League is progressively becoming more and more intolerable due to matchmaking.
About a week and a half ago or so, my friend made a forums post regarding how she was taking a break from ranked until matchmaking was fixed, and it allowed me to evaluate what has been happening this ranked season. It was regarding a riot post on how most player's winrates should vary between 49-51% winrates due to riot's balanced matchmaking system, and how nobody should really be getting stomped because riot is gonna give each team competent team mates. Well, this season has probably been the worst representation of 'good matchmaking' and '49-51% winrates.'
I was a silver player last season. I finished silver 1 and constantly complained about how my team was garbage and how they were the reason that I couldn't climb. I figured I'd stop the flaming and climb the soloq ladder for about a week to test my luck. In due time, I had a 70% winrate and made it to gold 5 from a silver 3 placement after going 8/2 in my placements. (Dropping 2 whole ranks with 2 losses was a bit frustrating.) My friend, on the other hand, hadn't played ranked last season. She played the season before and finished silver 2. This season, she went 6/4 and landed the same rank she left off at. This is something that doesn't make much sense to me. I think it's a reason why these players who haven't played in a while get placed higher than they need to be, and these players that I get paired with, who have under 40% winrates start to break matchmaking.
My winrate has dropped from 70% to 59%, and I believe a lot of it has to do with riot's matchmaking algorithm. Now I know what you're thinking. "Oh boy, another low elo play complaining about his team." Sure. It's just a bit frustrating how my team has a 29% winrate lee sin who's 2 ranks higher than me. How did he end up there? How do people like this get the benefit of the doubt? It doesn't make much sense.
One thing that I've noticed a lot this season is the overwhelming amount of snowballing, and the lack of comeback and good games. Most games are won by the better botlane because of how many tanks are on one team, and how much peel those tanks can supply for the ad. Most games are stomps. There's not many games where each team knows what they're doing, they know how to play from behind/ahead, and they can play those 30-40 minute games where there is a really good team fight at the end and that's what decides the game. I miss those games, and as League ages, those games become harder and harder to find.
The moment you go on a winstreak, you go on a lose streak. Matchmaking has a lot to do with it. Don't want to tilt so you go to play norms, and you and your friend get paired with people that are diamond/masters/high plat. You get stomped. Rinse and repeat. It just makes the game boring. Just as my friend said in her post, "The current matchmaking system makes wins boring and losses frustrating." It's the most truthful thing I've heard, and the post sort of opened my eyes to that concept. I don't really, after a game, lean back in my chair and go "Man, what a fun game. Was close."
There's a lack of macro play in the game now because of the itemization that riot offers to every role in the game. Hard to miss skillshots. Ridiculous range on abilities. Items that offer waveclear capability. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but even LCS gets boring to watch. Sej/Jarvan every game. Trist/Varus. Braum/Janna. Azir/Ryze. At the end of the day, the games end up being the same 30 minutes of farm fest, with about 5-10 kills per game.
Hopefully riot stops addressing shit that doesn't need attention, and they instead fix their matchmaking. I'm not happy where the game is right now. I know a lot of people that aren't. All I can hope is that people stop paying 20 dollar skins for champs they dont play so riot can look at the situation and go, "Man, people aren't supporting the game anymore. (My OP.gg is linked for reference so you can see my winrates/champs I play.)
