As it stands, it feels like there is no reward for trying to do well in ranked. We get medals, yes, but climbing efficiently means you play less games which means you get LESS medals than someone with a higher game count and lower winrate. I understand the apprehension about potentially “gatekeeping” players from rewards but honestly it’s made bothering playing ranked vs just playing friendlies with people in discords feel almost pointless, especially if I’ve got enough medals for all the champ skins.
Some less gatekeepy, more fun rewards that could be given for ranked:
Ranked badges that appear for each season on your in game profile
A ranked palette that you get for the default skin of your character/champ skin, for whichever rank you ended up with and character you mainly climbed with
An option to change the colour of your in game name (above your characters head)
A respawn platform or death fx
Profile icon borders or profile pictures. Either small borders that are the color of your rank from this season or past seasons, or maybe profile pictures with just the ranked icon.
A key thing with this is it’s not FOMO. You could use old season ranked stuff, you don’t have to climb to the same every season. And for people who say it’s gatekeepy - people should feel rewarded for getting WHEREVER they do in their climb, so I think every rank should have rewards.
I get the apprehension to locking players out of rewards - but really think there needs to be more than a third currency to buy items. If I don’t play etalus, will I really care if I miss out on champion etalus?