Restrict Ranked to champions you have at least rank 2 Champ Mastery in

EMeta·5/12/2015, 5:15:00 PM·123 votes·7,094 views

It was an awesome change back in the day when Rito restricted ranked play to champs you owned. That cleaned up ranked a lot. You still have players who come into ranked "1st time Lee Sin", which may or may not be true, but is a pain for the team's morale and certainly not in the spirit of Ranked play.

Level 2 champ mastery is bloody easy to get. I think I have it on 10 champs now. Two months from now, everyone will have it on all the champs they play with any regularity. In six months, if you don't have level 2, I really don't want you on that champ on my team in ranked.

Obviously this can't be implemented immediately, but at least by the end of season 5, let's put together a system so everyone on both teams does bring their A-game to ranked play. Let's show that you're not new to the champs you play there.

Who's with me?

134 Comments

Chamber5/12/2015, 5:26:10 PM19 votes

Upvoted.

The only problem I can see arising is that this would drastically reduce player's available champion pools. And since you can only ban out champions the enemy team can play, you could essentially ban out the enemy team's only remaining champions.

Space Bum5/12/2015, 8:11:50 PM18 votes

I'd agree if the masteries had taken into account games before the release of mastery. I've been playing since 2010 I only really play a few champion these days. I'm not interested in a GAME that I have been playing for 5 years that suddenly wants me to prove things that I have already proven in the past. Even that would not be good enough because the match history was wiped at the release of the comprehensive history so I have a couple thousand games that don't show up anywhere.

Loken Stoneheart5/12/2015, 11:47:14 PM14 votes

Yeah, no, this is a stupid idea.

There is NO retroactive exp toward the mastery system. Do you know what this means? This means I have to play like 100 games before I'm allowed back into ranked on my account that has 90 days of playtime.

This is a terrible idea. Awful.

If retroactive exp into the system was provided? Maybe. But no. I've played over 3000 games. If you make me grind to play the game again, I'm just quitting. I've done my grinding, I've put in the blood/sweat/tears to unlock everything I have.

I've played enough games that if retroactive points were a thing, I'd have all but a handful of champions maxed out (Urgot and Riven mostly, I don't care for them). You can't make me do it again, and you're insane if you think its a good idea-- especially since champion mastery doesnt even prove you're good at the champion. 99% of the points are for win/loss, not for personal performance.

TheJakkyl5/12/2015, 9:12:27 PM9 votes

The new mastery system means absolutely nothing except you play that champ a lot. It does not mean you have skill with the champ. It does not mean you win when you play that champ. All it means is you get a shiny title because you put in time on a particular champ over and over. What a Joke....

Am I missing the point of mastery system? Is it suppose to do something? or is it really just shiny badges that mean nothing so average to bad players can feel like they are achieving something?

i guess that is the point

Sozan55/13/2015, 12:59:27 AM9 votes

Another one of those again?

Why people treat ranked like it's some "Elite Players Only"? That's not how it's supposed to work - Ranked is there precisely to measure your skill level in comparison to other players. If you choose to play champions that you don't know well, it's your business - and while we all hate getting that "First time Zed in ranked" player, it just doesn't happen often enough to have any real impact on anything.

I could imagine it working with Level 1 (that is at least 1 game played before playing ranked), but that's about it. League already have huge restrictions on ranked play (16 champions owned and Summoner Level 30) compared to other games.

In other words - Ranked shouldn't be restricted.

Pikmints5/13/2015, 3:48:18 AM8 votes

This was mentioned back in the days of the old forums but with "number of times played" instead of mastery level.

The flaws in this are that people would not be able to go to another position based on their limited mastery pool, possibly causing someone who isn't comfortable with a role to be forced to take a non-meta pick like Rammus mid even if they owned champs like Ahri or Talon.

Trading would be even more limited as people wouldn't even be able to pick a champ that they didn't have enough mastery points in, even if they didn't intend to play as the champion they picked.

People have said on this post that it takes about 3-4 games (approx 30 minutes each) to reach rank 2, and because of the ban and pick phases of ranked, you'd need 16 champions at level 2 in order to even queue. That's 24-32 hours of playing, assuming that you'd only play a champ until they're level 2 and on modes you can get mastery, AFTER the mastery system was introduced before anybody would be allowed to enter a ranked queue. Even after the 30 hours, you'd still have only a small selection of champs to choose from. Considering how little experience 3 games actually gives to a player, this seems to put an unnecessary obstacle on players for whatever someone learned in those games, win or loss.

Steelflame5/12/2015, 10:07:31 PM6 votes

There is a big issue with this. Many of us own a lot of champs, but may not regularly play a certain role. If we get forced into said role, we MIGHT not have a champ at mastery 2 that fits the role because lets face it, how many of us have the time to grind out all the champs we have already learned, again, to a high enough rating that we can say to an abritrary system that couldn't pull old data that doesn't even exist anymore to say "Ok, you can't play this champion. You might have over 50 games with this champ, but I don't have any recordings of it, so screw you until you have proof you can show me that you have grinded out the points to play this champ."

