Riot Games has revealed LoL ranked changes for 2023, including two ranked splits, upgraded rewards and fewer promo series games.
LoL Ranked Splits announced for 2023
League of Legends has always a year-long ranked season, but for the first time it’s being split in two. The first split will run from January to the middle of the year, with the second starting shortly after.
Chris ‘Riot Auberaun’ Roberts, Riot Games product lead, said in this changes to ranked article on the League of Legends website: “At a high level, most players reach their goals for ranked by the middle of the year, leaving them with little to do. Some folks continue their grind, but others drop out of ranked entirely or turn to smurfing, and that goes against some of our core goals for playing ranked League.”
This also means there will be two ranked skins for 2023, rather than one.
Two LoL Ranked Skins and more rewards coming in 2023
Right now, any League of Legends ranked player that achieves gold elo or above will receive a Victorious skin at the end of the season.
But for 2023, ranked skins will be given to players of all ranks, not just those who have reached at least gold.
And because there are two splits, this means there will be two ranked LoL skins to obtain.
Riot says these will be earned “similarly to how you did before with a small change” and that players can still earn different chroma skin colours based on their final rank at the end of the split.
LoL players will also be able to earn Hextech Keys, Chests ‘and some other goodies’ each split.
Riot Auberaun commented: “The way you earn these rewards has been simplified from previous ranked rewards: You’ll earn split points for each game of ranked you play – a certain amount per win, and a little less for a loss.”
Game designer Chris ‘cwal’ Wallace added:
“For players [who are below gold] to earn a Victorious skin, they’ll have to play a much larger number of games. On top of that, as soon as a silver player hits gold, they’ll unlock the skin, even if they drop back down to silver.”
Chris Wallace, Riot Games
On rewards in general, Chris continued: “The previous rewards track had only four rewards, and they were spread pretty far apart. So we’re increasing the number of rewards and placing more earlier on the track. At the same time, we reduced the number of games required to reach each of the existing rewards.
“We’re also simplifying how split points are earned. Previously, we attempted to reward players for queueing as fill or compensate them for being autofilled. But considering the reward track wasn’t very motivating to begin with, we didn’t see this affecting role selection at all. Additionally, because certain roles are less likely to be autofilled, players who main those roles wouldn’t be able to earn as many split points. With our new update, you’ll simply get more points for a win, and slightly fewer for a loss.”
Changes to LoL promo series in 2023
While Riot last year removed promotion series games when moving up a tier within a rank, for example when going from Silver 3 to Silver 2, the promotion series games when going into a new tier (for example silver to gold) remained.
These tier promo series were a best-of-five, but from 2023 they will become a best-of-three series instead. And Riot is removing visible rank influence from matches.
This promo series change should of course make it a little quicker and easier for players to rank up, generally speaking (insert ‘being stuck in elo hell’ curses and blaming your teammates here).
Related article: LoL 12.22 Patch Notes see Jungle Companions and Chemtech hit the rift
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
