How ranked and LP work in League of Legends
LP moves you within a division, but a hidden MMR decides how much — which is why you can gain 15 for a win and lose 25 for the next loss.
Contents
Ranked runs on two numbers: LP (League Points), which you see, and MMR (matchmaking rating), which you don't. LP moves you between divisions and tiers — hit 100 and you promote instantly, no series required. MMR decides how much LP each game is worth, which is the whole answer to "why did I gain 15 and lose 25."
The tiers and divisions
Nine tiers, and the bottom six split into four divisions each (IV the lowest, I the highest). Champions don't change the tier list — everyone climbs the same ladder regardless of role or pool size.
| Tier | Divisions | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Iron | IV–I | No decay, ever |
| Bronze | IV–I | No decay |
| Silver | IV–I | No decay |
| Gold | IV–I | No decay |
| Platinum | IV–I | No decay |
| Emerald | IV–I | No decay |
| Diamond | IV–I | Decay after 28 inactive days |
| Master | none | Decay after 14 inactive days |
| Grandmaster | none | Decay after 14 inactive days |
| Challenger | none | Decay after 14 inactive days |
Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger have no divisions — they're separated purely by LP, on a single shared leaderboard per region.
LP, MMR, and why the gains don't match the losses
Every division runs 0–100 LP. Reach 100 and you promote straight away with any leftover LP carried into the new division — Riot removed the old best-of-series promos, and as of the 2026 ranked rework that's a permanent change, for tier promotions as well as division ones, not a temporary patch.
What you don't see is MMR, the actual skill number the matchmaker uses. LP gain and loss per game get pulled toward it: if your MMR sits above your visible rank, wins pay out more LP and losses cost less, because the system is trying to drag your rank up to match your MMR. If your MMR sits below your rank — say, after a long win streak that outpaced your actual level, or a rank bought or boosted from elsewhere — the opposite happens: wins pay less, losses cost more, until LP and MMR line back up. That asymmetry is the entire explanation for gaining 15 one game and dropping 25 the next; it's not random, it's the system correcting toward your MMR. Baseline swings are roughly ±20-25 LP per game below Emerald and tighten slightly at Emerald and above, with apex tiers running a wider band since Patch 26.9.
Locking a rune page you trust before queuing, rather than rebuilding it every match, keeps that variable out of the equation — the rune setup is one of the few things fully under your control before MMR and matchup luck take over.
Promotion and demotion, today
Promotion is automatic at 100 LP — no gate, no best-of-anything. Demotion works the other way: lose enough games at 0 LP and you drop a division or tier. Freshly promoted players get a short demotion grace window (roughly a handful of games) before a loss at 0 LP can actually push them back down, but that window is shorter than it used to be, since the removal of promo series also trimmed the demotion protection that went with them.
When a demotion does land, you don't restart a tier at 0 LP — you land somewhere in the 25–75 LP range of the division below, with the exact number set by how far your MMR sits from your old rank. So yes: dropping from Gold to Silver is possible, same as Diamond to Platinum, whenever LP and losses line up against you. Nothing below Diamond has decay-driven demotion, only loss-driven demotion.
Decay: who actually loses LP for logging off
Decay is real only from Diamond up — Iron through Emerald can sit out an entire split and come back untouched. Diamond gets a 28-day grace bank, topped up by 7 days per ranked game played (Solo/Duo or Flex), capped at 28. Once that bank empties, you lose roughly 50 LP per day. Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger get a shorter 14-day bank, topped up by 1 day per game, and once it runs dry the loss is closer to 75 LP per day — enough that two idle weeks at Master with an empty bank can cost several hundred LP.
Decay only touches your visible rank, never your MMR. Decay out of Diamond into Platinum and your MMR is unchanged, so the games back to Diamond pay out oversized LP until your rank catches back up to where the system already thinks you belong.
The queue dodge penalty
Dodging costs LP even though the game never starts: the first dodge of the day costs a small flat amount, and further dodges the same day cost more, with the penalty resetting after 24 hours. It doesn't touch MMR, and on its own it can't demote you — but it stacks, so a bad night of queue-dodging can put a real dent in your progress before you've played a single game. It's a separate system from the loss you take for going 0/10 on a champion your build didn't fit — for the numbers behind that kind of damage math, see our guide on lethality and armor penetration.
The season reset
Ranked resets at the start of each split, softly: LP drops and you're re-placed after a handful of games, but MMR carries over enough that strong players land back near where they left off rather than starting from zero. Placement caps exist too — even a Challenger finish the split before won't place you above roughly Diamond III until you climb back. Apex tiers get treated separately when Riot decides matchmaking there has drifted: in April 2026, Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger players on several regions had both visible rank and MMR reset outright to Master at 0 LP, a one-off correction rather than the normal yearly reset — a reminder that apex-tier rules move more often than the rest of the ladder.