/dev: Ranked 2026

Hi everyone, today we are going to talk about some updates coming to Ranked in 2026. We’re taking on some of the areas of Ranked that have been your biggest pain points, including matchmaking, autofill, queue times, and skill distribution. So, let’s get into it.

Autofill Parity

A reality of League is that some roles are just more popular than others. Autofill exists to keep your queues going, otherwise we’d see extremely long queue times for mid lane especially. That said, we know that getting a role you didn’t choose is frustrating, especially when you tried your best and lost LP for something out of your control. So, we’re making some changes to ensure these matches feel more balanced and give you extra rewards for playing your best.

We know it’s a bad experience to be autofilled against someone who mains that role (especially jungle). So, in the new Season we’ve made several changes to improve (and sometimes eliminate) that experience. Our new approach to autofill will first attempt to match an autofilled player against another autofilled player in the same position, like jungler vs jungler. If that isn’t possible, it will aim to have the same number of autofilled players on each team. In the worst case, the team with more autofilled players will have slightly higher MMR players. These adjustments should make games where you or someone on your team is autofilled more evenly matched (to be clear, this is not a very common occurrence today.)

We know that getting autofilled into a role you're not as comfortable with can be daunting, and so in order to reward you for trying your best in an autofilled game, we’re adding a new system called Aegis of Valor.

Aegis of Valor

Aegis of Valor will reward you with either double LP or full protection from LP loss on an autofilled game if you get a mastery score of C or higher.

When you get into a lobby, you’ll be notified that the Aegis is in effect, and that you’ll be protected (or rewarded) for your effort in that game if you meet the requirement.

And, if you are someone who already plays priority roles like support or jungle that are often autofilled, first off... thanks! You’re helping keep League queues going and keeping the game healthy. Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten you. You’ll automatically get the Aegis rewards at roughly the same cadence as players who are getting autofilled, although you won’t be notified in the pregame lobby when it applies.

In the short term, needing to play through autofilled games might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But we think that being able to play other roles confidently makes everyone better at the game, and makes for a better overall game.

Dodging

Another pain point we want to address this year is the awful experience of experiencing chain dodges, and the lobbies that result from them. Aside from the time wasted getting back into new lobbies, your opponents might be able to predict your picks and target ban you, and trust between teammates may start off on the wrong foot. So, we’re implementing several changes to cut back on dodging.

First, dodging will no longer reset your autofill status. If you dodge, your autofill will carry over to your next match. With the added incentives from Aegis of Valor, we feel there’s even more reason to play out those games instead of cycling through disrupted lobbies.

Second, at Master and higher, a dodge will count as a full loss, in addition to the autofill carrying over, and receiving a dodge cooldown timer. Higher-skill lobbies are where repeated dodging and targeted bans have the biggest impact on game quality and time-to-game, so we’re creating a specific rule set there to encourage highly skilled players to play out more of their drafts.

With these changes, we expect not only quicker queue times, but also more stable champ-select environments where you can enter the game with greater confidence in your lobby.

Faster Time to Game

Another pain point we’re looking to address is how long it takes to get into a game. Before a successful game even starts, there are all sorts of things that could go wrong, including dodging, lobby hostaging, or more. And all of these things cause your queue time to be extended. We know that lobby hostaging is an area that needs improvements, and we’re working on a suite of changes to help address this early next year, but for now let’s talk about what’s changing now.

To start, we’re removing the ability to ban an ally’s hovered champion, to eliminate one of the first reasons that folks may tilt before they even get into the game. We believe that being able to play the champion you want is more important than your ability to lock anyone out of the game when it’s in direct conflict with what your teammate wants, especially when it’s not guaranteed that it’ll show up on the enemy team.

Also helping you get in-game faster, we’re cutting down on animations and timers in Champ Select by roughly 30 seconds. We have been testing these changes in NA and OCE for the past few patches to ensure that they don't harm the experience, and they will go worldwide in 26.1.

Ranked Skill Distribution & Climbing Indicator

Another place that we’re trying to make changes is how MMR and ranks line up at the lower end of the ladder. Over time, the distribution of players across different ranks has drifted out of alignment with their actual skill. Simply stated, you’ve all gotten much better since we introduced Ranked years ago. Where a Bronze player of the past might not know much about the game at all, today’s Bronze player is often familiar with wave management, champion matchups, and objective timing.

If a new player entering Ranked ends up in a match against opponents with that degree of knowledge, it’s just not a great experience for anyone involved. So, we’ll be recalibrating some of those lower tiers to more accurately reflect the skills of the players within them. This update is about realigning the tiers with actual skill, not inflating ranks, to properly match today’s level of play.

Speaking of the climb, we’re adding a Climb Indicator that appears when your visible rank is lagging behind your current MMR. A frustrating experience is being in a Plat lobby and seeing a Silver player in your games—it often feels like you have someone who shouldn’t be on your team. But the reality is that very often this player just started their climb a bit later than everyone else and actually does belong in that lobby. So this indicator will help show when someone’s rank just hasn’t caught up to their MMR.

Other Changes

Lastly, we’ve got two more quick updates.

First, we’re making changes to how Flex and Solo MMR are determined. An incredibly painful experience is playing Flex with your friends in a Gold lobby and being absolutely stomped by someone who’s Gold in Flex and Master in Solo/Duo. So, we’re going to be bringing Flex ranks more in-line with Solo/Duo ranks (Flex will never pull Solo up, however.) We think this change will make Flex games feel a little more fair, while still allowing you to play with friends (within reason.)

And finally, we’re re-enabling duoing in Solo/Duo at all ranks, including Challenger, for most regions. We previously disabled Apex duos due to concerns around Rank manipulation, but with recent boosting detection and matchmaking improvements, we’re confident it can return without fear of exploitation.

That’s it for our changes for this year. We hope you’re as excited for Ranked in 2026 as we are. We’ll be monitoring queue health, match quality, and your feedback closely and refine where needed. Good luck on your climb!