Season 2 — Emberfall
The ladder pays for form
What a game is worth now depends on how you've been playing. Duos have a leash, the grade lines have moved, and every season ends by pulling half of everybody's climb back.
Your rating moves on your form
A game used to be priced off the other team's average rating. It's priced off your last 10 games of the season now, and nothing else — win half and it's a symmetric +25 / −25, win more and you gain more and lose less. Rating against the opposing average quietly closed the top of the ladder: the best player was the favourite in every lobby, so they held a break-even winrate near 56% forever. Form is the thing you can change tonight.
Was Now Losing more than you win (30%) +25 / −32 +21 / −29 Even (50%) +28 / −29 +25 / −25 Winning (60%) +26 / −31 +27 / −23 On a tear (80%) +25 / −32 +31 / −19 First 5 games of a season same as everyone ±30, flat Duos have a leash and a ceiling
5 lobbies in a row with the same guarantee, then one game solo before you can pair up again. And there is now a ceiling on the pair itself: over 5,500 rating between the two of you, the duo doesn't form at all. Two good players pinned to the same side is the one thing the draft can't balance around — every split that would have separated them is off the table before it starts — and 60 points of lean was never going to offset that. The lean is still what happens below the ceiling: from 4,000 between you, your side is drafted 60 points behind on paper.
Was Now Duo'd lobbies in a row no limit 5, then one solo Combined rating a duo can carry 4,000 (−60 to your side) 4,000 leans, 5,500 refuses How long an invite stands 15 minutes 5 minutes The grade lines moved
Nothing was migrated — your rating didn't change, only what it's called. S+ went up because it's the only tier with no ceiling. C went up because it used to be the rating everybody opened on, which made your first letter one you'd done nothing for. And the bottom split in two, so 1,000 sits in the middle of a band instead of on a line.
Was Now S+ 3000+ 3200+ S 2700–2999 2800–3199 A+ 2400–2699 2400–2799 C 1000–1599 1200–1599 D+ — 600–1199 (new) And seasons end with a soft reset
At the turn of every month the season takes back 50% of what you won in it. Climb 400 and you start the next one 200 up; a month where you lost rating costs you nothing more. The rating you walked in with is untouched, your peak is untouched, and your badge says what you actually finished on.
A badge for the grade you finished on
Everybody on the ladder takes one, every season, and you can wear it beside your name from settings. It can't be bought, rolled or traded — the only way to hold a Season 1 badge is to have been here for Season 1.
The monthly board pays now
The podium has advertised 5,000 / 3,000 / 1,500 coins and a crown since the day it shipped without ever handing them out. The season close settles it the morning after a season ends, and first place takes King of the month it was won in.
The MVP is voted, not calculated
It used to be worked out from the scoreboard — Riot reported the game, a formula read the rows and handed somebody the point. A formula saying who carried is a scoreboard with an opinion; the award is the ten people who played saying it. So the moment a winner is known you get one question over the whole screen, ten champion cards, 90 seconds, and the ratings and coins land behind it.
The lobby is a map
Everyone stands where they'll play, lit in their side's colour, and hovering a name on the roster swells them on the map. The code, the draft and the multisearch links live in a drawer along the bottom edge instead of three strips above the art. Bets stay open 7 minutes from formation now, which reaches roughly the loading screen.
The draft, the queue and the pass were rebuilt
A pick in champion select is the champion's own key art now rather than a name in a bordered row, and the two columns mirror so you never cross a column of text to compare the comps. The queue page keeps the bag, the duo panel and the mute switch in the corner instead of stacked between you and the Join button — and the bag stacks, so four of a token are one tile with a four on it. Signing up is three presses now: join, sign in with Discord, type your in-game name. The pass puts the season's last rung at the top of the page, where a track's best reward belongs.
A new pass — Emberfall
A different fifty rungs, not last month's again: nothing on it overlaps with Season 1's cosmetics, and four of the new milestones are emotes. The last rung is the Laughing King, which is the only thing on this site that makes a noise in nine other people's browsers.
Everything above is written down in full on the ranks page, and the release it shipped in is in the patch notes.