For many League of Legends players, ranked games are the main drag towards the game. As you probably know, ranked ladder is divided into tiers and divisions (more on that here), and to start your ranked adventure, you need to play your placement matches to get an appropriate tier.
The most important two changes from the recent years are:
Placement games' sole purpose is to match your skill level to an appropriate division. As easy as it sounds for a human, for an algorithm, it's not that easy—especially for people who just started playing and are likely to improve very fast and achieve a better rank.
During your placement matches Riot Games analyzes your overall performance, not just wins or losses, which is how the ranked system works overall. Even if you lose with high KDA, good vision score, and objective control, you are likely to gain MMR, thus improving your final placement. We do not know what factors are important and how they are weighed. The interesting caveat is that during our studies, we have found that not only your KDA matters but also what was the MMR of the person you killed and the person who killed you. Winning more is, of course, beneficial, but we—or anyone else—cannot tell you which factors to prioritize to guarantee the highest possible placement.
Contrary to popular misconception, your first game result is not the most important ranking factor.
Hard try every placement game, even the ones that you are losing. Your LP gains will be much better later down the line.
Now, for new accounts, it works slightly differently since 2024. To combat smurfing and protect new players, your normal games MMR is considered during your first ranked matches. This, combined with a new requirement of at least 10 normal Summoners Rift games, either in Draft mode or in Quick Play, guarantees additional factors to consider for Riot Games. Similar to how normal placement games work, not only wins and losses are considered but also your KDA, vision score, and other factors.
These 10 normal games essentially function as additional forced 10 placements that you play in the normal queue. This prevents fresh accounts from simply jumping to play ranked. If you want to start a smurf but do not feel like playing more games than strictly required, our amazing team of levelers played off the normals for you. We also have accounts with 0 normal games played if you prefer to do it yourself. Our unranked level 30+ accounts save you over 100 hours of leveling for mere $14.99 - $29.99. Check our offers here.
As we previously mentioned, right now the number of placement games for accounts that have already played ranked mode is 5 matches. This was lowered from 10 matches in June 2023.
If your account was never ranked before and hasn't played any normal Summoners Rift games, there is an additional requirement of 10 normal games before you are allowed to play ranked queues, bringing the total amount of games to 15.
If you want to guarantee the highest possible placement, we recommend our lol elo boosting service and especially our placement matches boosting, where you can put a high challenger player on your team guaranteeing the best possible results.
For many enthusiasts that are eager to earn lp, the most important question is: "What's the highest rank I can achieve after 5 games?" While previously before season 13 we could confidently answer about platinum 3 based on our tests, now it's more tricky. Why?
It depends on the account you are playing on. Most players use an account with ranked history. As an example, if you are playing on a S14 gold account, you are not required to play a normal match before you start your ranked journey, thus eliminating a potential opportunity to prove yourself in the 10 normal games. You can only play the first ranked placement matches. Now their result largely depends on the type of reset, not your actual result.
The difference between winning all 5 of your games or losing all 5 of them will not be significant—about 3-4 divisions, so roughly one tier or so. At the same time, your lp gains will be fairly high, so it should be about 12-15 wins.
To summarize, your highest rank placement depends on the type of season, the account you are playing on, and, for most people, it will vary.
For many, dodging is a way to get the best possible outcome of the time you spend playing. You might have gotten an absolute shit team and have been contemplating a dodge, but you stopped yourself and asked, "Does it affect my placement?" The answer is yes—it does affect your placement matches. Each dodge counts as a loss.
It doesn’t change your MMR, but you have one less possible win that could give you +70 LP. Remember that you cannot lose league points while in placements, so it’s always better to play off those games, even if you think you are likely to lose them.
If you are like me and want to focus on improving but at the same time really care about your rank and want to see the numbers only grow, here are my top tips to deal with ranked stress:
That's it! You’ve probably played this game more than you should have, so you should know your way around the Summoner's Rift. We are confident you will do good, and if you won't, well, I recommend you check our YouTube for some tips :)
