How League of Legends ranked works

You climb League of Legends ranked by earning League Points (LP). A division takes 100 LP, five placement matches set where you start, and your hidden rating (MMR) decides how many LP a win gives. This guide follows Riot's own support pages, read on 23 October 2026. Riot changes the rules between seasons, so check its pages for the current numbers.

Updated October 23, 20263 min read

Key facts

Breaking 100 LP in a division promotes you to the next division, and leftover LP carries over. The page describes no promotion series.
Placements are five matches per ranked queue. You cannot lose LP in them, and you cannot place higher than Diamond III.
Only Diamond and up can decay. Master, Grandmaster and Challenger are single-division tiers.
Your hidden rating (MMR) is why two players gain different LP for the same win.

Tiers and divisions

The ranked ladder runs from Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Emerald and Diamond up to Master, Grandmaster and Challenger. Iron through Diamond are split into four divisions, IV at the bottom and I at the top. Master, Grandmaster and Challenger are single-division tiers.

LP: promotion and demotion

You gain LP for wins and lose it for defeats, and Riot says you generally need 100 LP to climb a division. Breaking 100 LP promotes you to the next division with the leftover LP, and 100 LP in Division I moves you to the next tier. Riot's page describes no promotion series.

Between divisions of one tier you are demoted when you lose more LP than you have. Riot's example: 5 LP in Silver III and a 20 LP loss leaves you in Silver IV with 85 LP. Dropping a tier puts you at 25, 50 or 75 LP, depending on how far your estimated skill is below your rank.

Placement matches

Placements are five matches per ranked queue. They set your starting tier and division, depending on your results and your Normal MMR. You cannot lose LP in placements: a defeat gives 0 LP, and going AFK counts as a defeat. The highest place you can reach from placements is Diamond III.

MMR, rank and why LP gains differ

MMR is Riot's hidden matchmaking rating. Rank is the visible picture of where you are on the way to your MMR, and LP connects the two. The page gives no standard number of LP for a win or a loss, because gains and losses vary.

MMR close to your rank: gains and losses are roughly equal.
MMR above your rank: wins give more LP and losses cost less, which often happens at the start of a season. As the two level out, gains shrink and losses grow.
MMR below your rank: after several losses in a row you lose more LP per defeat, until your win rate evens out.

Decay

Below Diamond a rank does not decay. Banked days drop by one at the end of each day, and when they run out you lose LP every day. Falling to 0 LP or below through decay drops you to the next lower division, and a player in an apex tier who decays through inactivity drops to Diamond II.

LP decay by tier, from Riot's support page
—	Diamond	Master, Grandmaster, Challenger
Banked days at the start	28	14
Banked days added per match	7	1
Most days you can bank	28	14
LP lost per day once the days run out	50	75

Questions people ask

One hundred. Breaking 100 LP promotes you, and the leftover LP carries over.

Riot's page on promotions describes none: you promote when you break 100 LP.

No. A defeat in placements gives 0 LP. The highest rank placements can give is Diamond III.

Riot compares your hidden rating with your rank. If your rating is higher than your rank, wins give more LP and losses cost less.

That depends on your win rate and your LP per win and loss. The free LoL LP calculator turns those three numbers into an estimate.

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