Quickplay, the new game mode, will be releasing gradually across all regions one by one.
Summoner’s Rift and ARAM – these 2 game modes of League of Legends have been the staples for the game till now. Summoner’s Rift has both normal and ranked matches. The normal matches could be played in 2 different queues. One being the blind pick, the draft pick being the other. Blind pick has always been the go-to mode for players wanting to just have fun with the champions they like since no one can ban anything. Moreover, it’s also fine if the enemy team picks the same champion as yours.
However, Blind Pick has its issues. For instance, you have to compete in the champ select for your preferred positions. High-priority roles such as top and mid required you to give dibs instantaneously. Moreover, there’s no guarantee of you getting your desired champion as well since one of your teammates can instalock it. Not to mention, after all that, there’s always a chance of dodging, resulting in meaningless waste of time. Furthermore, the toxicity regarding unorthodox picks and summoner’s spells is always there.
To resolve these issues and to minimize the pre-game wait time, Riot has come up with Blind Pick’s replacement, Quickplay, set to release from Patch 13.22. Now, you can select 2 positions and champions in the lobby, although with premade the selection will be naturally limited, sort of like in ranked flex. There are many quality-of-life improvements with quickplay and the rationale behind why it’s replacing blind pick. You can find the details here.
In this article, I will talk about how it’s going to release along with some other relevant information.
Read More: Riot Adding Custom and Group Queue in LoL Arena
Region by Region Release
Quickplay is to release in one region after another, in a staggered fashion starting from patch 13.22. So, not all regions will have the game mode available right away. Some regions might need to wait a bit longer.
Moreover, it’s time to say goodbye to the good old blind pick queue since it will be disabled forever to make room for the successor. Although I don’t know which regions will get it first, my headcanon is that big servers such as EUW, KR, etc. might get the priority. Whereas servers with relatively low populations such as SG and Japan might get them much later.
Among other news, Quickplay is to extend its free-to-play champion rotation to many new additional champion pools. The goal is to ensure new players have an easy time getting into the game and test our diverse range of champions. Moreover, surrendering will be available in this mode after 10 minutes with the agreement of 4 players, and 3 players after the 20th minute.
Known Bugs in Quickplay
As you can guess, new stuff never comes without some bugs. Quickplay already has a list of known bugs that you can expect upon release. Riot has already listed some of them. These are shown below:
- Purchasing a chroma in the Quickplay lobby consecutively may temporarily lock out the chroma purchase ability
- Chroma preferences do not save when swapping to a different skin
These are some troubling issues if you use a lot of chroma for your champion skins. But in terms of gameplay, there seem to be no known bugs as of yet. However, as Quickplay begins to roll out and players start to report, we will be seeing more of them I presume.
Finally, I think it will be interesting to see just how effective Quickplay becomes in comparison to Blind Pick. A new permanent game mode is not something LoL players are habituated to see often. So, it marks a very significant landmark in the game’s long history.
