3-role queue – Dataminers say League of Legends Next may let players queue for three roles, aiming to cut wait times but raising ranked-quality concerns.
A possible shift in how League of Legends players queue up could be landing next year, and it targets one of the game’s most frustrating pain points: long waits—especially for players trying to climb.
Dataminers have allegedly found evidence of a major change that could be part of League of Legends’ upcoming “League Next” overhaul.. The project is described as rebuilding the game from the ground up. including a new client and large systemic improvements. though details so far remain limited and an announcement is expected sometime between MSI 2026 and LoL Worlds 2026.
Within that broader rebuild, new code discovered by the League of Legends dataminer LoLLeaksEN reportedly points to an evolution in role selection. The files suggest Riot may eventually allow a third queued position—referred to as a “tertiary” role—during the role-picking process.
If the idea moves from experimentation to release, the most immediate impact would be on matchmaking queue times.. Giving players the option to select three roles could help the system find compatible teams faster. particularly at higher ranks where demand for specific roles can be more competitive and wait times tend to stretch.
League Next’s wider goals also matter here.. Because the project is not just cosmetic—bringing improvements to the game’s backend alongside client fixes—an expanded queueing structure would likely require the kind of deeper system changes described for the initiative.. In that sense. the third-role experiment could be less of a bolt-on feature and more of a natural fit for the “from the ground up” approach.
Still, there’s a tradeoff that ranked players will feel.. While selecting a primary and secondary role already challenges many players. adding a third choice could create even more situations where a substantial portion of the playerbase is less comfortable in those extra roles.. Ranked quality could take a hit if more players end up in lanes or positions they know only passably.
At the same time. supporters of the change argue it could reduce one of ranked’s other recurring frustrations: unwanted autofills.. The logic is straightforward—if players can broaden their role preferences. the system may have fewer reasons to assign them to a role they never selected. especially when queue times are a factor.
Riot appears to have been preparing for that tension during the 2026 ranked season.. The report stated that efforts were made to address autofilling by first trying to match an autofilled player against another autofilled player within the same role.. That approach aims to keep autofilling from scattering players into mismatched roles as often.
In addition, Riot reportedly introduced the Aegis of Valor system.. Under this system. players can receive either double LP or full protection from LP loss on an autofilled game if they achieve a mastery score of C or higher.. The change suggests Riot wanted to soften the competitive impact of autofill while still improving overall match stability.
These steps may also connect to why a third role option could be timed with League Next’s rollout. If Riot expects role selection to expand, it would likely want a smoother path for matchmaking behavior changes—particularly around autofill rates and how competitive outcomes are handled.
Meanwhile, League Next isn’t only about the roles players queue for. Riot Games’ senior vice president Andrei ‘Meddler’ van Roon also indicated that the support role is set to be overhauled, signaling that ranked play could see both queue-system adjustments and gameplay-facing redesigns.
For many players, the real question is whether the third-role queue will balance faster matches with fairer games.. If queue improvements arrive without disproportionately forcing players into unfamiliar territory, it could feel like a long-awaited quality-of-life fix.. If not, the same feature could amplify the ranked instability players already associate with secondary-role struggles.
For now. the only certainty is that League Next is moving toward a more flexible matchmaking structure. and datamined clues are pointing toward a future where role selection may involve not two preferences. but three.. Whether that becomes a practical upgrade—or a new source of ranked friction—may be revealed in the run-up to 2026’s major esports milestones.
What do you make of the possible expansion of role selection to three positions? The conversation is already active among players.
League Next LoL role queue tertiary role ranked matchmaking autofill changes Aegis of Valor