Have you wanted to see your MMR or wondered how Riot makes matches? Well we've got the details for you right here.
You play a game of League of Legends, go on a win streak and all of a sudden, you’re playing a bunch of Gold I players, even though you’ve been hardstuck Silver III since 2015? How is that even possible?
Well, my friends, that’s what we’re going to check out today. You’ve read about League of Legends MMR and you know what low MMR or high MMR means, but how do you see MMR in LoL? That’s exactly what we’re going to check out.
How To Check Your MMR
There is no official way to check your MMR through Riot Games. There are third-party MMR checkers which you can use though to try and see where you rank amongst other League of Legends players behind the scenes.
These sites will calculate your MMR based on your solo games. Why? Because the MMR and skill level between pre-mades can differ quite drastically, which would result in skewed – and wrong – data. Therefore, trust those sites which check only your solo games to know your own MMR.
If you ever lose LP after a game, you can use one of the third-party MMR checkers to try and figure out why you lose so many League Points after a game. When playing above the average MMR for your rank, you’ll gain more LP than you lose. Vice versa, when playing below the average MMR for your rank, you’ll lose more LP than gain.
This means if you play above your average and win, you get a lot of LP, but if you play below your average and lose, you’ll also lose a lot of LP. So, even if you can’t directly check your matchmaking rating in League of Legends, just by seeing how much LP you gain or lose, you’ll be able to tell where you stand in the MMR department.
How To Calculate your MMR
The exact formula is hidden somewhere deep within a vault at Riot Games in California. So sadly, we don’t know how exactly matchmaking rating is calculated. We do know, though, that the more often you play, the more accurate it is to your skill.
Also, MMR fluctuates with win and loss streaks. Wins and losses are the most important factor to calculating your MMR and will make it either go up or down. As already explained, this will in turn influence the amount of LP you gain or lose when playing ranked.
So even though we might not be math wizards who know how to calculate it, we know what the key factors of MMR are, and we know that some smart folks out there on the internet have figured it out, and you can easily find out with a 95% accuracy what your LoL MMR is.
What Is The Difference Between MMR and Elo?
Let’s go over some small details once more to refresh your memory on what MMR is, what elo is and how MMR influences the elo hell you go through every single night you boot up your PC to play some ranked games.
Elo is a term that comes from chess, and it determines your rank in League of Legends. Up until season 3, League of Legends used elo to determine their players' standings, but have since replaced the system with their own tier system. The name elo has stuck though, and most players use the term when referring to their ranked tier.
So when someone says their elo is silver, they basically just mean that they're in silver tier. It’s the visible tier in League of Legends that Riot Games has created for players to gain an understanding of where they stand in terms of skill.
But your rank is also determined through MMR because this determines who you end up playing against. MMR refers to Matchmaking rating and is used to pit you up with and against players of the same skill level as yourself in a game of LoL.
So, the main difference is that your normal, ARAM and ranked MMR is hidden, while elo is the tier you know and love to boast about – or try and hide from everyone else.
How Does MMR Work?
MMR is easy to understand. Honestly, it’s not rocket science guys, all you need to know is that you’ll have a low MMR when you lose games, while you can get a high MMR when you go on win streaks. The more games you win in a row, the higher your MMR. You’ll be queued up with higher-skilled players for your next game of LoL.
Therefore, you could be Gold I, go on a win streak and end up playing with platinum players the next game. The same goes for other games in the League of Legends client. If you play a lot of Teamfight Tactics, you can acquire a rank in a tier, but have a background MMR. This concept also applies to ARAM and normals.
For each game mode, you’ve got your own average MMR. So if you play a lot of ranked, but barely any ARAM, you’ll have a more accurate average MMR in ranked than in ARAM and be queued up with people closer to your skill level.