The current state of the game has already killed the integrity of the season.

I know there's a lot of complaint threads out there, but I don't think many of them truly dive into WHAT'S ACTUALLY going on, and why it makes climbing + high elo in general . . . a joke, but also a nightmare to climb.

So, a little back ground. I'm a diamond player. I peaked D2 as a Soraka main ((filthy support main I know.)) But generally peaked D3 as a jungler, and lately I hovered D5 because I found trying to climb absolutely pointless. ((Wanna know the difference between D5 0lp rewards and challenger? A border.))Anywho, I hit roughly d3 last season and then decayed all the way down to P5, then quickly shot back up to p3 before season end last season. The game was terribly unfun and I just had no desire to play. Anywho,

Fast forward to season 9, I didn't play preseason at all, but I also didn't have the luxury of starting during the ELO Epidemic. I started the climb AFTER everyone got their incredible gains and the mmr got "adjusted" ((super hard clamped.))

I started in roughly G4 and immediately started my games fighting diamond players, and this more or less continued the entire way. I got to skip gold 2 entirely, despite going 3/0 in plat promo I stayed p4, then skipped to p2 and climbed the hard way all the way back up to diamond. Overall, the process was pretty smooth. But, I also just skipped a lot of the crap inbetween. This in particular is what made the climb actually obnoxious.

Off Role: See, before having an auto filler/off role was essentially just . . . a otp in an off role playing some random champion, but generally not trying to lose. Well, on NA side, this is no longer the case. Once players hit diamond their "fucks," if you will, are nonexistent. My off roler will essentially say, "Give me X" Person in said role will say "no." Off roler then says, "-5 LP let's go." Locks in some random crap and proceeds to auto lose us the game. Guy loses 5 lp. If I don't dodge I automatically lose around 12-18 lp.

When players don't like your pick: Another one that was ridiculously common was the wonderful,"Your champ sucks I'm not losing LP in main for this." So, saaay you have a Ahri mid and she doesn't like the fact that you're Kindred jungle? Doesn't even matter you have a 70% wr. She don't like it. So what does Ahri do? First she bm pings you 80 times and then immediately runs top and puts the top in an insanely uncomfortable position. So, the top can either A: Stay in the lane and force us to lose + lose LP for his main role + gain nothing out of it but a 50-50 chance Ahri lose LP. Or B: Go mid and get absolutely nothing out of this, and the game effectively becomes a waste of time for Darius, and Ahri doesn't care either way, so she's trolling and trying to lose. Regardless, I lose 12-18 LP. WE all know what actually happens. -cough- ((Ahri goes 0/8/0 and question mark spam pings me. All game without saying anything in chat.))-cough- Meanwhile, Ahri and Darius both only lose 3-5 LP and virtually 0 mmr.

Skill level of players: So, what's interesting here is that ((in my opinion)) The skill level has shifted somewhat . . . I personally feel P3-P1 is the new "d5" And D4 feels more akin to actual d4 50LP and up. That's just how I feel, people are allowed to interpret how they see fit though. However, that's for the "legitimate" players. Now, to what I mean.

What if I were to tell you that in a diamond 3 game there is going to be two 6 season gold 5 players, two legitimate master players, 3 people trying to climb and 2 really ambitious platinum 3 players on a high roll. Sounds like an absolute shit show don't it? Well, welcome to diamond. I can explain why this is a thing though.

Gold players high rolled on first day, LP/MMR is so stupid in diamond+ anymore that players no longer want to play on their mains, and so they duo smurf, but because they duo smurf the MMR clamp won't go away, and so we're in a permanent state of destroyed matchmaking. ((The system can't adjust mmr values if the people with ultra high mmr they don't deserve refuse to play, and the master players that deserve it refuse to climb.)) So, now we have players who are way in over their head just hemorrhaging crappy games all over the place. Master players abusing these gold players, a couple really confused plat players who immediately regret their decision to join "the promised land of 0 trolls and perfect games everywhere" ((People truly believe this lie about diamond)) And then us diamond players crying tears of blood getting spam pinged by everyone. JGL DIFF popping off in all chats like Nickelback songs at a small town bar.

It's no longer a really "get good" kind of scenario. You're effectively trying to play a norm . . . only with the added benefit of anyone willing to run it down. Anyone perfectly willing to start trolling/ run down/ grief. And it's because . . . there's nothing to gain, and also nothing to lose, and the only skill/lesson learned you can get out of these games is, "Thank God I didn't get the 6 season gold 5 player((somehow in a diamond 3 game)) in top whose ignoring my pings spamming "JGL DIFFF!!!! KYKYKYKYKYKYKY" as he repeatedly dies to Tarzaned for the 6th time this week."

Despite all of this, I climbed to diamond, but I wanna let you in on something. I played about . . . 80-100 games roughly from gold 4. But here's the mind blowing statistic. 35 of my 49 losses had literally nothing to do with me. Only about 14 of my losses were truly "my fault." "My miss plays." "I could have done that betters." "I need to get gooder."

I'll show you an example of what the others looked like.

https://puu.sh/CPUdY/51c69dff4d.png <-- This player's Match history isn't "bad plays" They're deliberate ints. You have to carry about two of these in a very large majority of your games. This is assuming they don't out right rage quit on you in the middle of the game after they tell your support/whoever they're mad at to "KY"

THIRTY FIVE GAMES I basically had to take a bullet to the face over. I wrote up an extremely large amount of tickets in just these two months of playing than I have in the last 4-5 seasons playing combined. I want that to sink in.

I'm not even going to get started on balance, that's an entirely separate discussion.

Anywho, I hope this sheds the light on what you all have to look forward to if you decide to make the journey to diamond. I'm probably done for the season 'cause I know nothing will be done, and we're still effectively in "preseason 8" This season is done.