How do Challenges work in League of Legends

As a part of the Season 2022 live stream, Riot Games gave players a more complete explanation of the new Challenges system coming to League of Legends during the first few months of the new season.

First revealed back in November of 2020, Challenges will bring a new experience to League of Legends that will reward players that do a wide array of different things when it comes to playing the game. Challenges will let players express themselves in ways that were not possible before.

What are Challenges

Challenges are a new way players can express themselves in League of Legends outside of their level or rank. The goal of Challenges is to show off player mastery in every facet of League of Legends with many different tasks players can accomplish in-game. From mechanical outplays like dodging multiple skill-shots in a row to fun things like dancing with Shelly at the end of the game, challenges reward players for literally everything they can possibly do on Summoner’s Rift.

How Challenges work in League of Legends

There are five main categories of Challenges: Imagination, Expertise, Teamwork & Strategy, Veterancy and Collection.

Imagination challenges rewards players for using outside-of-the-box methods to get things done, like hitting snowballs in ARAM. Expertise challenges reward players for mechanical outplays, like winning games without dying or “Flame Horizoning” your lane opponent by winning a game with over a 100 creep score difference.

Teamwork & Strategy challenges ask players to work together, like getting kills while roaming and winning clash games. Veterancy rewards players for lifetime achievements, with Challenge examples including total mastery points and total first bloods.

Finally, the collection category gives players who have a lot of bling and cosmetics a little something extra.

Where are Challenges displayed?

In Season 2022, ranked borders in lobbies and the loading screen received a massive overhaul. The result is a minimalistic approach. This makes room for displaying challenges in one of three ways. The first is by the main crystal, which is the main measurement of challenges that shows a player’s total progress through all the different categories.

The crystal progression is similar to ranked progression. The more challenges players complete, the higher rank.

The second way to display challenges is through individual challenge tokens. Just like the crystal, each individual challenge also carries a rank. For example, if a player has all the skins in the game, they would most likely be Challenger in the skin collection challenge. They can then showcase that in the loading and lobby screens, as players can pick any three challenge tokens to show off at any time.

Finally, there are titles. Titles appear under in-game names in the pre-game lobby. Titles unlock whenever a player hits a certain milestone in their challenge’s progress.

The new minimalistic lobbies are live now, but the rest will roll out soon.