LoL Ranking System – All you need to know about League of Legends Ranks

League of Legends is the premier MOBA title on the market. Players from across the globe are flocking to this title for over a decade. The competitive esports scene as well as the ingame ladder system have attracted millions of players to battle for the top of the LoL ranking system. Before you start your climb to the top League of Legends ranks, there are some points you need to learn on how the Ranking system in LoL works and what it takes to be the best out there.

League of Legends Ranking System

© Riot Games

What are the ranks in League of Legends?

The lol ranking system can be split into two areas, divisions and tiers. Divisions can be represented as entire floors, while tiers are small steps within such divisions. There are nine different divisions, with the first six having four tiers within.

League of Legends ranks in order of lowest to highest

  • Iron (l, ll, lll, lV) – 5.6%
  • Bronze (l, ll, lll, lV) – 22%
  • Silver (l, ll, lll, lV) – 34%
  • Gold (l, ll, lll, lV) – 25%
  • Platinum (l, ll, lll, lV) – 9.3%
  • Diamond (l, ll, lll, lV) – 2.4%
  • Master –  0.036%
  • Grand Master – 0.031%
  • Challenger – 0.013%

According to multiple sources, 90% of the player base has settled between Iron IV and Gold I. With that information forming the great majority of the player base, 4.5% of the players are between the Platinum IV and Diamond III divisions. Finally the best players who are above Diamond II, which the list goes up to Challenger, are only the 0.5% of the player population. It is visible according to the information above that the majority of the League of Legends players are playing in low elo.

How does the LoL ranking system work?

The ranking system is based on set divisions / tiers as mentioned above. Upon reaching a 100 “lp”, players will be placed in the promotion stage, also regarded as “promos”. To promote to the higher tier, you must win two of your next three games. To promote to a higher division, you must win three of your next five games. Failing to promote will set you back some LP depending on how close you were to promoting, however, the next time you enter promotions for the same rank, you will get one free win.

Depending on past and more importantly, recent performance, each player also has a system generated “MMR” / match making rating. This rating is not directly displayed, however, is without a doubt used by the ranking system to assign players to “fair” teams, and to determine the level of “lp” loss / gain depending on whether you win or lose. For example, getting a winning streak will increase your MMR above the average for your division / tier, granting you higher lp gain upon winning. This is because the system aims to accelerate the promotion of better players, reducing the impact of smurfs.

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What ELO means in LoL?

ELO simply refers to the ranking / rating system. In the case of League of Legends, when somebody mentions ELO, it refers to your rank or your general skill level.  The term is borrowed from Arpad Elo’s system which is commonly used in chess. Players are rated between 0 and 2200+ on the “Elo scale”. The higher your ELO the higher division you are expected to be.

Is Plat 1 high ELO?

Plat 1 is statistically considered high elo as players in Plat 1 are within the top 3.5% of the ranked system. Players achieving Plat 1 are extremely close to Diamond lll, the rank where the top 1.5% of players are in. However, the difference of high elo players are immense, as seen on the various league of legends ranks, of which include the same amount of divisions compared to the rest of the players.

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What rank is Faker?

Faker is a legend in the League of Legends scene, being acknowledged as the best mid laner and player in the world for multiple years. While Faker may not be considered the best currently, he remains among the top of the competitive scene.

The League of Legends ranks of competitive players change throughout a season as not many are active on the ranked ladder. Rank decay is common as many competitive players refrain from solo queue for a multitude of different reasons. These reasons include not wanting to give away tactics, and not having enough time given their busy schedules scrimming other teams and reviewing VODs.

To no surprise, Faker from year to year has managed to achieve Challenger by the end of every season in the LoL ranking system. While he may not be always be on the challenger leaderboard, for reasons as mentioned above, he continues to finish the year at the highest division. On some occasions, the superstar has even managed to claim the Rank 1 spot on the Korean competitive league of legends ranking system.

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How do you get S rank?

At the end of each game, Riot has a separate system that evaluates your individual performance at the conclusion of every game. Better performance in-game will yield greater “champion mastery” gain. The system will also determine a grade based on your performance on the set champion in a role compared to other players.

Grades range from:

  • S (+, normal, -)
  • A (+, normal, -)
  • B (+, normal, -)
  • C (+, normal, -)
  • D (+, normal, -)

Grading has not shown to have any impact on lp loss or gain in the LoL ranking system.

Additionally, getting an S grade is needed to upgrade your champion mastery to Tier 6 or Tier 7. In order to achieve this, you have to play better compared to other players playing the same champion. Areas known to contribute to grading include kills, deaths, assists, creep score and vision score. Additionally, given grading is champion and role-specific. Champions with that average high kills like Veigar and Pyke have a much higher difficulty to attain a S grading on.

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