Negative LP and Dodging – Explained

What is Dodging?

If you watch League of Legends streamers, you’ve probably heard them say something like “I’ve been in the queue for so long because people keep dodging.”

They’re talking about players who will close the game during champion select causing them to disconnect from the server before the match starts, or who will intentionally not pick a champion before the timer runs out – this ends the lobby and sends the nine other players back to the queue, to find a new match with another player in the slot that the dodger has abandoned.

Why do People Dodge Queues?

There are plenty of reasons people might dodge a queue. In higher Elo, where you’re more likely to see the same players often, you might see people dodge a game where they can tell the players on your team are auto-filled. They might dodge to avoid playing with specific players they’ve had bad experiences with in the past, known Elo terrorists like 

Even in lower ranks though, you might see people dodge games because the champion they want to play has been banned because a champion they don’t want to play against has been picked (they’ve been counter-picked, perhaps) or even because they don’t like the team composition that the other players on their team have drafted.

Maybe someone is just typing crazy stuff in the lobby chat – in solo-queue that is sometimes all the information you need to decide you don’t want to trust this person in-game for the next half an hour when LP is on the line.

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What Happens When I Dodge?

The consequences for dodging a game will depend on which queue you’re in, if you’ve dodged games recently, and if you’re in a promotional series or not. 

Dodge Timers

Every time you dodge a game, you’ll be given a dodge penalty where you’ll have to wait until you can re-enter the queue to play again. For all queues other than ARAM (you’ll have to wait 15 minutes after your first ARAM dodge), this starts at 6 minutes. Ranked queues will be a 6-minute wait, as well as a -3 LP. This timer will increase if you dodge any more games in the next 24 hours, at 30 minutes (-10 LP in ranked as well), and increases up to 720 minutes after the third dodge in 24 hours.  

Dodging in a promotional series

You should never dodge a promotional game even if it seems doomed from the start. Dodging in promos is an instant loss of one game in the series, so you might as well try to win an unlikely game instead of accepting a loss out of the gate. You also won’t be given a free win next time you enter placements if you don’t succeed the first try if you’ve dodged a placement game the last time. 

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When to Dodge?

This isn’t to say there isn’t a reason for dodging or you wouldn’t see it happen so frequently. A great time to dodge games is during your placement matches in the preseason where unlikely to win games can be avoided ahead of time allowing you to increase your odds of winning a higher percentage of your placement games (you’re forced to play 10 of them no matter how many you dodge, so you might as well try every trick in the book to win them all)

If you’re a one-trick, it could be worth it to dodge games where you can’t get your main champion or if you’re auto-filled and have no idea how to jungle, it might be worth it as well. Otherwise, looking your teammates up with a companion app like u.gg, blitz, Mobalytics, or op.gg can be helpful as well.

If you know someone on your team has a 32% win rate this season and has lost every single game today, maybe you’d be better off waiting 6 minutes for the chance of better players on your team. 

Dodging can be a good way to maximize your win rate, even if it means you lose -3 LP here and there. By reducing the amount of ‘doomed from the start’ games you have to play, you can increase the number of games you’re playing where you have a reasonable chance to win – unfortunately for our queue times, dodge abuse is a clever way to increase your win rate without actually getting better at the game.

Now that you know the tricks to avoiding bad games and the penalties you’re risking by dodging games, the power is in your hands – you can avoid having to play with Teemo support ever again as long as you can wait out the dodge timers. Good luck in your games, and hopefully you queue into lobbies you don’t feel compelled to dodge.