An Exciting Matchmaking Fix

People have more competitive games when they play champions they are good with vs champions they are learning. Just as with any other skill in life, time invested is the most crucial part of success. Creating requirements that only allow people to play champions they have "mastered" would reduce the frequency of non-competitive ranked games and make our teammates more reliable. These are the changes I would like to see to make the game, to me, more enjoyable.

1. Mastery: Only allowing people to play champions they have mastered in ranked games. We already have a mastery system that quantifies experience and something like this should be used as a ranked queue requirement. Players would need to master champions in specific roles during normal games until they have earned enough experience to unlock the mastery level. For instance, If I were a support Zyra main and had her mastered in that role but wanted to start playing her mid lane in ranked games I would have to earn the mid lane mastery token with Zyra in normal games before being able to queue that role in ranked. This type of accountability would make me a much more reliable player and give me a sense of identity i.e. "I'm a Zyra main with bot and mid lane mastered." Plus, it gives us something to work towards while playing the game.

2. Queuing: To join queue, a player would need to select a champion and role they have mastered and one ban choice. This would be the biggest change since right now we only queue for roles. One concern may be that queue times would be longer because of the need to find a game that has an open spot for your role and one where your champion isn't being banned. One way to sort this is to group each player with other players with the same ban. Example, If I queue as Zyra mid with a Fizz ban I would be matchmaking with every person in queue besides the group of people who banned Zyra and be put in a group with everyone else who banned Fizz so Fizz mains don't match vs me. Even though queue times may be a little longer with this system (maybe not)** the actual time it takes to get in a game would be faster since champion selection and banning would be accomplished by each player while queuing instead of in a pregame lobby**. This opens a lot of opportunity to make getting into games faster which needs improvements, bad.

I’d be so pumped for this system to be patched in. I’d instantly, along with my friends, start unlocking the masteries for the champions we’d play in ranked and feel so much better about the reliability of the players we get grouped with. Also, no more LONG pregame lobby and no more looking up player stats on op.gg to see if your teammates are picking champions they are experienced with. This is how ranked should be.