One of the most controversial features of all time in the history of League of Legends is finally hitting the bricks.
The demotion protection system that’s been in League for ages is being done away with as of the start of the second ranked split of 2024, Riot Games announced today. With that in mind, players will no longer hit a hard wall at zero LP while within a specific division during a losing streak. If your LP loss transcends the zero-LP barrier, you’ll be deranked.
This system has been in place for over a decade as the protection from deranking has been a prominent part of League’s climb since 2013. Not since the days of a raw MMR-based ranking system has the League ranking system been as straightforward and fluid as it’s going to be in 2024’s split two.
Now, with no wiggle room or protection in between ranks, players will need to work even harder to not only climb from division to division but solidify themselves and prove they actually belong in that division.
“Getting demoted to 50 LP when dropping divisions (eg. Silver II to Silver III) felt pretty bad, but was an emergency lever we needed to pull to keep inflation under control while working on a better solution,” Riot said in today’s dev update. “This split we’re removing that drop and making demoting between divisions more fluid by moving your LP smoothly between divisions. So basically, if you lose at 10 LP and lose 25 LP, you will move to 85 LP in the division below.”
A system like this is prevalent in other games, most notably VALORANT, which sees players move up and down fluidly through the ranks without having any padding. In split two of League’s 2024 ranked season, your LP gains and losses will remain consistent across the board, regardless of where you stand in your current ranked division.
This rule will not apply to demotions from tiers (Gold, Platinum, etc.) as they’ll still have the hard wall in place. While you can still get demoted from a tier, you’ll be placed at either 25, 50, or 75 LP at the next lowest division depending on your internal MMR.
Other ranked changes coming into split two include a higher ceiling for players who perform well in provisional games, as well as the return of duo queue at the Master tier.
Split two of the 2024 League of Legends ranked season will begin on May 15, the same day as the launch of Patch 14.10.
