One of the biggest issues that has plagued League of Legends in the past has been the use of smurf accounts: people who play at a lower rank than their actual skill. Now, Riot Games is taking steps to address this widespread issue with a new change coming in Patch 14.15.

Starting with League Patch 14.15, in addition to reaching level 30, players will also need to complete 10 unranked Summoner's Rift matches to unlock ranked queues. This allows Riot's system to judge which accounts are being used by genuine new players, are being used by smurfs, or are being botted.

In Patch 14.15, in addition to the changes we’re making to queue shrinking (see the latest patch preview), we’ll be requiring players to have played 10 non-ranked SR games before they can enter Ranked queues. This change has been a long time coming and there were still a few things we needed to iron out…

"Some legitimate new players are using ARAM and Bots to level up and we're not getting a good enough signal about their true skill level," said lead gameplay designer Phroxzon. "A fair number of them are also alt accounts that we'd like to rank at their true skill level, rather than falsely ranking too low and stomping everyone on the way up."