Playing premade is certainly the most optimal way to climb the League ranked ladder as you have other teammates to carry games alongside you instead of four randomly selected players.
Finding an ideal duo partner in a large pool of players faking their ranks and accomplishments is a struggle, which lead to an increase in popularity of duo finder sites such as Duoo.gg and similar websites.
With the introduction of Emerald rank midway through season 13, duo queue rank restrictions became even more confusing for both new players and seasoned veterans. In addition, Riot often changes these rules which is why it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with them, especially when you are climbing the ranks for the first time.
Which ranks can duo queue
| Your rank | Who you can play with |
| Iron | Iron Bronze Silver |
| Bronze | Iron Bronze Silver |
| Silver | BronzeSilver Gold |
| Gold | Silver Gold Platinum |
| Platinum | GoldPlatinum Emerald |
| Emerald | Platinum Diamond up to 2 divs higher |
| Diamond | Emerald up to 2 divs lowerDiamond up to 2 divs higher |
Master/Grandmaster/Challenger   | Solo only |
Low elo duo restrictions
If you’re someone who is currently in the lower tiers of the ranked ladder, you’re in luck as there are very few restrictions in terms of who you can duo with. Iron has the most room to duo with higher ranks as Iron players can play with players that are up to 2 tiers higher than them, which is silver.
As you move up the ladder, Bronze and Silver players can play with players that are one ranked tier higher than them which becomes a consistent rule for the majority of ranked tiers.
High elo ranked restrictions
The new rank Emerald can play duo with players ranked 1 tier lower or 1 tier higher, but there is a small restriction when it comes to duoing with a Diamond as an Emerald. Players that are Emerald can only play with Diamond players that are ranked within 2 divisions of them, which practically means that an Emerald I player can only duo with Diamond IV and III.
Apex tier ranked restrictions
If you have reached the top of the ranked ladder, you’ll have to say goodbye to your favorite duo partner. Players that are Master, Grandmaster, or Challenger can only play solo queue since duo abusing would be a bit too OP in the highest ranks.
Ranked Flex restrictions
Even though Flex is considered a ranked queue too, Riot designed it to be much more casually approachable than the traditional solo/duo experience. For that reason, players can team up with players of any Flex rank, up to Master, where the lowest-ranked player in a party has to be ranked Emerald or higher.
Arena restrictions
At the moment, there aren’t any restrictions when it comes to the Arena game mode and you can pair up with any teammate, regardless of their Arena rating.
Normal/ARAM game rules
Since normal games and ARAMs were mainly designed to be played by casual gamers, it should come as no surprise that there are no restrictions based on rank. Regardless of your and your teammates’ solo/flex queue rank and summoner level, you can play norms and ARAMs with anyone.
Why do ranked restrictions exist?
Balanced Matchmaking
The main reason why Riot created matchmaking restrictions is to create fair and balanced games where players play against opposition of a similar skill level. Even though it’s impossible to create a fully balanced game in terms of skill level, matching players in games that are close in rank is the best way to create a fair game for everyone involved.
Normalizing queue timers
If you’re annoyed with a 3 minute queue, just imagine how long it would take for League’s client to appropriately match players if there were no ranks. The ranked system serves to reduce queue timers as it can match players based on rank without the need to take a deeper look into any other metrics or statistics.
Reducing boosting
If you’re not familiar with the term, boosting refers to high elo players increasing a rank of a low elo account since they’re playing against inferior opposition. Since rank restrictions exist, high elo players cannot duo with low ranked players and boost their rank unfairly.
Minimizing toxicity
Why did Riot create the Emerald rank?
At the beginning of Split 2, Riot decided to introduce a new rank to the ranked system named Emerald. This rank is placed between Platinum and Diamond, behaving like any other tier that has 4 divisions ranging from Emerald IV to Emerald I.
Riot’s main goal with the introduction of this new rank is to evenly distribute players among ranks which was an issue in the past. Before this change was implemented, the vast majority (over 60%) of League’s player base was placed between Bronze and Gold which results in bland and uninteresting ranked distribution
Other split 2 ranked changes
Apart from the introduction of the new Emerald rank, there are other ranked changes that Riot implemented that highly impact every competitive player, regardless of elo.
The two major changes are:
- ‌number of placement games is going down from 10 to 5 ‌
- there are no more promotion series when ranking up between tiers
These changes were implemented to reduce the high impact that placement games had on a player’s rank in the past as well as eliminate stressful promotion series.
This is a paid guest post.