Fixing Clash in League of Legends
Clash is a great way to team up with some friends as your teammates, but the current system is flawed.
When Riot Games introduced the Clash system a few years ago, it immediately became a hit among the player base. At the time, rank disparity was still a thing in Ranked Flex Queues, so friend groups were still limited. You couldn’t queue up with your friends if there was more than a two-rank difference. But Clash changed that, offering rewards and simulating a feeling of a competitive environment.
Introducing Clash to League of Legends
In February 2020, as the Corona pandemic was locking people inside their homes, Clash gave us another way of interacting. The system had a successful debut across multiple regions despite some server issues causing the entire ranked system to crash for a few hours. The rules were simple. Owning an account that can compete in Ranked(level 30 or more), having completed the provisional games in at least one competitive queue, and a ticket purchase followed by SMS verification.
Clash Tournament Phases and Rewards
In the two weeks before every Clash event, you will need to invite and assemble your team and make sure everyone has a Clash ticket. While they are easy to purchase, costing only 975 Blue Essence, you can get better rewards if you have a Premium Ticket. The team captain decides the name, tag, and logo of the team, with the tier being determined by the average rank. And this is where some of the biggest issues with this system exist.
Problems with Clash in League of Legends
The entire team has 30 minutes before the start of the first match to lock in, if not their tickets are refunded and they can’t participate. After locking in and matching up against the first opponents, the scouting phase begins. You can check the profiles of all opponents and decide which champions you will ban and pick in the following phase.
You need to win at least the first of the three games in the circuit to earn some rewards, with major compensation for the Clash Champions. The problems that persist here mainly stem from the fact that the system is too easy to abuse, as we are about to see.
Clash format changes
If changes do happen, the format should be the one receiving them the most. In case you didn’t know, if you lose the first game of Clash, you are placed in a consolation bracket. That means you can’t place higher than fifth, despite finishing with the same 1-2 record as the fourth-placed team.
Another issue that compounds on top of this are forfeits. Understandably, everyone needs to have the right to choose if they want to play, but instantaneous forfeits are ruining the bracket and game mode. Losing the first game means that the best reward you can get in the lower bracket is a ward skin. Waiting two weeks to play Clash becomes a sour experience when every losing team forfeits after losing the first game.
If you are the ones to continue playing, you immediately get placed fifth because everyone else surrendered. That’s it. The competition is over after one loss and now you got to wait two weeks for another chance, with a high probability of the same happening again. If Riot wants to fix the Clash system, format changes should be at the top of their worries.
Weekends and timezones
Despite being a breath of fresh air for the entire League players base, Riot have decided that having Clash twice a month is enough. Winning and losing both feel better in the company of your friends, so why not give us that opportunity more often?
As the game goes into year 13, a large scale of its player base is beyond the joy of the teenage years. The average age for a gamer across the world is 26, and that’s a time when you have other responsibilities piling up. Having Clash every weekend ensures you can fit at least one competition a month, which is especially hard with the current format if you work on weekends.
On another note, servers with huge timezone discrepancies face other issues. The long waiting queues, combined with empty slots due to forfeits mean that one Clash tournament can take up more than four hours of your time. This might not sound like an issue, but it is when it’s starting at 9 PM on a Sunday and you have to go to work tomorrow.
Smurfs in Clash
The SMS verification system is a good attempt by Riot, but it doesn’t get the job done. One of the main reasons Clash is becoming an unenjoyable experience for many League players is the issue with smurf accounts. In a League of Legends game, a player of a higher rank can utterly dominate the lower-ranked opposition with ease.
His teammates become the innocent bystanders, watching as he dismantles the unfortunate Bronze/ Silver/ Gold players to be matched up against him. The detection rules must become tighter, since using any phone number in the household and an inactive account is all it takes for a Master player to match up against Bronze opponents.
