Champion mastery in League of Legends is the progression track that measures how much you play a specific champion and how well you grade on it, and after the 2024 rework it no longer stops at level 7. The short answer to “how does lol champion mastery work now”: levels 1 through 4 come from mastery points you earn just by playing, and from level 5 upward you climb by completing Milestones, which you fill by earning Marks for good in-game grades. It is uncapped, the old mastery tokens are gone, and none of it touches your rank.
This is the boost-team walkthrough of the whole system. How you actually earn levels now, what marks and milestones are, what you get for grinding them, and the question that trips up more players than any other: whether a mastery 10 crest means you are actually good, or just stubborn. By the time you are done here, you will know exactly what that badge on the loading screen is telling everyone about you.
What champion mastery actually is
Champion mastery is a per-champion track that rewards two things: volume and consistency. Play a champion and you bank mastery points. Grade well on that champion and you push your mastery level up. Every champion has its own independent mastery, so your 200-game Lee Sin main account can sit at mastery 10 on Lee and mastery 2 on everyone else.
The thing to get straight from the start is what mastery is not. It is not a rank. It is not tied to LP or MMR. It does not change matchmaking. It is a cosmetic-plus-bragging-rights system that sits completely to the side of the competitive ladder. High mastery earns you a crest, an emote, and the right to flash your mastery level at the enemy laner right before they solo-kill you (we have all done it). It earns you exactly zero LP.
The rework: what changed from the old system
If you stopped playing a few years ago, throw out everything you remember. The old system capped mastery at level 7 and gated levels 5, 6, and 7 behind mastery tokens plus a Blue Essence payment. You farmed S-grades to earn tokens, then spent Blue Essence to “upgrade.” It was clunky and it stopped dead at 7.
The 2024 champion mastery update tore that out. Levels are now uncapped, the tokens and Blue Essence cost are gone, and progression runs on Marks and Milestones instead. Here is the before and after side by side.
| Aspect | Old system (pre-2024) | Current system |
|---|---|---|
| Level cap | 7 | Uncapped |
| Levels 1-4 | Mastery points only | Mastery points only (unchanged) |
| Reaching level 5-7 | Mastery tokens + Blue Essence upgrade | Complete Milestones by earning Marks |
| Mastery tokens | Required, earned from S grades | Removed entirely |
| Blue Essence cost | Yes, to upgrade to 6 and 7 | None |
| Grade requirement | S- or S for tokens | Escalating grade bar per milestone |
| Ceiling feeling | Hard stop at 7 | Keeps going forever |
Net effect: mastery went from a short ladder with a paywall on the top rungs to an endless grind that only cares about how you play. If you loved the old teal level 7 crest, it lives on as one checkpoint in a much longer climb.
How levels, marks, and milestones work
The current system has two engines, and which one is driving depends on your level.
Levels 1 to 4 run on mastery points. You earn mastery points every game you play a champion, scaled by your grade, so a better game banks more points. Cross each level’s point threshold and you level up automatically. No grade gate, no marks, just play. Most players clear levels 1 through 4 on a champion inside a handful of games. This is the “getting to know you” phase.
Level 5 and up run on Marks and Milestones. Once you hit level 5, mastery points stop being the lever. Instead you have to complete Milestones, and Milestones are filled with Marks. You earn a Mark by hitting a grade requirement in a game with that champion. The catch is the grade bar climbs as you go: the early milestones let you bank marks with an A- or so, and the requirement escalates toward S the closer you get to level 10 and beyond. Get a grade higher than the requirement and you can bank extra progress in one game.
So the loop past level 5 is simple to state and brutal to execute: play the champ, grade well enough to earn a mark, repeat until the milestone fills, level up, and the grade bar nudges higher for the next one. Level 10 is the modern “you have arrived” checkpoint, and then it just keeps going, 11, 12, and up, one milestone at a time, for as long as you keep grading well. For the full grade table and the exact point mechanics, the League of Legends Wiki mastery page keeps a maintained breakdown.
The progression path at a glance
| Level | How you advance | Grade needed | What it signals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-4 | Accumulate mastery points | None – just play | You have picked this champ up |
| 5 | Complete first milestones (marks) | Around A- | You are committing to the champ |
| 6-9 | Keep filling milestones | Rising toward S- | Consistent decent games on it |
| 10 | Finish the milestone track | Around S-/S | Genuine main, grades well in your bracket |
| 11+ | One milestone per level, no cap | Top grades | One-trick / obsessive volume |
Grade thresholds shift as Riot tunes the system, so treat the middle column as the shape of the curve rather than a locked spec (it is on our publish-day recheck list for exactly that reason). The shape is the point: early levels are free, and the back half of the climb makes you actually perform.
What you get for grinding mastery
The rewards are worth being clear about, because this is where the old token pages oversell it. Mastery pays out in flair, not power. The tangible stuff:
- The crest, which shows your mastery level on the champion select loading screen and on your profile. It is the badge everyone in the lobby sees before the game starts.
- The mastery emote, which lets you flash your mastery level in-game as a ping, the digital equivalent of tipping your hat, usually right before or after a fight.
- Milestone flair, the visual upticks that mark your climb up the levels.
What you do not get: LP, MMR, ranked rewards, champion buffs, extra Blue Essence for upgrades (that whole economy is gone), or any matchmaking advantage. Mastery is a scoreboard for how much you have played a champion and how you grade on it. That is the entire payoff, and it is genuinely fine. Not everything in the client needs to feed the ranked grind.
