Riot brought Flex Queue to League of Legends a few years ago to replace Ranked Teams. One unfortunate downside to the queue, however, was that players couldn’t play with their friends if there was a large gap in their ranks. As of Patch 10.15, this is changing, and players will be able to play ranked Flex Queue with anyone without rank restrictions.
What is Flex Queue?
Flex Queue is League of Legends‘ competitive queue for groups. You can queue solo or with groups of two, three, or five. Flex Queue ranking is different than Solo/Duo queue ranking and gives players an alternative way to play. At the end of the season, players can earn ranked rewards from Flex Queue as well.
In the past, the general consensus from the community is that Flex Queue is kind of a joke. Players play with their friends and don’t take it seriously. Hopefully, by allowing players to play with their friends from different ranks, players will attempt to take the queue more seriously.
Problems with the queue in the past
As mentioned above, Flex Queue wasn’t taken very seriously by many. In addition to this, since players couldn’t play with their friends from different ranks, the only place to do so in a competitive manner was Clash. Since Clash only happens every few weeks, this left players without a way to play competitively with higher or lower ranked friends.
This change aims to fix this, and hopefully, it will help the health of the queue. For League of Legends fans, this should be a welcome change. Having a way to play with friends from different ranks will be nice. It could even help promote more teamplay and learning.
Be careful who you bring to your group, however, as Riot warns that severe discrepancies in rank could result in difficult and unfair matches. This is probably the only way to make this happen, so you could be in for a challenge if you invite your Grandmaster friend to play with you and your Gold friends. Make sure to remember to have fun regardless!
