So I'm trying to crawl out of Bronze 1 and into Silver. I've been close for days. I win far, far more games than I lose since the new system, and over all I am very pleased with the new sense of linear progression and the system in general.

But this is bananas. I've been between 70 and 99 points in Bronze 1 for days. Last night, I win 4 games in a row and go from 84 to 98 points. 4 wins only got me 14 points. The last two were worth 3 and 2 points respectively. So I'm at 98 points, excited to finally be up for a promotion following this victory - but low and behold, our support Teemo and ADC Varus decide to troll all game and force a loss. After spending hours winning games and getting almost no point gain from them - 14 points for 4 games - I lose 19 points for this single loss.

What the hell? How is that right? How does that make sense? 1 loss literally not only undid the entire value of 4 victories, but made me lose even more points than I gained!

Can I please have a Rioter involved with the new system comment on the variables that can lead in to such an atrocity? This is demoralizing, and I have almost no interest to continue playing ranked when the game seems to never want me to advance.

Hi Shibbi,

This is known as clamping. Clamping only occurs for a very small margin of players whose MMR(ELO) is far lower than the expected MMR of the promotion Tier. This is done to ensure that players who advanced to the next tier are properly qualified for a permanent ranking change.

To compare it back to the old system, that would be like a 700 ELO player trying to get into Silver. Even with an awesome streak, the player would have still only gained about 200 ELO, which puts them at 900 ELO and still below Bronze. If they somehow have an amazing ungodly streak and make it to 1400 ELO for Silver, they can still drop back down.

With the new system, instead of going from 700 to 900, it gives the chance to earn enough LP to get into a promotion series, even if your MMR is lower than expected. In this case though, because you're still a bit lower than the Tier, it does make it much more challenging. The benefit of this though, is you can never drop back down.

Admittedly it does feel a little bit more like a letdown in the new system because you can't see that you've raised your ELO, all you see is that you missed Silver. But in reality, you're still better off because you've been given the opportunity to shoot for silver even though you were no where near what you would have needed for Season 1 or Season 2.

If it's encouraging at all, Yegg and his team are working on tweaking the system so clamping won't feel quite as harsh. This will mostly be done through adjusting your early LP gains and losses so they're not as drastic when you get closer to 100 LP.

The other plus is, winning all those games was still a major boost for you. Those wins did significantly push up your MMR which will help lessen or eventually remove the clamping as you continue to move forward.

Thank you for the response, I really appreciate it.

Why am I being clamped, why is my MMR rated so low? In the last 7 days, I've lost 7 ranked games and won 18. But every time I lose, the point value is gouging. When I started the new system, I was in Bronze 1. Before the system, my high was 1255 and my low was 1125. What are the factors that go into my MMR? Is it just wins and losses? If so, shouldn't my MMR be much higher since my overall W:L is positive? From my experience with the previous system (of which I was silver already), which was agony due to having no floors, being even on your W:L was around 1100 ELO. Since I'm positive overall by a handful of wins and have been on an extreme winning streak the past week, shouldn't the system be like, "Well, maybe he SHOULD be silver!" instead of being "Well he lost that one with 98/100 points after having crawled up from zero, obviously he belongs here."

Does it measure my KDA ratio? That's also on the very high positive marks. Does it measure APM, average gold? Number of wards placed while in a support role? What are the variables? It doesn't just feel like a let down, it feels like the system is actively preventing me from succeeding and moving up.

Also... If people are winning games shouldn't we let the wins themselves gauge if they advance? Why even bother with a league system that takes into account wins over losses if you guys are just going to screw someone because "you dont feel they are good enough".

Also... When are you guys going to fix the league system. I won my promotion 2 out of 3 and now its showing that I lost one and didn't play the other 2... When the LOSS was IN BETWEEN the wins...

Lost my first game today, lost another 17 points. So I win 4 in a row and gain 14 to be at 98 points, lose two in a row and I lose almost 40? I demand an explanation.

That IS demoralizing, seriously, this new system is screwed, not in concept, but technically, in my case when I won my promotion series instead of promoting me, the series reseted and now I have to win best of 3 all over again, this is the second time it happened to me, from bronze IV to III and III to II, riot fix this please, it's incredibly annoying when stuff lke this keeps holding you back.