ranked percentages lean heavily towards the lower tiers, with Bronze and Silver being most populous.

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This is how Riot wants LoL's ranked distribution to look like in comparison the the previous split. | © Riot Games

Riot noticed, that the current Silver players are much better than they were years ago and even titling theGold players as “above average”. They felt the need for action in this regard and created Emerald for this reason. Most Gold players will now belong to the Platinum rank next season, while high Platinum players today will find themselves in Emerald instead.

We are not sure, how these changes will impact the upcoming ranked split and if they will solve at least some of the mentioned issues. However, trying out new things is always better than sticking with old principles while being frustrated over them!

If you are a fellow Support player, which one do you prefer: Enchanters or Tanks?

Celine Jaeckel

You can find tons of guides & news about Genshin Impact & Honkai: Star Rail right here, from the EarlyGame Gacha Queen herself! If she is done farming for the day, Celine hops straight into her second love, League of Legends....