Riot Games to Remove Promotion Matches and Add Champion Banning in Wild Rift

Riot Games announced that they will remove promotion matches in Wild Rift while also adding a champion banning phase in the upcoming Patch 2.4 update. Wild Rift game designer, Josh “Nextdoor” Menke, explained that rank promotions proved too much for players which resulted in some players giving up on climbing the rank ladder. Removing promotion matches in Wild Rift ranked games will incentivize players to continue playing without having to worry about demotions and having to do promotion matches again. The lead designer of Wild Rift, Ed “MartianSpider” Knapp also explained that due to the lack of champion pool in the game, they will only be allowing three champions to be banned instead of the usual five champions.

Riot Games will remove promotion matches in Wild Rift for Patch 2.4

In a blog post posted on 22nd July 2021, Wild Rift game designer, Josh “Nextdoor” Menke, explains why the devs have decided to remove promotion matches in Wild Rift Ranked Season 3. The game designer stated that promotion matches are doing more harm than good as it causes frustrations, especially for competitive players.

Upon reaching maximum marks in the highest division of a tier, players will enter a promotion series that determines if they proceed to the next tier or not. Winning the promotion series will advance your rank into the next tier, add one mark, and grant tier-loss protection. However, failing the promotion will remove two marks, but a free win will be granted upon the next promotion match.

“Our assumption is that players value Promotion Matches more than regular matches, so losing a Promotion Match feels extra bad and discourages further playing,” stated Nextdoor.

The dev further added that most high-ranked players are afraid of demotion as they will have to do the promotion matches again in order to climb back in the ranked ladder. This results in them stopping playing ranked matches to avoid demotion.

Nextdoor explains that they will continue to monitor the overall competitiveness of ranked games in Wild Rift after they remove promotion matches to determine if players will enjoy ranked games more with or without it.

“We don’t anticipate observing any discrepancies with the new changes, but if we do, we will find solutions to keep the ranking experience engaging and competitive,” stated Nextdoor.

Riot dev addresses why there are only three bans instead of five

Lead game designer of Wild Rift, Ed “MartianSpider” Knapp goes into details as to why the game will only receive a three-champion banning phase instead of the usual five champions. MartianSpider believes that the most optimal banning phase should include five champion bans per team. However, due to the lack of champion pool in Wild Rift, matches would feel repetitive as players will be banning most of the champions available or the most powerful in the meta.

“We know from experience that this leads to an increase of toxicity in matches and we didn’t want anyone to experience that. This is why we landed on 3 bans,” stated Martian Spider.

The lead designer also stated that they will be introducing 10 bans per match or five bans per team as soon as the champion pool of Wild Rift is large enough to accommodate it.

With the addition of champion banning and the removal of promotion matches in Wild Rift, competitive ranked matches will be a much more fun experience for players without having to worry too much about demotion or having to deal with an overpowered champion in the meta.