2025 Ranked Changes: What’s New for Season One?

As 2025 approaches Riot is making big changes to the Ranked system in League of Legends. These changes are aimed at addressing Ranked fatigue, matchmaking volatility and rank inflation while making the experience smoother and more rewarding for all players. Here’s the lowdown on what’s new for Season One.

Many streamers, including Tyler1 and Doublelift, have praised the upcoming changes.

Ranked Resets Simplified

The biggest changes for 2025 season is the removal of mid-year resets. Instead of 2 resets a year, there will be 1 big reset at the start of the year. This will allow players to focus on climbing without the grind and frustration of multiple resets. This should make Ranked more enjoyable and less overwhelming for players who have other commitments to balance.

The requirements for Victorious skins are changing too. Instead of needing to hit Gold with 80 SP or grind 1000 SP below Gold, players will now unlock the base Victorious skin by winning 15 Ranked games (Solo/Duo, Flex, or a combination) in each thematic Season. Chromas for Victorious skins will still be tied to climbing higher ranks.

For Apex players (Diamond and above), MMR soft resets will be less aggressive. This should reduce early season volatility where high ranked players often play against players from different skill tiers. Some variance will still remain but this should make matchmaking at the top ranks more consistent and fair.

Returning to Ranked

To help players who have been away for extended periods of time, Riot is continuing the decay changes introduced in Split 3. Accounts that have been inactive for 6 months or more will decay more aggressively and will be placed in a lower rank when they return. This way they can re-acclimate to the game at a more appropriate skill level and not lose to themselves and their teammates.

This change caused instability especially in higher ranks but Riot’s data shows that most decayed accounts are now performing in line with their current placements. For example:

• Ex-Diamond players in Emerald average 48% win rate.
• Ex-Masters in Diamond average 49% win rate.

These numbers show the system is placing players more accurately after long breaks. However, Riot acknowledges that returning players on alt accounts may still experience unnecessary decay and they’re looking into ways to fine tune this.

Alt Accounts and Matchmaking Quality

Alt accounts are still a big part of the Ranked landscape. Each split soft MMR resets help purge manipulated accounts from the ladder but also create matchmaking problems in higher tiers. Riot is working on selectively applying changes to alt accounts to maintain competitive integrity without punishing legitimate players unfairly.

The goal is to be fair to returning players while improving matchmaking quality in Diamond+ games where alt accounts and decayed players create inconsistent experiences.

Rank Inflation

Rank inflation over the past few years has watered down the value of higher ranks especially in larger regions. Overcrowding in Master and inconsistent skill levels in Emerald have led to mismatched games and community confusion about rank quality.

To fix this, Riot made higher ranks harder to get in Split 3 and some players experienced big rank drops. While this was necessary, Riot will be closely monitoring rank distribution moving forward to prevent future inflation and minimize the need for big corrections.

Want to learn more about ranked distribution and how to climb out? Read more here!

Why Riot is making these changes?

The Community is Fed Up with Three Ranked Splits

Three Ranked splits in League of Legends has caused a lot of backlash in the community. While Riot wanted to keep players engaged all year round, many players feel it’s introduced more problems than solutions. The frustration spilled over the main subreddit for the game/r/leagueoflegends with many threads popping up and quickly raising to the top of trending threads e.g. 1, 2, 3.

Too Many Resets and Fatigue

One of the biggest complaints is the sheer amount of resets. Each split requires players to climb back to their rank, which many call a "grind to reclaim what was already earned.”. This is especially tough for players with limited time, like players with full time jobs, families or other commitments.

Players also pointed out that this cycle causes burnout. Instead of being a rewarding experience, the frequent resets makes Ranked feel like an uphill battle that has to be restarted every 4 months. Many in the community feel that the system punishes time constrained players and favors those with endless hours to spend.

Matchmaking Madness at the Start of Splits

Rank resets at the start of each split messes with matchmaking. MMR (Matchmaking Rating) remains the same, but the visual rank is reset, so you get games with players of vastly different skill levels. High skilled players find themselves in lobbies with less skilled teammates and it’s frustrating for everyone involved.

For Apex players, the soft resets makes the climb to top ranks feel inconsistent. The overlap of Emerald, Diamond and Master players in early split games makes it worse, causing chaotic matchmaking and perceived unfairness.

Motivation and Engagement

The psychological impact of the resets has driven many players away from Ranked altogether. Some only play the minimum number of games to get the rewards, while others have given up on Ranked entirely. Long time players who used to grind for their peak rank throughout a full season find it hard to stay motivated when progress is erased so often.

Even for those who liked two splits, three feels too much. As one player put it, "It’s not worth climbing 700 LP every 4 months to get back to my rank".

This kind of collective complaining is common in highly competitive ranked games, where it often feels like climbing is impossible no matter what you do. Outside assistance can frequently make a difference in climbing. Historically, climbing out of gold rank has been considered a significant accomplishment. It will be intriguing to see how “low elo” is redefined without rank restrictions for the victorious skin.

A Better Ranked Experience

These changes should make Ranked 2025 more rewarding, balanced and fun. From simplified resets to decay systems and rank changes, it all comes down to Riot’s goal of creating a competitive environment that values time, effort and skill.

Season 1 starts in January, happy climbing!

Source: /dev: Ranked Update Season One 2025