League devs promise better ranked experience in 2026 with duo queue and LP protections

Moving into League of Legends Season 1 in 2026, Riot Games is overhauling ranked play to deliver a more balanced, fair, and less frustrating climb for players across all skill levels.

Autofill problems have long been a thorn in the side of ranked players in League. The developer is addressing this with a smarter matching system that will prioritize pairing autofilled players with other autofilled players in the same role, or at least balance teams by number of autofills.

If the imbalance remains unavoidable, the side with more autofilled teammates will get slightly higher-MMR players to improve the chances of a fair fight. 

There is also a new system named Aegis of Valor, which grants LP protection or bonus LP gains for players forced into autofill, provided they reach a minimum performance threshold in the match, which has been kept at C-tier or higher in performance. This aims to reward effort and reduce the penalty for being placed in a role you didn’t choose, while rewarding you for outperforming the enemy role mains in your competitive matches. 

Dodging won’t reset your autofill status anymore, so if you dodge, your autofill will carry over to your next match. It also gives out the Aegis of Valor as an incentive, so dodging doesn’t make sense. Moreover, players who dodge at Master and higher it’ll count it as a full loss and receive a dodge cooldown timer.

The developer is also re-enabling Duo-queue at every rank, including the highest tiers, after improvements in boosting detection and matchmaking adjustments, which makes them confident that it won’t be used to manipulate the rank. That restores the ability for friends to climb together, even at top-tier levels. 

To trim wasted time before matches, champ-select and queue animations are being shortened by about 30 seconds, including the removal of the ability to ban a champion that a teammate is hovering, which does more harm than good. In turn, speeding up the time from the queue to the match.

There’s also a recalibration of lower ranks and an introduction of the Climb Indicator, a tool intended to better align visible rank with actual matchmaking rating (MMR), to reduce mismatches and help newer or improving players climb more smoothly. 

The developer says these changes aim to make ranked play feel more consistent, fairer, and more enjoyable, especially for players who don’t main popular roles or often face autobill pressure.