Mastery vs skill vs rank: the part players get wrong
This is the take that matters most, and the reason this post exists: a high mastery level does not prove you are a high rank, and it barely proves you are “good” in any absolute sense. Mastery grades are percentile-based, calculated against other players on the same champion, weighted inside your own bracket. An Iron player racking up S grades against other Iron players earns marks exactly the same way a Challenger player does against other Challenger players. Both can reach mastery 10 on the same champion. One of them is Challenger and one of them is hardstuck Iron.
Mastery measures two honest things: how many games you have put into a champion, and how consistently you outperform the players around you on it. It does not measure the level of the players around you. That is what rank measures, and the two are completely separate systems.
| Mastery level | Rough games on the champ | What it actually proves | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level 5 | ~20-40 | Familiarity and some good games | Anything about your rank |
| Level 7 | ~50-80 | Real comfort on the champion | That you climb with it |
| Level 10 | 100+ and repeated top grades | You grade well versus your bracket | Your absolute skill or rank |
| Level 15+ | Hundreds | Deep one-trick volume | That one-tricking is climbing you |
Game counts are approximate and depend on how well you grade, since a player farming S grades levels far faster than one scraping B pluses. But the pattern holds across every account we have ever touched: mastery is a volume-and-consistency badge, not a rank certificate. If you want the thing that actually reflects where you sit against the whole player base, that is the ranked ladder, and the full LoL rank ladder breakdown lays out what each tier is really worth in the distribution.
The trap this creates is real. We have lost count of the mastery 10 Yasuo players sitting in Silver who first-pick him into every lobby because the crest says they are the best in the room. The crest says they have played 300 Yasuo games. Those are different claims. Comfort on a champion is worth a lot, but comfort into a losing matchup is how a mastery main stays hardstuck for a season.
If your mastery is stacked but your rank has not moved in months, the bottleneck is almost never your champion knowledge. It is the macro, the draft discipline, and the tilt control around it. That is the exact gap our League of Legends rank boost closes: same account, same champion pool, our team turns the games you are already good enough to win into the LP you have not been banking. No shortcuts that flag the account, no shared sessions.
Which champions are worth mastering
Master the champions that carry, not the ones with the prettiest crest. Mastery grinding rewards games played, so the smart move is to point that grind at a small pool of climb-friendly, forgiving champions rather than spreading marks across 30 different picks you will never one-trick.
The general rule from the boost side: two or three champions per role at deep mastery beats a shallow mastery-4 spread across your whole champion select. Depth compounds. The more games you have on a champion, the fewer decisions you have to think about, which frees up brainpower for the map. If you are choosing what to funnel your games into, the best champions to climb with in each role is the shortlist worth building mastery on, because those picks turn your grind into actual LP instead of a bigger badge.
The honest counter-argument
Chasing mastery for its own sake can quietly hurt your climb. The system rewards you for playing the same champion over and over, which nudges you toward blind first-picking your comfort pick even when it is a terrible matchup or your team needs something completely different. A milestone does not care that you picked Yone into a triple-tank comp. Your LP does.
Mastery is a great byproduct of a healthy champion pool and a bad primary goal. Play a focused pool, grade well because you know the champion, and mastery accrues on its own. Grind mastery on purpose and you will start throwing games to protect a badge. Keep the priority order straight: win the game first, and the crest levels itself. The community had this exact argument when the rework dropped, and the consensus in the r/leagueoflegends thread on the mastery rework going live landed on the same place: nice progression, do not let it drive your picks.
Frequently asked questions
How do you level up champion mastery in LoL now?
Levels 1 to 4 come from mastery points, which you earn just by playing the champion. From level 5 up you complete Milestones by earning Marks, and Marks come from hitting a grade requirement in your games. The required grade rises as you climb, so higher levels demand better performances.
What are marks and milestones in champion mastery?
Marks are what you earn for grading well enough in a game with a champion. Milestones are the checkpoints that consume those marks to push you to the next level. Together they replaced the old mastery-token-plus-Blue-Essence upgrade path.
Is champion mastery still capped at level 7?
No. The 2024 rework removed the cap. Level 7 used to be the ceiling; now mastery keeps climbing past 10 with no upper limit, one milestone at a time.
Does champion mastery affect your rank or MMR?
No. Mastery is a separate progression track with zero effect on LP, MMR, or matchmaking. A mastery 10 crest tells people you play the champ a lot and grade well in your bracket, not that you are a high rank.
What grade do you need to earn a mark?
Roughly A- gets you on the board at the early milestones, and the requirement escalates toward S as you approach and pass level 10. Beating the required grade can bank extra progress. Grades are percentile-based against other players on the champion, so the bar scales with your bracket.
What rewards do you get from champion mastery?
The crest on your loading screen and profile, the in-game mastery emote, and milestone flair. There is no LP, Blue Essence upgrade payout, or ranked reward attached. It is a flair-and-bragging-rights system.
So the whole system in one breath: mastery is uncapped now, levels 1-4 are free from points, level 5 and up run on marks and milestones with an escalating grade bar, the payoff is flair not power, and none of it is a stand-in for rank because the grades are graded against your own bracket. A mastery 10 crest means volume and consistency, not a Challenger badge.
If your mastery is maxed and your rank still is not where your champion knowledge says it should be, that gap is a macro-and-consistency problem, not a champion problem, and it is the one we solve daily. When the solo-queue grind is not converting your comfort picks into LP, let our team handle the division climb on the same account you already main, inside the rules the current system is built around.