Here’s why you can’t see usernames in champion select

Nov 4, 2022

Reading time: 2 min

League of Legends is about to get a change that many fans have been asking about for years, and its the reason why you can’t see usernames in champion select.

Riot Games has announced that champion select anonymity will be making its way to the League of Legends PBE before making it to the live servers on the subsequent patch. Here’s why Riot is implementing champion select anonymity and why it should be an overall positive for the game.

Why can’t I see usernames in champion select?

If you’ve just loaded into champion select on Patch 12.22 or later and are wondering why you can’t see your teammates’ names, it’s because Riot has disabled the ability to see the usernames of those you’re paired with. This is meant to counteract a couple of behaviors that Riot Games has been trying to solve for a long time.

Champion Select Anonymity is coming to PBE! It'll be enabled for Normal Draft Pick there, but only for Ranked Solo/Duo when it goes live.
— Chris Roberts (@RiotAuberaun) November 3, 2022

Why are usernames hidden in champion select?

Firstly, it discourages players from using third-party match history and player profile tools to look up their teammates’ profiles and records. This prevents players from being hostile to one another due to losing streaks, low rank, or other issues that might come up if every member of a champion select is using OP.GG to find out which of their teammates fed more in the previous games.

Third-party apps that scrape the League of Legends API for usernames also won’t work, as that information will no longer be available through LoL’s API during ranked games. This will also look to solve an issue that appears in high-ranked games where players will purposefully dodge champion selects in which they are paired with certain players. These personal grudges in high ranks lead to a toxic experience for those players, and champion select anonymity should be a solid first step in addressing this.

This change is expected to go live on Patch 12.22, and will affect all queues on PBE, but only ranked queues on live servers.