[2021] If Riot wants Flex to be taken seriously, it needs some serious work.

You're right. It does need some work. We don't have a full commit on what's next for Flex, but I do like talking about where some of the problems are.

• Flex MMR --> Other Queue MMR: If you haven't played a lot of games in Flex, it's likely your MMR isn't entirely being taken into account. I'll caveat that with Diamond MMR at Flex means a different thing than Diamond MMR in solo queue, just based off of sheer population in the queue. For solutioning: Flex MMR seeding is probably the big one here. Seeding you into Flex informed from other queue performance would go a long way in ironing out some of those issues, which is something we saw a TON of success with in solo queue for new accounts.
• Premade Matches: Right now it does try to match you against other premades of the same size, but it's not being strict enough with envelope expansion as it relates to other premade sizes. This is a tough one since the population in the queue is generally lower than our other SR queues (which makes sense) since most players use this as a group queue. Right now, our biggest problems with matches in flex are actually the "3 person parties" -- there are a significant # of players wanting to play as 3 that doesn't quite match up with the available 2's and 1's in the queue. It normally ends up resulting in a quick match with premade 5s when they become available. I think we can do better here. You're right.
• The Mode Itself: Flex is sort of having an identity crisis living somewhere between solo queue, normals, and Clash. It's seemed to settle as the semi-serious competitive team or competitive solo practice mode, which might be ok -- though I really think we can do better in the mode itself. There's the hint of an element to premade play that's missing from current flex -- like team persistent // scouting // etc. that maybe we could explore, but we haven't gone down that route yet.

Overall, it'd be great if we could get a natural progression from Normals --> Solo --> Flex --> 5s --> Competitive 5s etc. That's a world I'd love to see.

It's such an interesting and exciting space to play in -- I'd like to see how far it can grow.

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Disclaimer: We have not prioritized any of this as of yet, but I'm passionate about this topic so wanted to jump in.

It is something we talk about frequently. I really like the direction of it, but there are some queue health concerns that have held us back in the past.

It's worth reopening the discussion again though.

I really love the passion for sure -- it's definitely a space that's on the cusp of what could be amazing competitive team play if we get it right. I play a ton of flex too and would love to carve out some space to make it better, or at least find the right solution that fits that mold.

I wasn't part of that decision a while back, but as with any mode we want to make sure it's healthy not only in population but in integrity (where we can). Team 5s was a great start into competitive 5s, but iirc it didn't hit our healthy bar for play and had a lot of problems with the implementation.

Flex and Clash have been positive steps in the right direction -- but there's still more to do there as well.

It’s a good question for sure. We’ve done some pretty rigorous testing of challenges and we think the design framework adequately irons out most of the conflict here. I think the main thing we’ve found is that challenges on their own rarely will have such an impact on an individual game that this consistently happens. We have flagged a few at risk, but we’ll be taking a look first on PBE to see how they pan out.

No problem. Happy to talk! I think there are some seeding solutions we can target here to make it better. As with all of our work, it’s a matter of being able to prioritize them and dedicate the right amount of time to these projects to be effective.