In early 2022, Riot Games unveiled the League of Legends Champion’s Queue. This in-house playing league was intended to bring together the best amateur and professional players from across North and South America. You can find out more about the LoL Champions Queue league here. If you’re curious about LoL Champions Queue eligibility criteria, read on for all the information you’ll ever need.
If accepted to the LoL Champion’s Queue, you’ll be sent an invite to the exclusive Discord server. Once accepted, you’ll be able to play against some of the best LoL players around. Although it’s unlikely you’ll be familiar with the players you’ve been matched to, you’ll have full access to voice communication.
All Champion’s Queue games will be logged by Riot’s Application Programming Interface (API). These logs will be used to update a live leaderboard, as well as archive match histories in detail. Even if you’re not likely to receive an invitation anytime soon, you can still access this data by clicking here.
The Champions Queue operates much like a conventional tournament, with a spring and summer playing season. Each playing season is broken down into three playing splits, with each split lasting for approximately four weeks. Once the summer season is over, a Pre-Season Brawl is held in November after the main League of Legends World Championship.
Just because you’re a top-tier LoL player, doesn’t mean you can expect an invite to the Champion’s Queue. Eligibility is pretty tight. You’ll need to be an active player within the League Championship Series (LCS). Alternatively, you’ll need to be an enrolled member of the LCS Academy. If you’ve previously played as part of an LCS team, but aren’t currently active, you’re also eligible for an invite.
You can also qualify for an invite if you’re playing within the Liga Latinoamérica league. Furthermore, anyone from the top 16 North American amateur teams is open for an invite.
Any eligible players are also subject to strict behavior checks. Any participating players will be closely monitored. If players fall short of expectations, they can face being ditched from the Champion’s Queue entirely. This recently occurred when Alexey “rjs” Zatorski, a controversial figure in LoL, was booted from the queue.
Although most LoL players have embraced the Champion’s Queue, it’s been met with plenty of criticism. For starters, a limited pool of active players means some participants are left waiting around before they can be matched to a team. When you consider that queue schedules are already limited, this is a problem. The good news is that Riot Games are looking to expand invites to bring a wider pool of players into the mix.
Many participants have also complained about the match quality in the Champion’s League. Riot Games have met this criticism head-on and are actively working on improving its matchmaking feature, match disparity is likely going to remain a problem for some time.