No more Duos…
The League of Legends 2020 season has not yet come to an end, but Riot Games has already revealed some of its plans for the next year. One huge shift the developer is to remove the duo queue during preseason 2021 for players above the Master rank.
“Some problems that keep coming up are integrity around duos vs non-duos, autofill by role, and disparity between ranks,” Riot added. “For preseason, we want to take a stab at really solidifying the statement that players at this level are the best individuals on the server, and we aim to make the playing field as balanced as possible.”
A great complaint that many players in the ranked ladder have had over the last few years is the popularity of players climbing to high ranks with a duo mate. Since there is a relatively small amount of people above Masters, there are more duo partners.
“We understand that for a portion of Apex players, climbing with a buddy is their preferred way to play,” Riot said. “But at the top of the ladder where folks tend to start knowing and recognizing each other across matches, there’s a big difference between getting that solo bot lane pair versus a professional bot lane.”
As a result, these matches are not entirely equal to the solo players attempting to climb on their own. People playing with a partner would have a better time competing to win as they have great synergies and usually communicate with each other via a third-party voice communication platform. These offer them a momentous –yet unfair–advantage over their opponents.
This means that by eliminating the queue for players above the Masters, each match is equilibrated with five solo players who have to rely on their game skills and mechanic expertise rather than a teammate with whom they have grinded throughout the season.
However, do not freak out, if you do want to team up with a mate and climb the ranked ladder, duos are still available in the flex queue.