2016 Challenger Rewards

Hi Summoners, Riot Riscx here to talk about the new Challenger rewards. We previously announced brand new physical rewards for Challenger Tier this year—here’s what that means.

The top players from each Ranked queue will receive exclusive Challenger Jackets to recognize their achievement in Season 2016. These jackets will only be obtainable through playing Ranked this year. The very top players will also receive a Challenger 2016 Collector’s Medallion in further recognition of their achievement this season.

Here’s how those rewards break down:

Challenger Solo

Top 10 Players

• Challenger 2016 Collector’s Medallion

• Challenger 2016 Jacket

Top 200 Players

• Challenger 2016 Jacket

Challenger 3s and 5s Teams

Top 1 Team

• Challenger 2016 Collector’s Medallion

• Challenger 2016 Jacket

Top 5 Teams

• Challenger 2016 Jacket

(We won’t be granting Ranked 3s rewards in regions that don’t have the Ranked 3s queue. Just to be clear.)

Now let’s talk about delivery, eligibility, multiple accounts, and why only the top teams will receive these rewards.

We believe Challenger rewards should represent the same level of elite achievement, regardless of which queue you play in. Since Ranked Team populations are very small, rewarding the same percentage of players in a Team queue means we reward fewer teams than are in Challenger Tier overall. For context, these queues each have a similar numbers of players to Dominion before it was moved to the rotating game mode queue.

A numerical comparison:

• Rewarding Ranked 3s players at the same global percentage of achievement as 200 Solo Challenger players would reward only 4 teams

• Rewarding Ranked 5s players at the same global percentage of achievement as 200 Solo Challenger players would reward only 3 teams

Our goal is to be fair to all players regarding the level of accomplishment Challenger rewards represent, not to punish players because their queue is unpopular. Regional variation can skew these numbers even further: in Korea, for example, only one player in the top Ranked 3s team would receive a reward if we went by numbers alone. We bumped the rewards threshold to the top 5 teams to be more fair to team-queue players across the globe. Increasing the amount of teams rewarded also allows room for more people to join these queues as the season ends. Tens of thousands of new players would need to start playing in teams to push the target above 5 teams (though we’re open to adjusting if this happens).

If an account is eligible for the usual End of Season rewards, it’s probably also eligible for Challenger rewards if it also meets the standings criteria outlined above. That said, Challenger accounts will be subject to additional screening for account sharing, win trading, toxicity, and other negative behavior. These violations render offending accounts ineligible for both Challenger and End of Season rewards.

Players who can maintain more than one account within the standings threshold will receive more than one reward, with an exception - Challenger rewards are limited to one per account. If an account is in multiple qualifying teams or queues, it will only earn 1 reward. This rule is in place to address less-active queues in some regions, where some accounts are active in multiple top teams because so few teams exist.

The Challenger rewards aren’t sitting in a warehouse waiting to be delivered—we’ll be making them to-order once the season ends and we’ve received information from their future owners. As a result, our target for delivery is late Spring 2017.

After the season ends, we'll email players who qualified for Challenger rewards with instructions on how to order their gear (or via QQ/Garena messenger in those regions). Riot will cover all costs we're legally able to, though tax laws will prevent us from doing so fully in a handful of countries. Players will need to put their orders in before a cutoff date (roughly six weeks after the season ends) to receive rewards.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If players haven't verified their email, or if they don't place their order by the cutoff date, they won't receive these rewards!

We'll publish a reminder before the cutoff date so players have another chance to verify their emails and put in their orders.

We are proud to celebrate the top League of Legends players of Season 2016, and look forward to these players being recognized both in and out of game for their achievements.