Does Dodging Lower Your MMR?
Verified for patch 26.21
No — dodging champion select does not change your MMR. MMR moves on the result of a finished game, and a dodged lobby never produces one: no win, no loss, nothing for the rating to react to. What a dodge does cost is LP and queue time. The first costs 5 LP and a 6-minute lockout, the second 15 LP and 30 minutes, and the penalty tier drops back one step every 12 hours.
Why MMR cannot move on a dodge
MMR is updated from game outcomes. A dodge cancels the lobby before a game exists, so the rating has no input to process — your match history records nothing, your win/loss totals are untouched, and your estimated MMR is identical before and after. The LP deduction is a separate behavioural penalty bolted on top of the ranked ladder: it is a fine, not a rating change. This distinction matters, because a dodge therefore leaves your future LP gains exactly as they were.
The penalty ladder, precisely
| Dodge | LP cost | Queue lockout |
|---|---|---|
| First | −5 LP | 6 minutes |
| Second | −15 LP | 30 minutes |
| Third and beyond | −15 LP | 12 hours |
Three details decide how much this actually hurts. The tier decays one step every 12 hours after your last penalty, so a single dodge is effectively forgiven by the next day. The tiers carry across queues — a dodge in normals followed by one in ranked is charged as a second dodge. And LP penalties cannot demote you out of your division: they stack down to a floor rather than pushing you into the tier below.
When a dodge is the correct call
Compare the fine against the expected loss. A first dodge costs 5 LP. Losing the game costs roughly 19. So the first dodge pays for itself whenever the lobby is clearly worse than a coin flip — an invented off-role pick, a jungler already announcing they are going to grief, three champions that physically cannot play the same game. You are buying out of a loss at roughly a quarter of its price. The second dodge is a different trade entirely: 15 LP plus half an hour is close to the full cost of simply losing, with none of the information a played game gives you. Dodge once with conviction, then play.
What dodging will never fix
A dodge cannot repair an MMR that has fallen behind your rank, because it does not touch MMR at all. If your gains sit at +14 and your losses at −24, dodging the ugly lobbies slows the bleeding and nothing more — the gap closes only by winning games. The guide on improving your MMR covers the methods that move the number, and LP gains explained covers how to read the damage.
Frequently asked questions
Does dodging count as a loss?
No. No game is played, so nothing is recorded in your win/loss totals and your MMR is unchanged. You pay LP and a queue timer, and that is the whole penalty.
How long until my dodge penalty resets?
The penalty tier drops one step every 12 hours after your most recent penalty, so a single dodge is effectively cleared by the following day. Dodging again within roughly a day of the last penalty escalates you to the next tier instead.
Can dodging demote me?
The LP lost to a dodge cannot push you out of your division on its own — the penalty stacks down to a floor rather than demoting you. Losing games afterwards still can.