How to rank up in the 2017 season

… which begins in 2016.

This season we’re doing a lot of new things, including moving the start date forward a month, letting you exclude your least-favorite position, introducing two separate ranked ladders (three if you count Twisted Treeline), and giving ongoing updates on queue health for 2017. You can consider this post as an all-encompassing, international guide for your 2017 ranked experience.

Flex Queue will be turned on right as preseason starts (coming with patch 6.22), with Solo/Duo Queue coming under a week later.

The 2017 ranked season officially kicks off during patch 6.24. Read below for details.

This year, in addition to selecting a primary and secondary position preference, we're looking into the ability to exclude your least-favorite. We are currently running tests in LAN and LAS, but if it's seen to drastically impact queue health, we may not proceed with developing this feature. Just a heads-up!

Normal Draft will be retired at the start of preseason for all regions except North America, Europe West, and Brazil. Our goal is to offer the fewest number of queues that give unique experiences (so we can keep queues healthy) while keeping disruption low, and in all regions except NA/EUW/BR, normal draft had very low participation. In an ideal world, we’d like to retire normal draft in all regions.

Solo/Duo Queue makes its return. Queue up alone or with a trusted teammate and get to climbing. Tier restrictions still apply, and Challenger is still limited to solo only.

Flex Queue is the ranked queue that rewards more organized teamplay, allowing one, two, three, or five players (within one tier of each other) to queue up together. We have additional plans for Flex to evolve based on queue health (for example, we may turn 4s back on if enough solos are queueing up). Details below.

For all regions that already have Ranked Twisted Treeline, we’ll be transitioning it to a Flex Queue, where 1, 2, or 3 players (within one tier of each other) can queue together.

For Latin America North, we’ll be introducing Flex Twisted Treeline!

Note: The start of season is a time to earn your rank on the ladder. You will be placed lower than where you ended the 2016 season, as a ladder reset means the highest possible rank anyone can land after placement games is Platinum I, which moves all of the ranks down.

You can play some ladder calibration games for Flex SR/TT during preseason, but we’ll still be doing a soft ranked reset at the start of the season. That said, games played during the preseason will have some impact on where you place at the start of the season.

This year we introduced physical rewards for players at the very top of the ladder, in addition to the Victorious skin for anyone who hits Gold or higher.

For 2017, anyone who achieves Gold rank or higher in either Solo/Duo or Flex queue will receive the Victorious skin, along with an extra reward for those who manage the climb in both.

2016 was a rough year for ranked enthusiasts and, regardless which queue you’ll prefer in 2017 (maybe both!), we’re going to keep an open line of communication about what’s happening behind the scenes.

First, we’re planning to launch Flex Queue with an IP bonus that will run through the first week of the season.

If Flex Queue doesn’t attract enough Solo/Duo players through the weeks, we will test other incentives, like higher-weighted position preference for solos, windowing Flex Queue timing, or just plain limiting Flex Queue to pure 5-person premades (this is already in place in some regions).

We’ll communicate queue health and future plans every few weeks for each region so you can see what’s on the horizon for your ranked experience.

See you on the Rift.