I own 120something champions, to just play the 3-6 games with each to unlock them in ranked play AGAIN would be anywhere from 350-700 games. Just because I haven't played a champ since mastery came out does not mean I do not understand how to play them. It could easily take upwards of 600 games to reliably have my entire champ pool reunlocked. And if you had just unlocked a champ, nothing means you know how to play them to just have mastery 2. That can literally be ONE game if you get a ridiculously good score because you played against people who happened to duo with sub-30s/low bronze while you are plat+ and play like it. You would at least want it to be M3 to be used in Ranked, which is even MORE games for those of us who just happen to own a ****ton of champs.

I don't play ADC regularly. I hate the role and only play it to keep my proficiency at it decent, with rare exceptions. To just have a champion pool large enough to play the role reliably, I have to play 20 games according to you playing a role I don't want to play, just to ensure I don't have any BS come up.

This is fine for new players. Old timers though this is just a horrendously stupid restriction.

Felixphaeton5/13/2015, 1:54:06 AM6 votes

{quoted}

It was an awesome change back in the day when Rito restricted ranked play to champs you owned. That cleaned up ranked a lot. You still have players who come into ranked "1st time Lee Sin", which may or may not be true, but is a pain for the team's morale and certainly not in the spirit of Ranked play.

Level 2 champ mastery is bloody easy to get. I think I have it on 10 champs now. Two months from now, everyone will have it on all the champs they play with any regularity. In six months, if you don't have level 2, I really don't want you on that champ on my team in ranked.

Obviously this can't be implemented immediately, but at least by the end of season 5, let's put together a system so everyone on both teams does bring their A-game to ranked play. Let's show that you're not new to the champs you play there.

Who's with me?

So I'm going to have to WIN 230+ normal games to restore my champ pool? No thanks.

Also, this completely shafts trading. So what if I've never played Hecarim in my life? I have him for any top laner who wants him first picked.

ChaoticPinecone5/12/2015, 11:13:58 PM5 votes

ive played 42 champions in ranked games this season, and i only have only 1 champion at level 2, which is the highest "mastery" i have on any single champion. (i got S+ a couple times but was restricted to 250 for a loss).

it might be a good idea if it was implemented with the game, but at this point i have 1750+ games on SR and 1700+ on ARAM. I dont want to grind any more.

TheBostonTap5/13/2015, 6:33:42 AM4 votes

We already require people to have at least 17 champs unlocked and be level 30. That should be enough. You shouldn't put another gate in a players way just because you need to have a visual conformation that they're good with a champ (Especially if its a conformation you won't be able to see until the game's over.)

Additionally, a major flaw with your suggestion is the idea that no mastery points = no experience. I have over 2,000 games played. I've done the A-Z challenge and won with every single champion, but because I don't play as often as I use to and because I don't have time to play all 120 something champs, I only have mastery points in a select few. If this gate was put into play, I would need to get rank 2 with 16 other champs just to please you. At an average of 30 minutes a piece and a minimum of 2 games a piece to reach rank 2, that's 16 hours worth of normals just to play ranked with champs that I have a played with for years.

Look, I get it, you all want to incorporate the Mastery system in a deeper level then it currently is, but we need to accept that the mastery system means nothing other then how often someone picks a specific champ and, in most cases, skill =/= time put in. A character like Lee Sin requires a large amount of time and skill to play right. Orianna, Syndra, Zyra, Zed etc etc, all require an abnormal amount of practice to master, but could probably still reach rank 5 before they understand it completely.

Winters Defiance5/12/2015, 10:38:00 PM2 votes

I disagree. You can spam ai games and still get mastery w/o ever having to learn a champion. Even if you can't, it does not in any way reflect real mastery of a champion. Mastery 5 doesn't, and certainly Mastery 2 won't either. It's just a gimick Riot added. Not to reflect true mastery of anyone. Imo, ofc.

AsheGetsGanked5/13/2015, 5:02:40 PM1 votes

why the fuck are people bitching about this? if this is implemented at the end it makes perfect sense. you WOULD HAVE HAD ENOUGH TIME TO play those champs in time.... no freaking excuses.

Do Not Klick Me5/13/2015, 4:22:26 AM1 votes

It seems the only problem people have with this system is that the older matches dont count.

Well here is my solution. What we add this to your idea. If you played X amount of games with said champion prior to the mastery update (lets go with 10 games) then that champion will be eligible for rank.

This will only apply too people who had accounts prior to the patch. It wont affect new accounts in any form because they have 30 levels to get more champs mastery 2 or whatever. I am sure everyone has played the champions they would want to use in rank at least 10 times.

Also all the match histories are saved so it should not be hard to tell if you played 10 matches with a champion.

and even if the match history from season 1 or 2 is not saved. If you havent played a champion in 3 years... you really should not be playing it in rank till you brush up on them a bit.

what do you guys think?