Your mastery grade is a percentile against strangers, not a score for the game you just played. Here's what the system measures, what the points are made of, and which half of it wipes at the end of a season.
League of Legends Guide
Champion Mastery
Grades, Points and ResetsChampion mastery looks like a scoreboard for your own game and isn't one. It's a percentile against everybody in your region playing that champion in that position, which is why a game you carried can still come back a B.
Once you know what's being compared, the rest of the system stops being mysterious, including the part that resets every year and the part that never does.
You're graded against your region, not your lobby
The comparison pool is every player in your region who has played that champion in that position. Not the nine people in your game, and not your own past games either.
Matchmaking rating stays out of it entirely, so an Iron player and a Challenger player are measured on the same curve for the same pick. That's why mastery is a poor proxy for skill and a decent proxy for hours: the system was built to reward familiarity rather than to rank anybody.
There are also fifteen grades rather than five. S+, S, S-, then A+ through A-, B+ through B-, C+ through C-, and D+ through D-, each paying a different number of points. The pluses and minuses are where most games actually land, and moving from a B to a B+ is a genuine improvement the client barely bothers to show you.
Points are your game plus your team, times your party
The award is individual performance plus team performance, multiplied by a party bonus. Two of those three terms aren't about you, which is why a good game on a good team pays more than the same game on a bad one. The grade is yours. The points are partly the lobby's.
| Premade size | Bonus points |
|---|---|
| Solo | None |
| Duo | 2% |
| Three | 4% |
| Four | 6% |
| Five | 10% |
Small per game, not nothing across a season. If you're chasing a mastery level on one champion, the cheapest acceleration available is bringing people.
Points come from everywhere, grades don't
Mastery points come out of a long list of queues, ARAM and the rotating modes included, as long as you own the champion. Grades are narrower: the matchmade Summoner's Rift queues and ARAM give one, and the featured modes do not.
Which matters more than it sounds, because the milestone track runs on grades. Every game you play in Arena, One for All or whatever is rotating that month is building points toward a number and nothing toward that track.
Half of it resets every season
| Wipes at season end | Carries over forever |
|---|---|
| Marks of Mastery, the milestone track, and your history of achieved grades | Mastery points and mastery levels, including on champions you haven't touched in years |
Reworks don't wipe anything either, and progress only pauses in the short gap between ranked seasons. So the number beside the portrait is a permanent record of what you've played, while the track underneath it is annual, and only one of those is what a level actually costs.
The honest way to farm an S
You can't game the metrics. They were chosen specifically to resist it, which is why nobody has ever found the trick where last hitting everything or spamming wards produces an S. Playing well is the shortcut, by design.
What you can change is the pool. You're compared against people playing that exact champion in that exact position, so the grade is easiest where the competition is thinnest. A popular champion in their standard role is measured against a crowd of specialists. The same champion in an unusual position, or an unpopular champion anywhere, is measured against a much smaller and much more casual group.
Frequently asked questions
How is the mastery grade calculated?
By comparing your game against everyone in your region who plays that champion in that position. Your rank isn't part of it.
How many mastery grades are there?
Fifteen, from S+ down to D-, each worth a different number of points.
Do mastery points decay?
No. Points and levels are permanent, and reworks don't reset them.
Can you get a grade in ARAM?
Yes. ARAM grades count and advance the milestone track. It's the rotating featured modes that pay points without a grade.
Does playing with friends give more mastery?
Yes, from 2% for a duo up to 10% for a five-stack.
The short version
The grade is a percentile, the points are partly your team's, and the only lever you fully control is which champion and position you're being measured in. Everything else is time.
For the ranking system people actually mistake this for, our rank distribution guide covers what each tier is really worth, and our matchmaking guide explains what the game is actually measuring when it builds your lobby.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to comment or leave a message :)