u/cryinjordan

Riot has publicly acknowledged that playing as a duo impacts the balancing of teams. Ie if they are balancing two teams, and one has a duo and one doesnt, the team with the duo probably has a net lower MMR or additional factors to buff enemy team/nerf the duo team, because riot values the added communication and synergy vs a team full of solos.

While it makes sense in theory, am I the only one who thinks the implementation is too much and you are effectively playing at hard mode as a duo? I feel whenever I duo, the whole team is nerfed to the ground. While in solo queue, sure some games are bad but I feel my consistent performance leads to more consistent outcomes. In duo queue i had two straight games where my top lane got absolutely stomped, something like 2-12 and 4-15, and their opponents were not even smurfs or hard counters. And that was just today, other days its always tough games specifically because there is always an enemy raid boss on the enemy team

I feel like if the balance is purely mmr focused, in a vacuum this creates way more bad experiences than it does good ones, because for example if the duo is mid and jungle or jungle and support, sure the way the game is designed right now with roam heavy supports, u can synergize better and have that balance. But most games, ur teammates getting outstomped has way more impact to the outcome of the game. And if in theory, you as the duo are expected to stomp back, a lot of champ or draft factors into this.

What do you all feel about the balance of duo queue at the moment?

Edit: fuck, the right grammar in the title should be “isn’t” but whatever english isn’t my first language.

So a lot of high elo players and streamers often say given the chaotic nature of solo queue, Higher champ mastery will almost always outweigh most other factors like draft. As someone who climbed from Iron to Emerald, I strongly agree with this as being a factor help me improve, however as I’ve gotten to emerald I feel its been getting harder and harder as a mainly assassin player.

While im sure emerald players still make a billion mistakes in a game, ive found it to be exponentially harder to do well as an assasin player against a tanky/disengage heavy comp. Ie nightmare comp; going up against a Renekton Poppy Lissandra Vayne Rell/Janna.

In plat and below, i felt that games where my champ was against a nightmare drafts, simply neutralizing lane and capitalizing mistakes and how badly teamfights are played was enough to make me helpful enough to win games, if i wasnt snowballing. But now in emerald, i get this feeling that everyone knows at a fundamental how to play against each champ, or their execution and making use of these draft advantages are better because emerald players probably start to develop this understanding.

So that’s my question: At what rank would you say it’s better to pick a champ that you’re far less comfortable on but better in the draft, vs “one tricking” or having champ pool of 1-3.

Btw, I know an implication here is that im plateauing which i acknowledge but sometimes there are games where the 3 champs im truly comfortable at playing are not playable; ie my main is banned and the other champ is taken already and the third one is just straight bad against the enemy comp (just one example). So im wondering if i should shift from “one tricking with other champs in the pool” to “have 5-7 solid champs and always pick the best one for draft.”

Seeing they nerfed 4 things about her R seems disheartening :(

Is there a new cinematic coming out with the new ranked split? If not, when? I feel like it’s been a while since they have released a truly “banger” cinematic/song. Everything the past two years has been good/decent though, but as someone who has just started playing over the past 2 years and has been watching a lot of the past cinematics retroactively, I don’t think there has been anything as “hype” as Awaken/Warriors (they say it’s cos this was during the peak of league era, not sure if thats accurate)

I feel like the last one was Bite Marks, and that was cool more of the lore/cinematic aspect vs song itself which was still alright at best in my opinion

I dont get this item. I initially thought this was just an adc item when you have an awkward recall and cant buy anything useful to your first item AND have boots already.

but I just saw a game where bot, mid and top all bought cull, including an ahri. so is it just for the same purpose or is there some very basic mechanic im missing. Someone plz explain to this emerald pisslow what is this item o_o

So i recently discovered this sub. And it’s been a bit intriguing as someone who has started playing this game recently ish and picked up ranked in mid 2025.

I definitely see why people would believe in the conspiracies. But im humble enough to also understand Im not the most skilled player and cant have a definitive view on whether some string of games really were just meant to be “pre determined” or whether it was just luck or a mix of a bunch of other factors. But i agree I have felt or experienced many periods of grinding ranked that felt engineered.

But despite that, i must tend to lean on the “cope, skill issue” camp. As someone who has reached apex tiers in multiple other games (apex predator, GM in overwatch, immortal in valorant, Unreal in Fortnite) - I learned that as a high elo player that it’s very easy to identify a person’s skill level just by watching gameplay, not by blaming a system.

But the thing is that 1) those are FPS, not moba games so im not as knowledgeable as a chall player and 2) League has been out longer than all those games, so i do not know how complex the systems are and of course what riot really looks like internally.

and I’ve seen arguments that the system is “good at determining your true rank, but will make you get there via a longer time period to keep engaged” so Im curious what the counter argument there is, since that doesn’t really go against the “skill issue” portion but rather attributes it to engineered engagement.

So go, if you feel strongly about this topic, please debate, I want actual points and discussion and not just shutting the other camp down.

(My original post got automod deleted after an edit so I’m reposting this now)

Title. Just curious to hear other people’s stories with this game.

Summoner’s rift is one of the most competitive, toxic, and yet utterly pure dopamine inducing experiences I’ve ever had in gaming. It’s also one of the most confusing. I have a friend who started playing around a year ago who is stuck in silver and my friend who is a diamond/masters player (who has been playing since the early years) just memes on him (they’re work buddies so it’s fine) but the silver friend swears this is so much harder than other ranked modes. Confusing because I kinda get both of their sides.

