I had an interview with the co-owner of EloRift. EloRift is a website that provides League of Legends services which players can not get from Riot games. These LoL boost services vary from team and soloqueue elo boosts to referrals and Public Beta Environment accounts.

What is elo and how do League of Legends ranks work?

The League of Legends rank league uses elo to place the players relatively to other. Elo is a system designed for 1v1 games like chess. Before each game of LoL the individual elo rankings of 10 players decide who is playing versus who. The division, be it Bronze1, Silver5, Gold or Challenger, that you are in is just a way to show elo. A skin for the underlying elo system. If a player buys a boost this puts them in more difficult games than he or she is supposed to be. This can positively impact the game experience for the player who go the elo boost at EloRift, but at the same time can negatively impact his team. That is why Elo Boosting is not something we endorse at this website.

League of Legend’s Heisenberg

The owners of EloRift seem to understand that, while definitely helping individuals, they’re doing harm to the LoL community as a whole. The interview revealed to me that he’s in it for the money and he wants to deliver a good product to his customer. Which makes sense, else he would have no customers. Even if this product isn’t according to the guidelines of Riot games and even if it’s bad for the community as a whole. Therefore I like to call him the Heisenberg of League of Legends.

The goal of this interview is not to get you buying boosts. We are not the ones that should tell you what to do or what not to do. The goal is to give you an insight in the world of LoL boosting. If there are any questions that you missed, please tell us so we can try and recontact EloRift.

Disclaimer: Learn League of Legends was not paid to do this interview and we are in no way affiliated with EloRift.

Interview with an elo booster

Question:

So tell me a bit about your website first.

Answer: Well, EloRift is a website which my partner and I created to provide League of Legends players services they cannot get from Riot.

Q: So how does that work exactly? I mean I looked into the different services on your a bit, but what services are your core business and how can you provide these to players?

A: Our core business revolves around elo Boost and selling PBE accounts. Those two are the most popular services on our store right now. We provide different products in different ways. For example: with elo boosting we get a high elo player to rank the customer’s account. For PBE account selling we send the customer the account’s info through skype or email.

Q: Okay that’s pretty interesting, because that means you are actually a broker between high and low elo players?

A: Yes, EloRift makes the connection between players requesting help and players offering this kind of service.

Q: Which means that the boosting players players get a cut right?

A: Correct.

Q: So what’s about the percentage they’re getting?

A: That depends on the account’s elo, low elo boosters get 50 % and high elo boosters get 70%.

Q: Is there always just one player boosting an account or do more than one player boost one lol account at the same time?

A: Each booster is assigned for one account at all given time.

Q: I can imagine it takes quite a while to boost an account. How long does this normally take?

A: Well, our booster are obligated for one division a day minimum. Unless of course, the owner requests to play during that time. Most of our boosters will try to finish the order as fast as possible so they can move to the next order.

Q: Then you are guaranteeing high quality players. How can you do this?

A: All of our boosters are between diamond 2 and challenger elo.

Q: That means that pro players can be in that pool as well. Do pro players boost through EloRift?

A: We had Ex-Pros. But they’re not well known.

Q: How does the company protect user accounts while the account is being boosted?

A: We use VPN connections to make sure Riot can’t track the player playing on the account. Therefore the account is safe.

Q: But players flame and rage, even good players do this. And at the moment of boosting it’s their job so I can imagine things get pretty tense if people mess up their games. How do you know that a booster don’t rage or flame?

A: Before hiring we make sure every player is showing only the best behavior. We don’t mind if they flame on their own accounts, but when it comes to the customer’s account it’s unacceptable. It should be strictly business. Actually this is our first rule: no talking or flaming while playing on a customer’s account.

Q: Yes I can understand that, but how can you guarantee that? Did you have no bans for toxic behavior at all, or getting boosted for that matter, within your customer pool?

A: We can’t give a 100% warranty but according to our statistics a customer’s account has only been harmed about once every 1000 customers.

Q: Okay so I’m interested in the legal part of it and how it is against the Summoner’s Code and terms that we all agree on. What do you think of boosting. Do you think its a good thing its possible for players?

A: Well Riot doesn’t approve elo boosting and I can understand their opinion. But it’s hard to resist the business opportunity. The League of Legends community has grown so much and it will be a foolish mistake to pass on it. As long as there is demand there will always be a supply.

Q: That’s an interesting point of view. Because this means you and your partner agree that it’s not healthy for the game or community?

A: My partner is Silver 1. He refuses to get an elo boost because he wants to reach a higher rank on his own. But as long as players will want the seasonal rewards, or want to escape elo hell, EloRift will exist.

Q: So has riot ever got in touch with your company?

A: Never.

Q: Do you think they ever will?

A: From my knowledge Riot has never contacted these kind of sites, Riot likes to fix their issues in their own way. Take the skin code problem for an example, about a year and a half ago Riot has disabled the skin code part of the store (skin codes were sold from 20 $ to about 400 $).

Q: What do you think of this way of doing things?

A: Those websites just need to evolve and they will keep doing it. The website owners are much safer this way. And Riot will just have to fix the issues from within.

Q: Which means that websites who sell these skins and services are fixing the game systems indirectly.

A: Yup, we and other similar sites show Riot the problems in their systems and they eventually fix it.

Q: I have some remaining questions about your type of customers. What bracket jumps are the most common. From what elo regions to what region?

A: EUW is the most common. And Silver through Gold. You can explain this popularity because of the season rewards.

Q: Is there a spike in customers at the end of the season?

A: A huge spike. Usually a couple months before the season ends there is a huge spike.

Q: So what about the higher elo’s, do you see that happen a lot too?

A: We usually don’t see guys above Diamond elo. But a lot of them buy ranked teams for their friends to get the season rewards.

Q: That must be pretty expensive to buy.

A: Yeah. But every guy chips in for a small amount and it stacks to the full amount pretty fast.

Q: So what roles are most commonly used to boost. Do you know that?

A: Mid/jungle.

Q: So that means these have a lot of impact on the game?

A: Yes and even the AD carry mains feel they don’t have such a huge impact while laning with a lower tier support.

Q: Do boosters boost in pairs?

A: They mostly soloqueue but they can duoqueue if the account owner agrees.

Q: And do you notice a trend in people who seek a boost? Their role or champions?

A: We haven’t been paying attention to that.

Q: Players who get themselves boosted, are they one-time customers or is there a repeat business?

A: Well most customers of EloRift buy an elo boost or a PBE account. They usually come back for more products. For elo boosting in particular, some people just buy a starting boost. This can be Bronze 3 to Silver 3 for example. After they get it and are satisfied with the service they will often order again to reach gold.

Q: Do you see them come back after they dropped brackets?

A: There have been a couple, but it is not something that happens that often since it is so hard to get demoted a full tier.

Q: This one is for all the interested readers, how much does a elo boost from EloRift cost from say EUW silver to gold and NA silver to gold.

A: NA and EUW prices are equal. Silver 5 to Gold 5 is 80 euros.

Q: One final question. Did you get a boost yourself?

A: Never! I was a booster myself before I opened EloRift. I boosted friends from Bronze to Platinum for 2 Mystery skins.

Some final words from Learn LoL:

I’m interested in the opinions that you guys have about elo boosting in League of Legens. Again, as said we are not the ones that should tell you what to do or what not to do. However we sure did enjoy to get a talk with the mastermind behind these LoL elo Boosters.