LoL players are convinced they know the real reason Riot added Emerald rank

League of Legends’ season 13 split two started on July 19 and Riot Games used this as an opportunity to make a couple of ranked changes—introducing the Emerald rank, reducing promotion series from five games to three, and tweaking matchmaking. By far, the biggest change here is the addition of Emerald rank and League player are convinced they actually know the true reason why Riot did it.

In a post on League’s subreddit from Aug. 8, the community concluded that Riot actually added the Emerald rank to keep the people engaged and playing. Right now, we’re seeing an increasing number of players who have been hardstuck at the same rank for years bragging how they finally made it to their desired rank.

“Its really not a secret. Ultimately, most, if not all changes are to keep people engaged so they keep playing,” said one player.

In the past, these same players have struggled to climb, but according to the community, Emerald and tweaks to matchmaking have made it way easier to climb without actually improving and learning new strategies.

The fans continue by saying this kind of behavior by Riot is quite “toxic and leads to elo inflation,” meaning you’ll have more players at higher ranks who actually can’t keep up with what’s going on.

Others are now saying that Emerald has actually decreased the value of their current rank and they need to grind even more just to prove themselves as skilled players.

The new rank tried to distribute the League playerbase evenly across ranks, especially because more than 60 percent of the community was stuck in Bronze and Silver. But now, you can easily expect to be placed one division above and Silver players are having the times of their lives in Gold, and Gold players are undoubtedly Platinum.