What’s Wrong With The Current Flex System?

Rank 1 in Flex is 4164LP with a 95% winrate over 350 games. Flex has clearly become less of a ladder and more of a launchpad for boosting and wintrading services.

Btw, the KR SoloQ record (held by S11 World Champion Viper) is just 2149 LP with a 58% winrate over 700+ games… yet somehow Flex’s Rank 1 sits at 4164 LP with a 95% winrate. Truly the pinnacle of team-based competition.

• Have you ever played Flex and felt it was neither serious competition nor fun social time? That’s the main issue. Flex sits in an odd middle zone—not quite casual, not quite competitive.

• Solo/Duo is still the go-to for individual skill, but it can be stressful if you want more team-focused gameplay. Is there a way to make Flex feel like a real “team mode” without diminishing Solo/Duo?

Many of us play games to feel skilled (Competence), have freedom (Autonomy), and belong to a group (Relatedness). A “Team Mode” boosts that sense of belonging and synergy.

Wouldn’t it be fun to chase the same thrills of a high-stakes match—only with a group of friends or trusted teammates?

Implementation Concept: Team Rank + Weekly Clash

Team Rank

Instead of each player in Flex having their own rank, the entire team shares one “Team Rank.” You rise or fall together — preventing situations where people abuse four Emerald accounts just to boost one person to Challenger! (I HATE this so much.) The five-person requirement means you either queue as a full team or not at all, eliminating mismatched groups and random strangers.

Each team can have up to 15 members, similar to forming a Clash team, but this team stays together permanently! Just imagine having an icon of your own team with your best friends displayed on your profile page — isn’t that exciting? A person can be part of up to two teams. With a 15-member cap, it helps accommodate real-life scheduling conflicts and ensures your team can still play even if one key player is unavailable.

After finishing placement matches (5 matches), the team receives a team rank.

• Ex: Team “TSM” finished placement with 3W2L, the team got placed to Gold III, 20LP.

Weekly Clash Tournaments

One thing I personally don’t like about Clash is that we have to form new teams every time, and the rewards don’t ‘stack’ across multiple events. This proposed system gives Clash a meaningful reason to play as a team. Teams can practice consistently in Flex matches during the week, building synergy, and then prove themselves in weekly Clash brackets—sorted by rank tiers (Iron–Silver, Gold–Platinum, Diamond, Master+).

It’s a structured routine cycle: refine your strategies during the week in Flex, then put them to the test in a short weekend ‘mini-tournament.’ This progression gives casual squads a reason to stay engaged, while more competitive teams can aim for long-term improvement.

Rewards

One exciting rewards concept could be “trophies” just like the Worlds trophy, where every winning player’s name is inscribed for lasting recognition. Additionally, victory in Clash might yield bonus LP for the team’s rank, giving squads an extra incentive to compete. To add even more hype, there could be a Finals MVP (FMVP) award, and auto generate a FMVP clip with AI for players to showoff. This creates team achievements and personal achievements and will amplify the excitement of Clash. In-Client Hall of Fame should also be a thing, right now there is almost no detail on how a trophy was won and can only show one trophy. Imagine you can have 5 trophies to look at like Faker!

Why Would Players Get Hooked?

Short-Term: Weekly Clash Hype

• Each weekend feels like a mini-esports event. People finally have a reason to spam call their friends and get them to hop on. You gather your team, finalize your lineup, and face off in a bracket. It’s a quick burst of excitement that gives meaning to all the weekday practice.

Mid-Term: Team Rank Progress

• Day-to-day, you’re working to climb from Gold to Platinum, Platinum to Diamond, and so on—together as a team. This progress can be deeply satisfying for players who love seeing shared improvements. I am not saying that SoloQueue is not a good mode, but not everyone wants to play alone. Players that are talented or high-elo in their friendgroup can help their other friends improve, and players that want to improve will not feel shameful to improve together as a team.

Long-Term: The Dream of Going Pro?

• I firmly believe that 90% of League of Legends players have never experienced a true team-based competition. They may have played the game for years, but they’ve never had the thrill of competing together as a unit. Compare this to traditional sports like basketball or soccer, where local tournaments and small-scale competitions are commonplace, giving everyone a chance to experience teamwork and competition. This is the biggest gap in modern esports. We need to change this reality and create an environment where more players can feel the excitement of working together, competing as a team, and striving for victory. Only by fostering this spirit can we truly bring more players into the competitive ecosystem.

• To make this experience more inspiring, Riot could broadcast the top 10 teams in the highest-tier Clash Tournament, with the grand finals played in an offline, LAN-style event. Players would then see, “Hey, I actually can compete on stage?” rather than dismissing Flex as a mode where the top spot are ALWAYS BOOSTED!

Queue Times

• Long queue timers, but if this game mode attracts enough players, the problem will naturally be resolved.

• Show player how many teams are queueing flex right now,

  • Ex: We are a Diamond III team, and when we queue up, we can see “10 Diamond teams are also queueing up right now.”

Impact on Solo Queue

• Will a new mode steal players from Solo/Duo? Possibly, but each mode has different purpose: individual performance vs. group synergy.

• When player’s squad are not online, player will still stick back to SoloQueue, its just another option for players.

What If There’s Only 3 or 4 Players

• Not everyone has four friends who play regularly. So there should be a “find a team” option in the client, and the option to join two teams should help ease people in. I know there will be problems that people can’t find a team, but I still think changes need to be made.

• Improve normal draft match making, there are several times that I (Masters~Grandmasters MMR) that got placed in a full Bronze lobby. It doesn’t have to be that competitive match making, but at least make it not 5 or 6 rank difference.

“It only takes 90 perfect wins to climb from Gold I 38LP to Challenger 799LP. Just don’t lose once — easy, right?”

Final Thoughts

This doesn’t just fix Flex’s reputation as a “bad gamemode”; it also solidifies League of Legends as a truly team competitive experience. It connects friends and new teammates in a more meaningful way, and providing from casual players to dedicated climbers a clear and exciting path toward high-level coordinated play. Overall, this keeps League’s team spirit alive for everyone, from casual groups to future esports hopefuls.