Matchmaking actually generated toxicity.

This probably belongs in General Discussion, but I don't have the levels to post there.

This is based on something that occurred last night. I joined with a group of friends who were playing League and we had a party of 5 set up to play normal blind pick. I'm new and had the highest level in the group. (had reached level 20 one game before joining this group). The others included a level 10 player who started 2 weeks ago, and 3 "smurfs" playing accounts that were about level 15. We were all on teamspeak and our first game went rather well.

It was after that first game that we encountered what I consider a major problem in matchmaking. Our next game was not a fair contest. At first all we knew was that the person playing Kalista in the bot lane was very good, always getting her dashes and rarely missing with her spears. We were quickly forced back and wiped out repeatedly by the Kalista player. Several of the players on our team were relatively calm because some of the problems regarding Kalista are known so they considered it a matter of facing an OP champ. However, one player on our team did look up the level of the person playing Kalista.

Level 30: Platinum rank

So a group that had no one above level 20 had ended up matched with a group that was led by a level 30 player currently ranked platinum (was diamond in season for and in the top 4% of all LoL players) This was a mismatch. Of course the other 4 players on this level 30 player's team were all low level.

Then to make it worse, we ended up facing the exact same team! I caught on immediately as although the Kalista player was now on Tryndamere one of the other players hadn't changed their champ and after that I started noticing that the names were the same. This generated a lot of anger with my teammates, although their biggest complaint was that the level 30 player had full runes and masteries which meant that going in they had a considerable lead on anyone on our team. The ranked player was openly mocking us and calling us "noobs" because we were getting beat badly and quickly surrendered at 20 minutes.

We knew that if we stayed together we might run into the same group so we took a short break for drinks and other necessities.

Only to get paired with the same opposing group for a third time.

I don't have to make anyone guess as to how quickly all chat turned nasty. And I know that after the inevitable surrender at 20 multiple reports of "verbal abuse" got entered from both sides. I got reported and the only thing I said in the third game was "Blitz and I started playing a month ago" after the ranked player made a negative comment about smurfs.

In this case the need of the system to match up similar "levels' caused the problem. This plat/diamond ranked level 30 had no business being in the game. It was as if you took 2 high school basketball teams and then said to one. "We're going to take one starter and replace him with this All-American, All-Conference player from a team that got to the Final Four in the NCAA last year." The matchups weren't close to fair and the results showed that as my team got almost no kills and was killed en masse in that 3 game spread.

And the ranked player was hardly sporting about it. They openly sought out players to gank, often tower diving just to finish off a kill and then bragging in all chat about how much fun it was to punish the "Noobs".

Solutions?

The only ones I have wouldn't work. The best would be to ban level 30 players from pairing up with anyone under level 20 ever, but that would mean that you'd end up either with more smurf accounts, or with new players not having mentors to play with.

The next would be to have matchmaker give a huge "buff" to the rating of a level 30 player if they are in such a group so that the other side is not so heavily outclassed in runes/masteries. Even one level 30 player on our side would have made a considerable difference as we were giving up a lot by not having all the boosts that come from having 30 runes and 30 masteries set up. I was closest, and I think I only had 14 tier 3 runes in the final fight we had. (ran out of IP to purchase when I reached level 20)

Sadly, this is one time I won't apologize to the other team and I doubt anyone on my team from that night would either. It was an unfair matchup and the least fun I've ever had in LoL, and also completely unnecessary. But the matchmaking was so desperate to keep the 5 person parties together that it dumped us into 3 consecutive matches. And toxicity was the natural conclusion.