League of Legends game developer Riot Games has announced an overhaul to its Ranked system for 2026, targeting frustrations around autofill, dodging, queue times, and rank distribution.
Additionally, the new season will enable duo queuing at all ranks, including Challenger, following stricter controls on boosting.
In the latest dev update, Riot Games has announced changes to its matchmaking and the introduction of a new LP protection and bonus system, Aegis of Valor.
According to Riot, the new matchmaking system will try to match autofilled players against other autofilled players in the same role or at least have a balanced number of autofilled players on each team. If those two criteria are not met, the team with more autofilled players will get paired with higher MMR teammates.
As for Aegis of Valor, the system will be activated whenever an autofilled player earns at least a C mastery grade, either doubling their LP gain or protecting the player from the LP loss.
The goal is to incentivise players to play the games whenever they get placed in an autofilled role. Moreover, Riot Games has added additional measures against dodging, with the autofilled status carrying over in following lobbies and even counting as a full loss at Master elo and above.
Faster Champ Select and Better Rank Alignment for 2026
The new season will also look to make the pre-game timers shorter, reducing champion select by about 30 seconds while also removing the ability to ban champions hovered by allies.
The game’s developers will also recalibrate the lower tiers of the ranked ladder, introducing a new climb indicator that will appear when a player’s visible rank is lagging behind their MMR (matchmaking rating). Paired with better-aligned MMR between Flex queue and Solo/Duo, Riot Games’ main goal is to increase the overall queue quality, improving the autofill experience and reducing the frustration caused by it.
The new ranked changes are set to go live when the new season officially kicks off in January.
