League of Legends Brings Back Ranked 5s: Everything You Need to Know

It's official. Riot is bringing Ranked 5s back to League of Legends, and if you've ever wanted to climb the ladder with a full team of friends instead of rolling the dice on solo queue, this is for you. Riot confirmed it on May 27, 2026 in a dev blog and a Dev Update video, so this isn't a leak or a rumor going around Reddit. It's happening.

Here's the short version. Ranked 5s is a queue where you and four friends play ranked together on Summoner's Rift, against other full five-stacks. It runs as a summer experiment from June 26 to September 6, 2026, and there's one big catch you need to know about before you get too excited: it's only open on weekends, during a set time window. We'll get to that.

Let's break down everything.

So what exactly is Ranked 5s?

Ranked 5s is a dedicated ranked queue built for premade groups of exactly five players. You all need to be in the party. You can't solo queue into it, and you can't run it with three or four people. It's five or nothing.

A few things make it stand out from regular ranked. You play on Summoner's Rift, same map as always, but the draft uses the tournament format you see in pro play. That means a back-and-forth ban and pick order (three bans, three picks, two bans, two picks) instead of the standard ranked draft. Everyone keeps their own individual rank too, so it's not a separate team rank like the old days.

The whole thing is an experiment. Riot has been clear that this is a trial run, not a permanent fixture, at least not yet. If it goes well over the summer, there's a real chance it sticks around for 2027.

When can you play it? (Read this part carefully)

This is the detail that's tripping people up, so pay attention.

Ranked 5s runs from June 26 to September 6, 2026. But it is not available all day, every day. You can only play it on weekends, and only during a four-hour window from 9:00 PM to 1:00 AM.

Here's the part everyone keeps getting wrong: that window is based on your region's server time, not your personal local time. So if you're on EU West or EU Nordic & East, the window follows CEST. If you're in the UK, Portugal, or anywhere that doesn't match your server's clock, you need to convert. Don't assume it's 9 PM wherever you happen to be sitting.

To make it clear, here's the window for the main regions, all 9 PM to 1 AM in the listed server time:

• North America: CDT
• EU West and EUNE: CEST
• Brazil: BRT
• Latin America North: EDT, and Latin America South: CLT
• Korea: KST
• Japan: JST
• Oceania: AEST
• Southeast Asia: SGT

Riot says the reason for the tight window is simple. To match teams of similar skill quickly, you need a lot of five-stacks queuing at the same time. Spreading that population across the whole day was one of the things that killed the old version, so concentrating everyone into a few hours keeps queues short and matches fair.

How this version is different from the old Ranked 5s

If you played League years ago, you might remember Ranked Teams. This new queue borrows the spirit of it but fixes the parts that didn't work. Four things changed.

No fixed teams. The old system locked you into a set roster. This time you can queue with any five friends you want, session to session. No registering a team, no roster management.

No rank restrictions. You can queue with anyone, no matter their rank. An Iron player and a Diamond player can run it together. Riot says it has systems to balance out big skill gaps, though it hasn't spelled out exactly how those work. This is a big change from Ranked Flex, which blocks high-rank players from grouping with much lower ones.

Weekend windows. As covered above, the queue only opens during set weekend hours instead of being available around the clock.

Tournament draft. You get the pro-style pick and ban format instead of normal ranked draft.

How it stacks up against Solo/Duo, Flex, and Clash

It's easy to mix these up, so here's how Ranked 5s fits next to the queues you already play.

Compared to Solo/Duo, the difference is obvious. Solo/Duo caps you at one or two players with strict rank limits. Ranked 5s demands a full five and drops the rank limits.

Compared to Ranked Flex, it's a bit more subtle. Flex lets you queue as one, two, three, or five (never four), but it doesn't promise you'll fight another full premade. Ranked 5s guarantees it's your five against their five, every game, with tournament draft on top.

Compared to Clash, the difference is format. Clash is a scheduled bracket tournament with lock-ins and tickets. Ranked 5s is a regular ladder queue, so you just hop in and play during the window.

What rewards do you get?

There are two rewards to chase. Everyone who plays gets an exclusive summoner icon just for taking part. On top of that, if you hit Gold or higher, you earn a unique banner that shows off your peak rank. So there's a reason to push for a solid finish even in a trial run.

A quick history: why Ranked 5s left in the first place

To understand why this is a big deal, it helps to know the backstory.

League used to have a full Ranked Teams system with its own ladder, separate from solo queue, complete with team standings and rewards. At the start of 2016, Riot scrapped both the Solo/Duo and Team queues and merged everything into one Dynamic Queue, which let you group up in any size from one to five.

It did not go well. Dynamic Queue made it hard to judge individual skill, created lopsided matchups, and stretched out queue times, especially at the top of the ladder. Pros and high-elo players pushed back hard, with names like TheOddOne and Bjergsen leading the complaints about premades getting mixed in with solo players. Riot eventually admitted the system had hurt competitive integrity and apologized for how long the fix took.

By 2017, Riot split ranked into the Solo/Duo and Flex queues we have today, and the dedicated five-premade ranked experience just disappeared. Players have been asking for it back ever since, which is exactly why this announcement landed the way it did.

What about boosting and smurfs?

Whenever you let any ranks queue together, people worry about boosting. Riot got ahead of this in the announcement. It pointed out that its smurf and boost detection has come a long way since the old Ranked 5s days, and that it's already cracked down on Flex queue boosting schemes where a stack of high-elo players carry lower accounts. Those same tools are coming to Ranked 5s.

What we don't know yet

Riot confirmed the big stuff but left some important mechanics unanswered. Going in, here's what's still up in the air.

We don't know if Ranked 5s has its own separate MMR and ladder, or whether it ties into an existing queue. We don't know if your wins and losses here affect your Solo/Duo or Flex MMR. There's no word on placement matches, and Riot hasn't explained exactly how LP works when players of very different ranks queue together.

For what it's worth, Solo/Duo, Flex, and Normal MMR are normally separate from each other, so a standalone Ranked 5s pool would fit the pattern. But until Riot says so directly, treat that as an educated guess. Expect these details to get filled in closer to launch, likely in patch notes or a support post.

Other ranked changes worth knowing about in 2026

Ranked 5s isn't the only shake-up this year. 2026 has been a bumpy ranked season overall.

Riot did its first ever hard reset of the Apex tier, sending every Master and above player in regions like NA, EUW, EUNE, and Brazil back to Master with zero LP after an LP inflation problem got out of hand. It also reworked Flex MMR to line up more closely with Solo/Duo, brought duo queue back to most tiers, and made dodge penalties harsher, so a dodge at Master and above now counts as a full loss.

The year also runs on a three-season structure, each split into two acts, so the ranked calendar looks a little different than you might be used to.

Final Words

Ranked 5s coming back is one of the most requested features in League history, and now it's real, if only for a summer trial. From June 26 to September 6, you can grab four friends and climb together on Summoner's Rift, with tournament draft and no rank restrictions getting in your way.

Just remember the catch: weekends only, 9 PM to 1 AM in your server's time zone. Sort out your squad and your schedule early, because the window is tight. If the experiment goes well, this could become a permanent part of League in 2027.