I’m currently sitting in high plat. I don’t think this is considered even high elo yet based on what I read in these subs. Maybe I couldve climbed faster but I started around over a year ago, started support but switched to top lane which caused a signifcant learning curve and a lot of games to learn. But worth it IMO, i enjoy the role more

Took a lot of games though, i think i played over 900-1000 games over the course of 2025-2026

but I am also wondering whether i love this game enough to put in the time investment to get to the higher elos XD

What’s your ranked journey looking like?

Title. Just curious to hear other people’s stories with this game.

Summoner’s rift is one of the most competitive, toxic, and yet utterly pure dopamine inducing experiences I’ve ever had in gaming. It’s also one of the most confusing. I have a friend who started playing around a year ago who is stuck in silver and my friend who is a diamond/masters player (who has been playing since the early years) just memes on him (they’re work buddies so it’s fine) but the silver friend swears this is so much harder than other ranked modes.

I’m currently sitting in high plat. I don’t think this is considered even mid to high elo yet based on what I read in these subs. Maybe I couldve climbed faster but I started around over a year ago, started support but switched to top lane which caused a signifcant learning curve and a lot of games to learn. But worth it IMO, i enjoy the role more

Took a lot of games though, i think i played over 900-1000 games over the course of 2025-2026

but I am also wondering whether i love this game enough to put in the time investment to get to the higher elos XD
What’s your ranked journey looking like?

So for context I’ve been playing around a year and a half now, ranked for a little over a year. Was never good, never played a moba or rts in my life so the camera movement was a struggle. played a LOT of ranked games this past year, maybe over 2000 across all seasons since the start of 2025, climbed from iron to plat.

I’ve seen the game get a lot of criticism about having too many champions and it being a “nightmare” for new players. While some of the most fun I’ve had is definitely seeing the improvement and having great moments with n my games after gaining some mastery/understanding if champ role etc etc… the feeling of newness/discovery is still a bit fresh in my mind, and looking back i think that was some of the most fun in gaming. Just going in the rift not knowing how any champ works, even having to read all my abilities and watch those 3 minute guides in youtube.

Of course there are a few caveats to that, such as when i started ranked i was getting flamed left and right for just doing dumb things primarily due to not knowing what enemy champs do and not having any macro understanding by people who have been playing for probably years. But aside from that, the discovery part was so fun precisely because there are so many champs and mechanics.

Heck, 2000 ranked games in and there’s still so much i dont know (obviously why im not yet in high elo). Like before today i deadass did not know annie’s Q is a mana refund, I did not know malzahar cannot have two spell shields by buying banshees (learned the hard way), and i did not know a single thing about how olaf’s kit works outside of his ult being cc immune since thats what i seeuntil i tried him in aram mayhem. and discovering all of it is part of the journey :)

I know 28 is still young relative to the rest of my life and I know i dont gain much out of spending so much mental energy on all this but I would be lying if i said it doesn’t bother me regardless.

This past year is when I started to really notice that.. I’m really not just a young adult anymore. I spent a little over 2 years of my early 20s in lockdown due to covid so it feels like this is a “delayed” feeling if that makes sense.

Listing a few random personal things that makes me feel this way at this age:

1. Starting to forget names of pokemon after playing that franchise for maybe 20+ years
2. eyes starting to get blurry after long work days despite being 20/20 vision, metabolism starting to slightly decline.
3. Actually choosing not to make plans to drink out most of my free nights. Man i used to be able to drink out and party until 6am.
4. findings in my executive check ups (ie high uric, cholesterol) despite having been an athlete all of my life
5. some career stuff. first: the feeling that my dreams arent being achieved. I always dreamt of working abroad but i find myself still in the same city i grew up in. I make quite a lot relative to where im from, but idk im not the happiest. I also dreamed of being a software engineer but because of the available roles that paid high where Im from, I ended up in tech-adjacent roles.
6. second: the feeling that decisions weigh heavier esp in career aspect. Now that im mid level, the world is not as much of the oyster as it seemed when i graduated in college, and choosing a different path or roles actually feels like it has major implications on my long term. Similar to previous point, sure i could pivot back but it’s riskier and an uphill battle.
7. my parents reaching 60 and seeing their faces age.
8. the dreadful feeling that will all work/corporate environments really be this intense all the time? are sunday scaries a normal thing for majority of the population?
9. Not even being in contact with so many of the people i made so many core memories with. And conversely, not feeling like i have a main true go to friend/group outside of my partner… despite having quite a few friends, if that makes sense.
10. years of trying to fight phone/screen addiction and realizing it’s so ingrained in our lives that it’s borderline impossible.
11. fear of balding
12. Being unable to answer whether I want kids and I want marriage, and the feeling that there’s a timer on both of these things.
13. My dog and cat aged too. I swear they were just puppy and kitten a few years ago, but a few years ago was 2016 and they’re now looking like they only have a few years left in the tank.

That’s all i can think of now but I’m sure there’s a bit more, maybe I’ll add in edits.

To those who went through similar phases in your life, whether during this same age range or not, what advice do you have? is it just a matter of maturity and acceptance? I can’t even properly describe what even is the issue with what I’m feeling, but it’s something along the lines of “I really valued and enjoyed my youth and now it’s all coming to a realization that that time is over and I must come to terms that life is a series of difficult challenges to make me grow”.