Your internet drops for ten minutes, you reconnect, your team wins. Do you get the LP? The answer isn't what most players assume, and it has nothing to do with what percentage of the game you were present for.
League of Legends Guide
AFK and Win Credit
Updated August 2026
Here's the situation that starts the argument. A player disconnects for ten minutes, reconnects, and spends the rest of the game insisting they can't get LP even if the team wins. Half an hour later the enemy Nexus explodes, and there's no leaver icon next to their name. They get the LP.
Then the same thing happens to someone else in a different game and they get nothing. The system doesn't work the way most players think it does.
The Short Answer
Being absent for a long stretch and coming back is survivable. Being flagged as having abandoned the game is not. Those are different things, and conflating them is where the confusion comes from.
What Actually Happens When You Go AFK
LeaverBuster watches for players who leave and don't come back. Get flagged and the consequences are immediate:
No experience
The abandoned game grants none at all.
Normal games
A leave is recorded against your match history.
Ranked games
A loss is recorded, even if your team went on to win without you.
Reduced LP
Ranked AFKs also cut your LP gains for several games afterwards, on top of everything else.
The Penalty Ladder
LeaverBuster escalates through tiers, and the 2023 overhaul added outright queue lockouts on top of the old delays. This is the current structure.
| Tier | Penalty |
|---|---|
| 0 | 1 minute queue delay for 1 game |
| 1 | 5 minute delay for 5 games |
| 2 | 10 minute delay for 5 games |
| 3 | 15 minute delay for 5 games |
| 4 | 15 minute delay for 5 games, plus a 24 hour lockout |
| 5 | 15 minute delay for 5 games, plus a 3 day lockout |
| 6 | 15 minute delay for 5 games, plus a 7 day lockout |
Ranked is treated more harshly than normals or ARAM. The same absence costs you more in a ranked game, and it stacks with the reduced LP gains. One genuinely unavoidable disconnect is survivable; a habit of them escalates faster than most players expect.
What It Is Not
Not a percentage of the game
There's no threshold of "played enough of it". Players who disconnected near the end of a long game and reconnected before the Nexus fell have gone without LP anyway, even after doing something genuinely useful on the way back in.
Not fixed by being there at the end
Reconnecting just before the win doesn't launder the absence. Deliberately disconnecting and returning for the last thirty seconds is a well-worn idea that doesn't work.
Not about contribution
Stealing Baron on your way back doesn't override a leaver flag. The system isn't scoring how useful you were.
Not fully documented
Riot has never published the exact thresholds, which is precisely why so much folklore exists about it. Treat any specific number you read online, including here, as a description of observed behaviour rather than a published rule.
The Practical Version
If you disconnect, reconnect as fast as you can and stay. That's genuinely the whole strategy. A short absence you return from is usually fine. A long one, or one you never come back from, is what gets flagged.
If you know you have to go, don't start a ranked game. The escalating ladder means the cost isn't one bad night, it's the queue lockout waiting three offences later.
Remake exists for the other side of it. If someone on your team never connects at all, the remake vote in the opening minutes cancels the game without a loss. It's there specifically so one person's dead router doesn't cost four other people LP.
AFK penalties are one part of a wider set of behaviour systems that also cover honor, chat and griefing. We've written up how all of those work together in our guide to honor and punishments.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long can you AFK and still get win credit?
There's no published time limit, because the system isn't measuring what percentage of the game you played. What matters is whether you got flagged as having abandoned it. Reconnecting and staying is what protects your credit, not being present for a certain fraction of the match.
Do you get LP if you reconnect before the game ends?
Not reliably. Plenty of players have disconnected late, returned before the Nexus fell, and received nothing. Coming back at the last moment doesn't clear a leaver flag, and neither does doing something useful on your way back in.
What happens to your rank if you go AFK in ranked?
A loss is recorded against you even if your team wins, you get no experience from the game, and your LP gains are reduced for several games afterwards. Ranked is treated more harshly than normals or ARAM for the same absence.
How long is a LeaverBuster ban?
It escalates by tier. Early tiers are queue delays of 1 to 15 minutes across a handful of games. From tier 4 onward you also get lockouts, starting at 24 hours, then 3 days, then 7 days.
Does a remake protect you from a loss?
Yes. If a player never connects, the remake vote in the opening minutes cancels the game without counting as a loss for the rest of the team. It exists precisely so one person's connection problem doesn't cost four other people LP.
Ever lost LP to a router at exactly the wrong moment? Tell us in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to comment or leave a message :)