What is MMR in League of Legends?

It’s a lot more important than you think.

Image via Riot Games

Match Making Rating (MMR) in League of Legends, explained

MMR stands for Match Making Rating. This rating represents your skill level, and it’s supposed to help you get matched up with players that are of equal skill. MMR comes into play during ranked matches, though when it’s very early in the season, and everyone is unranked, you may go up against weaker or stronger players since everyone is still being placed. Though, don’t be discouraged by this since you won’t lose LP during placements.

MMR will affect how much LP you will lose or gain. For example, if your MMR is significantly higher than your rank, you will gain more LP from victories. So, let’s say you have an MMR of a Gold player but were placed in Silver. The game will reward you with more LP to try and push you to the Gold division to get you the correct placement. Once you get to Gold, however, you’ll see smaller LP gains since you’re in the correct placement at the correct moment. If you want to see those big gains again, you need to increase your MMR by winning more games and improving your skill.

Unfortunately, if your MMR is lower than your rank, if you lose a match, you’ll see significant LP losses and see small LP gains. So, that’s why it’s important to improve as a player, so you don’t get into this spot.

How to check your MMR in League of Legends

There is no official way to check your MMR for League of Legends, and unfortunately, many of the websites that were able to unofficially check it no longer work due to Riot changing their policy on alternative products being created for their ranking systems.

The only way to get an idea of your MMR is to see how much LP you gain or lose after each match. If you see yourself earning a lot, that means your MMR is higher than your rank, so your skill level is higher than whatever you’re placed. Though, if you’re losing more than you’re gaining, then your MMR is lower than your rank.