If Riot wants Flex Queue to be 'Riot Rumble for the Masses', they need a Team Finder.

I appreciate that in 2017 Riot is looking to offer a taste of organized competitive play through Flex Queue, giving us an alternative to the Yoloqueue Hero solo-carry experience. Don't get me wrong: there's no problem with good ol' SoloQ, but it is a fundamentally different type of experience than organized, coordinated team play like the kind we see at Worlds.

Just as it is perfectly fine for many players to enjoy the chaotic, ping-laden, flame-ridden, cat-herding fiesta that is yoloqueue ( <3 ), it's also perfectly fine to desire a absolutely-way-less-skilled-and-not-even-remotely-as-well-executed amateur taste of that coordinated, organized Pro style of play.

But, as things stand right now, Flex Queue is doomed to fail at that lofty ambition; it cannot possibly hope to actually deliver 'Riot Rumble' style amateur team play to the entire playerbase. Why? Simple:

If Riot wants Organized Team-Based competition to ever have even the slightest prayer of actually becoming a widespread reality in League of Legends, we need a reliable, robust method for easily and repeatedly bringing together five complete strangers (and potentially extra additional back-up players to fill in when someone is absent) to form a permanent and coherent team, all of whom must collectively have a long list of complimentary characteristics:

• similar MMR
• complementary in-game role specialties (i.e., a Top, Mid, Bot, Support, and Jungle)
• complimentary out-of-game 'team role' specialties (e.g., a Shotcaller, a Playmaker, a Coach, etc.)
• compatible attitudes/personalities
• similar schedules
• similar ambitions/levels of dedication/seriousness
• compatible playstyles/gameplay preferences
• complimentary champion pools
• and probably more.

Suffice to say, that is a colossally demanding and incredibly complex task.

I had hoped that Clubs were intended to serve this function, but they are staggeringly inadequate; ultimately, Clubs have turned out to be nothing more than a glorified chat box and a method to get a tag next to your name.

What we need is a true Team Finder:

A gigantic, automated system that dynamically matches up players with good potential teams/teammates based on compatibility. (Players who do not wish to be involved can, of course, opt out of the system.) The system contains tons of data about each player that it uses to form their Team Finder profile. Then, through the Team Finder hub, players will be matched up with and introduced to loads of other players, all of whom have been automatically filtered as good potential teammates based on Team Finder profile compatibility. These players can queue up together, talk, voice chat (this feature, while controversial for SoloQueue, is a must for organized teams) and otherwise get a feel for whether or not they'd like to try starting a team together.

Teams, once created, will also have Team Finder profiles and can advertise and recruit through the TF hub. Players will automatically be shown Teams that are potential good matches for them based on profile compatibility, or players can manually search for potential teams to join (with tons of filters to narrow down your options by whatever parameters you desire). Players can then be set up for Auditions, Try-outs, etc to see if they are a good fit for that team. Team Captains can then accept any successful candidates onto the team roster.

Players who've found a team already can scout for potential players to recruit to their existing team, or even find other teams to scrim with.

Player TF profiles will contain lots of information that will be used by the system to automatically match that player up with good potential teams/teammates:

• MMR
• Most played champions
• Preferred in-game roles
• Preferred out-of-game role
• Usual play schedule (i.e., when the player is available)
• Desired level of seriousness/dedication
• Preferred playstyle/gameplay preferences
• and so on...

Teams will have similarly extensive profiles that can be used to match them up with good potential recruits, as well as matching them up with other Teams that could be good potential scrim partners.

Such a system is unquestionably a massive engineering project, especially at the large scale that League of Legends would require. However, if Riot is actually serious about making coordinated play available to the masses, it is a massive engineering project that they should vigorously undertake.