Ranked Decay in League of Legends: Banked Days, LP Lost, and Who It Applies To

Riot's placements and decay page is explicit: decay applies to Diamond and up. Everyone from Iron IV to Emerald I can stop playing for months and come back to the same rank, until the January reset clears it. The reason is simple: Diamond is the top 5% of the ladder and the apex tiers are the top 1%, and Riot wants those ranks to mean “this player is this good now”, not “this player was this good in March”. Where each tier sits, and the rules around them, are in League of Legends ranks explained.

Decay runs on a bank of days. Playing adds days to it, each night takes one out, and the LP loss only starts when the bank is empty. The numbers, from Riot's decay table:

• One game is enough in Diamond. Four games fill the bank to its maximum of 28 days; a fifth adds nothing. One game a month keeps you safe.
• Apex players have to keep playing. Each game adds one day and the cap is 14, so two weeks away is the most you can bank, and only after 14 games.
• Decay happens once a night. Riot's apex page says one decay event occurs each night, and one banked day is consumed at the end of each day.

Decay does not stop at 0 LP. Riot: “If you fall to or below 0 LP as a result of decay, you'll be placed in the next-lowest division.” In Diamond that means Diamond II to Diamond III, and “if you're already in division IV of your tier, you'll fall into the next tier down (ie. Diamond IV to Emerald I)”. Once you are in Emerald, decay ends.

Apex players skip a step. Riot's apex page says Master+ players who decay “will descend into Diamond II, not Platinum I”, and the placements page repeats that they “restart their climb from there”. From Diamond II the Diamond rules take over: 7 days per game, 50 LP per decay. Riot does not say how much LP you hold after a decay demotion, so we don't either; the 25, 50 or 75 LP landing rule it describes is for demotion by losses, covered in decay drops you a division.

• A ban does not pause decay. Riot's apex page says rank decay still occurs even when your account is banned. A two-week suspension in Master empties the bank and then costs 75 LP a night.
• Decay runs once more on the last day. Near the end of a season Riot advises keeping “at least 1 more banked day than there are days remaining in the season”, because decay “cycles one final time on the last day of the season”. If you plan to stop playing before the season closes, count the days, and keep one extra.
• Rewards follow your final rank. A decay on the last night can move you out of the tier you wanted the chroma for: do not decay before rewards lock.

Decay versus the reset. Decay is personal and continuous: it only touches Diamond+ players who stop playing, and it takes LP a day at a time. The reset is universal and once a year: in January every rank is cleared and everyone plays five placements, whether they played yesterday or in March. A Diamond player who stops in October decays through the autumn and is then reset like everyone else; the two are not alternatives. See decay versus the yearly reset for what the reset keeps.

Decay versus demotion. Demotion is what happens when a loss takes you below 0 LP; decay is LP lost without a game. The outcomes look alike, a division lower, but the rules differ: a demotion out of a tier comes with Riot's 25/50/75 LP landing and, in Master, three protected games, while decay simply places you “in the next-lowest division”.

Only Riot's numbers are used; the LP totals are made up to show the mechanics.

1. A Diamond III player at 40 LP who has played ten games this month and stops. Ten games would bank 70 days, but the cap is 28, so the bank holds 28 days. Nights 1 to 28: one banked day each, no LP change. Night 29: the bank is empty, 50 LP decays, and 40 − 50 is below 0, so the player lands in Diamond IV. Night 30 and on: another 50 LP a night in Diamond IV, until a loss of LP below 0 drops them to Emerald I, where decay stops. One ranked game at any point refills 7 days and halts it.
2. A Master player at 120 LP with 3 banked days. Nights 1 to 3: a banked day each. Night 4: 75 LP decays, 120 becomes 45. Night 5: another 75, 45 − 75 is below 0, and the player drops to Diamond II. From there the Diamond bank applies; a single game banks 7 days. Five days away cost this player a tier and a division. Playing one game on day 4 would have added one day, not reset the clock, which is why apex players think in games, not weeks.

If you are in Diamond or above, the number to watch is days since your last ranked game. LazyElo's sessions view shows when you last played; it does not run a decay countdown, so count against the table above. The LP tracker also keeps the LP of every game, which makes a decay night easy to spot afterwards.