How is matchmaking done in lol

Your own MMR will converge to a value equal to the skill of the players that play just as well as you do. This is why we try to matchmake you with and against players at that skill. When you hit Find Match, you are placed into a pool of players that are searching for a match in the same game mode. The matchmaker then basically repeats the following constantly every second, finding matches for everyone:. In step 2, the matchmaker only lets players match if their MMR and rank are within a certain distance of each other.

That distance starts small, and then grows a set amount every second. This happens over a 2 minute period. After that, the allowed Rank and MMR gap has fully expanded, and the system will stay in expanded state for the next 18 minutes for a total of 20 possible searching minutes. At that point the search will time out and need to be restarted. Note: this means it is always faster to keep waiting than it is to restart your search within that 20 minutes, because every time you restart your search, you have to re-expand over 2 minutes.

For example, players in unranked game modes may be looking to have fun with an unusual playstyle or build, or they may be trying out new champions. Separating the MMRs allows us to keep them tied to the differing intentions of players in each format.

A problem we see today is that because we currently try to match on both MMR and rank, players can be forced by one or the other into waiting longer than is necessary to get a fair match.

LP gains and losses are also based on your skill estimation compared to the players around you. If you take a break from playing for a bit, the MMRs of the people around you are still changing, and that can result in notably different LP gains when you return. This tends to slowly increase the average MMR at the high end of the ranked system. So when you come back from your hiatus, your MMR is right where you left it—but now the competition around you is even higher.

We got pretty technical here, but we hope this provided a little more context into matchmaking in League. What other questions do you want answered? Where do you feel we can improve our systems? Let us know in the comments! This is the second post of a three-part update on matchmaking in League! Read the rest below:. Part 1: How does matchmaking work? Come join the LoL Wiki community Discord server!

Matchmaking is the existing automated process in League of Legends that matches a player to and against other players in games. The system estimates how good a player is based on whom the player beats and to whom the player loses. It knows pre-made teams are an advantage, so it gives pre-made teams tougher opponents than if each player had queued alone or other premades of a similar total skill level Riot Games Inc.

MMR is a number that Riot uses to determine your skill, and when matchmaking, the skill of your opponents. It goes up when you win, and goes down when you lose. When looking for games to put you in, it will look for other players whose numbers are close to yours.

You have a separate MMR in each queue, so you can climb in one queue without it affecting others. The basic concept is that the system over time understands how strong of a player you are, and attempts to place you in games with people with similar MMR as much as possible.

However, that. These are all curveballs the matchmaker has to resolve, forcing it to weigh one aspect more heavily than the others. And this may potentially ruin their League of Legends experience through no fault of their own. Riot has acknowledged that their system for placing players, whilst successful, still needs improvement. And this seems to be their crucial point of focus for the coming year when talking about matchmaking improvements.

I enjoy playing and keeping up to date with the professional competitive scenes of League of Legends and Valorant amongst others. Additionally, I have a great interest in following the advancements of PC and gaming hardware. When not playing reading about or watching videos on games or technology, I am often playing or watching volleyball.