League of Legends New MMR System Explained: What Is Trueskill 2?

Trueskill 2 could soon be added, a new MMR system for League of Legends, which will be introduced in the course of Season 14.

Lo L Splashart
Trueskill 2: everything you need to know about the new MMR system for League of Legends. | © Riot Games

Imagine, you're gaining LP even if you're losing, just because you're THAT good and 'truly' a 'skilled' player – see what I did there? Even if you end up on a team with 4 monkeys... I mean teammates who ran it down mid, your gold income, KDA and vision score should count for something, right? Well, this could just become a reality.

Trueskill 2 is supposed to replace the current ELO system sometime in LoL Season 14. But what exactly is it, and how is my MMR going to be calculated in future? Well, first we need to find out what's ELO itself!

It's really fun being able to show off how good you are, even if it's just a small icon in a game, which represents your current ELO. ELO is a system to track your skill in each matchmaking queue.

MMR, however, stands for MatchMaking Rating, and includes a system of hidden individual skill points from Riot Games, which result in the amount of LP gained and lost, but also decides who you are going to play against in upcoming matches. This invisibility has received constant critique by LoL players and is definitely not a perfect system. Sadly, it is also the only one we've got – until now.

Trueskill 2: League of Legends' New Rating System

Ranked Tier
Trueskill 2 could help you out to reach your goal. | © Riot Games/League of Legends Wiki

When Can We Probably Expect Trueskill 2?

Design director August Dean "Iksar" Ayala posted on Reddit that Season 14's MMR system (made by Riot) is only a substitute for Trueskill 2, which is planned to be released later in the year.

Comment by u/Trick_Ad7122 from discussion in leagueoflegends

Iksar adds that "there are already some changes in place for the start of the new split that should help put new accounts at an appropriate ranked placement." Negative LP gains should also be reduced, meaning, it will be harder to get into the state of losing 30 LP for a loss and winning 20 LP for a win, for example.

Uncertainties About Trueskill 2

However, even if we can probably expect the new rating system to be released someday for League of Legends, Iksar reiterated his original statement:

Trueskill is something we've researched -- but still unsure if we'll integrate it into League. The work has not started. Even if we did start the work to do it, it's possible we'd run into a number of issues with either the system or the time it would take to integrate the system. Myself of the team will give an update on how it's going later this year.

We don't want you to give you false hope, and Riot Games seems to be on the same page with us. Statements like these really show off the improved communication of Riot with their community (even if it's some bad news).

Trueskill 2 Explained

Riot Games Xbox Game Pass Banner
More transparency with Trueskill 2. | © Riot Games/Microsoft

Microsoft came up with TrueSkill for Xbox games like Halo. While TrueSkill is made for games with lots of players, the ELO MMR system was actually designed for chess, a two-player game.

Now, they've got TrueSkill 2, the new and improved version they dropped in 2018. It figures out how good you are with two things: your skill level, called 'mu' and how much doubt the system has about you, 'sigma.' Put those together, and you get your true skill, which they call X.

On Xbox Live, everyone kicks off with a mu of 25 and a sigma of 25/3. The mu goes up if you win and down if you lose. Now, your overall rating is cooked up like this:

  • X = mu - 3 x sigma.

So if you're starting fresh on Xbox Live, it looks like this:

  • X = 25 - 3 x 25/3.

Trueskill 2 allows you to actually climb up the ranks even if you lose some matches. Therefore, it's not just about winning or losing. They're also counting your achievements. Pretty fair, we'd say. And unlike the current MMR system from Riot Games, we also got some transparent numbers.

Eric Leneschmidt

Eric loved playing video games since he was little and is now a gaming journalist at EarlyGame. To escape from his League of Legends addiction, he also enjoys movies, TV shows, as well as internet drama....