What is Demotion in League of Legends?

Sitting at 0 LP is the worst feeling on the ranked ladder. Every game is a coinflip between climbing back to safety and watching the client take the division you spent a week earning.

Demotion is dropping to a lower division or tier after losing at 0 LP, or after decaying below the threshold at high ranks.

How the system decides

Losing at 0 LP does not automatically demote you. There is a buffer, and it works in two ways.

Right after a promotion you get a short protection window of a few games, so a single bad game cannot immediately undo what you just earned. Beyond that window, the decision leans on your MMR. If your hidden rating still supports the current division, you can sit at 0 LP for a while before the system acts. If your rating has already fallen well below it, the drop comes quickly.

Division demotion versus tier demotion

Falling from Gold II to Gold III is routine and barely noticed. Falling out of a tier entirely, Gold IV to Silver I, is treated more seriously and requires your rating to have genuinely slipped, not just a single unlucky game.

Losing an Apex tier works differently again. Master, Grandmaster and Challenger sit on a continuous LP scale, and decay is the most common way accounts fall out of them.

What actually causes demotion runs

Demotions rarely arrive from one bad game. They come from sessions.

A loss at 0 LP creates pressure. Pressure produces worse decisions in the next game. Two or three of those in a row and the rating has dropped far enough that the demotion was decided several games earlier. The single most effective anti-demotion tool in the game is closing the client after two losses.

Holding the rank

If you are hovering at 0 LP and the games keep going the wrong way, win boosting buys the buffer back, and pay per game boosting covers a short set of games to get you off the edge without committing to a full division.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you be demoted right after promoting?
No. A short protection window covers you for the first few games in a new division.

Does one loss at 0 LP demote you?
Not necessarily. If your MMR still supports the division, you can survive several.

Can you drop out of a tier entirely?
Yes, though it requires your hidden rating to have fallen, not just a single loss.