Should You Play League in Streamer Mode? The Pros and Cons

I've played most of this season with streamer mode on. Nobody in my games knows who I am, and I don't know who they are. Here's what that gets you, and what it costs.

A Player's Perspective

Playing in Streamer Mode

Pros and Cons

I've played most of this season with streamer mode on. Nobody in my games knows who I am, and I don't know who they are. Here's what that gets you, and what it costs.

The short version

What you get

Nobody plays around your name.

Every game starts clean, with no history on either side.

What you give up

Fewer chances to connect with the good players you meet.

If ranked has started to feel personal, turn it on. If you queue to meet people, leave it off.

Nobody plays around your name

Most lobbies have someone who looks up the enemy team before minions spawn. They find a name, check a rank or a match history, and decide how the game's going to go before it's started.

That read hurts you from both ends. Look like an easy kill (a new account, a long loss streak, a champion you've played twice) and the enemy jungler's in your lane at three minutes and stays there. Look dangerous, with a high peak or a huge mastery score on your pick, and you get the same jungler for the opposite reason. They want you behind before you can take the game over.

Streamer mode takes that away. You're the Ahri in mid, and the enemy has to find out what you're like by laning against you. Most of them don't bother.

Every game starts clean

You run into the same players more often than you'd expect, especially near the top or bottom of the ladder. With names on, you remember them. The support who went 0/9 and blamed you. The top laner who flamed your pathing two weeks ago.

Some of them remember you too, and they carry it into the next game before anyone's done anything.

With streamer mode on, I can't tell whether I've played with someone before, and they can't tell with me. Old grudges don't come along. Nobody loads in already sure I'm going to throw. I judge my teammates on the game in front of me, and I'm a better teammate because of it.

The cost: you stop meeting people

The downside took me longer to notice.

Names do come back once the game ends. The end-of-game lobby shows you exactly who you played with. What's left of that lobby is the problem. Riot has cut it back hard to keep toxicity down, and the moment where you'd type "gg, duo?" to the jungler who actually played around you has mostly gone.

Streamer mode makes the gap wider. For thirty minutes that jungler was just "Vi", someone you couldn't place and had no reason to remember. You only find out who they were in a lobby that's built for leaving, and most people leave.

Plenty of players built their friends list this way: one good game, one invite, then years of duo queue. That path is still there with streamer mode on. It's just a lot narrower than it used to be.

Who should turn it on

Turn it on if

• You've been camped because of your rank or match history.
• A name from a bad game puts you on tilt.
• You stream or record, even to a tiny audience.
• You'd rather judge every teammate on the game you're playing.

Leave it off if

• You're looking for a duo partner or a Clash team.
• You mostly play with the same friends anyway.

I'm keeping it on. I'd rather lose the odd great duo partner than spend the first ten minutes of every game playing against my own match history. If someone does play well with you, their name is right there in the end-of-game lobby. Send the invite before you queue again.