If you’ve played ranked League of Legends, you know what LP is. If you haven’t, you are presumably happier than those of us who have spent entire days queueing up only to end up with the same amount of LP as we started (or worse, less) but there’s always time to learn.
The Secret Behind LP – MMR
While LP seems like a simple system (win games, win lp – lose games, lose lp) there is more to it than meets the eye. All matchmaking in League of Legends is tied together by an invisible algorithm that determines your MMR, or Matchmaking Rating, and then places you into games according to this rating. Your normal games have an MMR to ensure you play against players of similar skill, and your ranked games have a separate MMR to try to keep your competitive games as close to your skill level as possible.
Also read: How to Get Maximum Ability Haste in League of Legends?
How does MMR work with LP?
LP is short for ‘League Points’ (which no one has ever called them) and is used to denote your placement in whichever rank you are placed. If you win, you gain LP – if you lose, you lose LP. While this seems simple enough, MMR comes into play in every game.
You’ll be placed into games based on your MMR and your rank, and the goal of the algorithm is to find the perfect place for you along the ladder that accurately denotes your skill level. You don’t want to be ‘hardstuck’ at whatever rank you’re at so your goal is to keep consistently gaining LP throughout the season.
Also read: How To Keep Your Hands Warm While Gaming?
How Does LP Work on the Ranked Ladder?
After playing 10 ranked placement games, you’ll get your starting rank for the season. You’ll be placed into a rank and a tier – for example, you might find yourself in Silver I at the start of the season. The climb starts from here. If you keep queueing up, you’ll gain LP for your wins and lose LP for your losses. How substantial those gains are and how large the amount of LP you lose is will give you a glimpse into what your MMR may be.
If you’re gaining a lot, that means there is a disparity between your rank and your MMR (you’re lower ranked than other players with similar MMR) – if you’re losing a lot, that means the algorithm is placing you into difficult games and lowering your MMR when you lose them.
From here, your goal for every tier will be to gain 100 LP – this will push you into the next division (from Gold IV to Gold III for example). Before Season 11, this would require a promotional series but now you’ll just rank up and retain any extra LP over the 100 cap. When you reach 100 LP at the top of the rank you’re in (Gold I for example) you’ll be placed into a promotional series – often called ‘promos’ for short. You’ll need to win three of your next five games to advance to the lowest division of the next rank.
We’re not always so lucky as to win our best-of-five series first try, so if you lose your promos you’ll need to grind back however much you lost to get to 100 LP to try again. Thankfully, you’ll be given one ‘free win’ for your trouble, meaning you’ll only need to win two of the next four games (the free win counts as one of the five games.)
As long as you keep winning games, your ability to climb is endless – all the way to Challenger. We all started somewhere, keep grinding and see where you can end up!
