Champion’s Queue, North America’s premier invite-only League of Legends server, is receiving major changes, according to project lead Zack “Riot Whoopley” Elliot.

Champion’s Queue is described on the official website as “a competitive matchmaking experience hosted on a private Discord server designed for the best West Coast North American players. Prizing will be distributed among the top competitors across three seasons throughout the year.”

“Pros, teams, media, and fans” that are concerned about the health of Champion’s Queue has provided their thoughts to the team, and the changes to the server is the result. Riot Whoopley says he and his team discuss the improvement of Champion’s Queue with the LCS Players Association and the Amateur & Academy Committee made up of LCS team owners and General Managers.

The post discusses four major concerns: Split Schedule, Match Quality, Limited Players/Role Disparity, and Voice Comms.

Riot Whoopley acknowledges that these concerns discourages players to play on the server, and increases the queue time for those who are playing. Unfortunately, he said that an all across the board fix to all of these isn’t possible immediately, he provided some context and a peek into what they intend to do next.

Split Schedule

“In its original design Champion’s Queue ran independently of the LCS schedule, something our data indicates we need to address.”

Champion’s Queue was initially intended to run all throughout the year, especially in between LCS splits. But in practice, LCS players during the off-season “are looking to those moments as a time to reset and prepare mentally for the next split, and in some cases leaving NA to go home or bootcamp.”

Split 3 of the Champion’s Queue Spring Season will be skipped because of the overlap between its schedule and the off-season between LCS Spring and Summer splits. The Champion’s Queue Summer season will also be rescheduled to start on May 31 until August 21, aligning itself with the LCS Summer Split Regular Season.

This change, Riot Whoopley says, will hopefully increase the number of players queueing up for games on the server.

Match Quality

One of the things that players, especially the LCS pros, in Champion’s Queue were calling for has been MMR system. As it currently stands, Champion’s Queue has a simple LP system that grants +10 LP on a win and -5 on a loss, allowing for climbing even on a low win-rate. Niship “Dhokla” Doshi, Champion’s Queue Spring Split 2 rank #1 and CLG Academy Top laner, took to Twitter to discuss his many concerns about CQ, this faux MMR system included.

Going back to Riot Whoopley’s statement, he and his team are “[exploring] the implementation of [a more sophisticated MMR system] with our dev team and will share more updates on this feature once we have a better understanding of the timing.”

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He added that the MMR system will most probably increase average queue time, but according to him, they’ve heard feedback that players are okay with this if it means higher match quality.

Limited Players / Role Disparity

Recently, Champion’s Queue has suffered from long queue times due to a small player base. The intuitive solution seems to be “just allow more players in,” but according to Riot Whoopley, it’s a bit more nuanced than that.

CQ will see more players on it after the next two Proving Grounds Qualifiers in Summer, with a new Grandmaster rank threshold.

 Voice Comms

If you’re a fan reading this, you might’ve watched some players stream some games on Champion’s Queue. Often, this means that they’re on a Discord call with their teammates, and players like Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng have repeatedly mentioned their appreciation for this. For Riot Whoopley and his team, players find it “very difficult to feel comfortable opting out of voice comms” due to the pressure of winning.

Those in charge of CQ are looking into a version of the voice comms where players instead have to opt-in to joining instead of opting out in hopes to help players feel more comfortable.

Conclusion

Riot Whoopley concluded the lengthy announcement with the following words:

“Champion’s Queue is designed to be adaptive. The goals and changes listed here are examples of our commitment to our continued investment in Champion’s Queue. This Spring Season has just been the start of us learning how to create the best experience possible for our competitive players and we’re eager to continue working with the Player’s Association and teams to reach that goal. We hope you’ve been enjoying watching and following along with Champion’s Queue and are looking forward to its return in Summer!”

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