Okay, so, I’ve been grinding ranked in League of Legends lately, and let me tell you, the duo queue restrictions are a real pain sometimes. I started playing with my friend a few weeks ago, and we were doing pretty well. We climbed all the way from Iron to Silver. The climb is just like climbing a huge mountain, and every tier is a new peak.
We were on a roll, winning most of our games, and then bam! We hit Gold, and suddenly things got tricky.

- I got to Gold IV first.
- My friend was still in Silver II.
We could still queue together, no problem. But then I won a few more games and got promoted to Gold III. Boom, the game wouldn’t let us play together anymore. Apparently, you can only duo with someone who’s within one tier of you, up to a certain point.
So, my friend had to grind some solo games to catch up. It took him a couple of days, but he finally made it to Gold IV as well. We played together some more and managed to push to Platinum.
The climb to the Diamond
But then I went on another winning streak and hit Platinum II, and once again, we couldn’t duo anymore. Seriously, it’s like the game is teasing us! He had to catch up again, and this time, it took even longer. In the meantime, I managed to reach Diamond, and the restriction became even more annoying.
When I finally hit Diamond, I found out the rules change again. Now, you can only duo with someone within two divisions of you. So, I was in Diamond IV, and my friend was still in Platinum II. The game has ten tiers, and the higher you go, the stricter it gets. It’s so frustrating! He had to grind all the way to Platinum I just so we could play together.
The Master tier is even more strict
And guess what? It gets worse! Once you hit Master, you can only duo with Diamond I and other Master players. Can you believe that? Fortunately, or unfortunately, I haven’t reached that rank yet, so I haven’t experienced those rules yet. But I’ve heard from others that if you’re Master, Grandmaster, or Challenger, you can’t even duo at all. You have to play solo in the ranked solo/duo queue.
So yeah, that’s my experience with the League of Legends duo restrictions. If you want to play ranked with a friend, make sure you guys stay within the allowed rank difference. Otherwise, you’ll spend half your time waiting for the other person to catch up!
And one more thing, I’ve heard that if you get restricted chat, you won’t be able to play ranked at all, until you play a certain number of games. But it doesn’t have a time limit.