Guide · Verified for patch 16.13
How to Improve Your MMR in League of Legends
Only one thing raises MMR: winning more often than you lose. To recover an MMR that lags behind your rank, you need a win rate above 55% across 20 to 30 consecutive games. Everything else — dodging, breaks, server transfers, normal games — leaves your ranked MMR untouched.
First, measure the gap
Before "fixing" your MMR, verify it's actually broken. Run your account through the MMR checker: if your LP gains hover around +19/−19, your MMR is aligned with your rank and there's nothing to repair — only skill left to build. If you gain +14 and lose −24, the gap is real and the plan below applies.
The plan that works
Shrink your champion pool to two or three mastered picks: mechanical consistency beats versatility when the goal is stringing wins together. Play your sessions when you're fresh — MMR bleeds away in tilted games queued right after two losses. Cut a session after two consecutive defeats: statistically, the third game of a losing streak is the worst-played one. And accept the timeline: a 55% win rate over 30 games is 17 wins against 13 losses, one to two weeks of regular play. The system is slow by design, to resist luck.
The myths that waste your time
Dodging doesn't lower MMR below Master (it costs LP and a queue delay, nothing more); treating it as an MMR-management tool is pointless. Normal games don't influence ranked MMR once the season is underway. Server transfers no longer reset anything. And "loser's queue" isn't a punitive mechanism: losing streaks exist because randomness produces streaks, not because the system is targeting you.
The special case of season start
The season-start compression — roughly (MMR + 1200) / 2 — pulls everyone toward the average. It's the best window to repair a damaged MMR: the ten placement games carry heavy weight, so play them on your best champion with your best mental availability.
Frequently asked questions
How many games to recover a lagging MMR?
Plan on 20-30 games at 55%+ wins to realign a moderate gap (gains moving from +14 back to +19 LP). A severe gap can demand 50 games or more.
Should I just make a new account?
It's the easy way out, not the best one: a fresh account restarts at the bottom of calibration, and the underlying problem (your level of play) travels with you. Climbing back on your main takes longer but lasts.