Champion "Mastery"? Not so much

This is kind of a long post, but I feel this is an important issue and would appreciate feedback from Rioters and community members alike, because I feel this discussion needs to happen. The attached picture is a prime example of what I want to talk about today, which is the fundamentally flawed nature of the Champion Mastery system.

(see picture for reference)

As you can see, in the game represented I had a fairly decent game. I stomped my lane opponent (Irelia) repeatedly during early game laning phase, got multiple double kills when her teammates tried to gank me, and just pushed my lane up super hard. I roamed, got more kills, secured dragons, you name it, even bought an upgraded trinket. However, my teammates gave Irelia a few kills in mid-game, which we all know is enough to snowball her, and sadly I could not carry this team to victory. The champion mastery system, though, awarded me with an S grade for the game, which I thought was perfectly reasonable. I had a good game, but my team could not work together to seal the deal. The problem I see here is that the amount of mastery points I earned from this game was basically negligible, when the system told me that I had a great game and performed exceptionally well. The Champion Mastery system does not reward you points based on how well you did in the game, but based on whether you won or lost. In this regard it's practically the same as the IP reward system, which will give you more for a win and less for a loss (I generally get around 50-60 IP for a loss, and without my First Win I tend to average anywhere from 90-130 IP for a win [this is in normals, I don't play much ranked]). When it comes to rewarding in-game currency, I think it's fair for the IP system to give significantly more for wins and less for losses. That's fine. But if I go 1/13/4 in a game and earn a "C-" grade (or worse) but get carried to victory by my team, I should NOT be earning like four times as many "Champion Mastery" points for that game as I did in a lost game where I was given an S grade. If I have a Superb game (which we can pretend is what S stands for) but my team sucks and cannot work together, I should not be punished for their failure. Likewise, it's not fair to my teammates if they get punished and earn lower scores and less points when they had a great game but I fed and had a terrible game myself (which happens fairly often because I suck at this game). What seems to be happening is that people will just spam game after game with a certain champion to grind out mastery points, but aren't actually learning how to play that champion with any level of skill. Heck, I do this myself! But as a result we see people with banners and emotes showing how good they supposedly are with a certain champ, who then perform extremely poorly in games. Those people are not masters of anything, except maybe getting carried. They just want fancy banners and cool emotes to spam so they can show off. Those things should be an honor, bestowed only upon those who have proved they are worthy. As it is eventually anyone can "master" any champion and have the cool emotes and banners to show it, even if they legitimately suck with that champion. There will be no way to distinguish the genuine masters from the unskilled grinders.

Conclusion: The system needs to be reworked so that the grades you receive accurately reflect how well you played in that game, and then the amount of points you earn (which directly corresponds with how fast you level up your mastery) reflects NOT whether you won or lost the game, but how well your mastery of the champion and the game was demonstrated.

My solution: As you advance in Champion Mastery levels, it gets harder and harder to actually earn the points necessary to continue to level up. You only need to play one game with any champion to get them from level 0 to level 1. That's fine, no changes needed. However, after that, with each increase in champion mastery it gets progressively harder to earn points to advance, forcing you to actually be GOOD with the champion you are playing. Just grinding out game after terrible game with a champion is not enough if you are not learning their little nuances and becoming a true master of the champion. I suggest that as your Champion Mastery level increases, you are required to earn consistently better grades to continue receiving points. For example:

1. While at level one, you will get points for any grade you receive. More points for higher grades, obviously.
2. At level 2, you will get points for any C grade or better. D grades will not grant you points anymore. And better grades = more points.
3. At level 3, you get points for any B grade or better.
4. At level 4, you are required to earn A grades or better in order to receive points.
5. And at level 5, you are required to earn S grades to advance to a new Level Six Mastery Tier. Currently of course level 5 is the highest you can advance; however, when the feature was still on the PBE I'm pretty sure it was said that there will likely be additional tiers of mastery introduced later, with Riot considering adding perks along with them. My solution would work well with that, especially if there are perks and rewards introduced for reaching higher tiers of mastery. You should not be rewarded with special and unique prizes for spamming terrible games just to grind out mastery points. In short, the higher you level, the higher grades you are required to receive in order to receive points toward advancing. If you can't score even to the minimum required for your level then you should not be allowed to advance.

"BUT-BUT-BUT," you say, "What if I really do have mastery of the champion, but I just have a bad game and am on tilt and get a bad grade? I should still get points because I normally do have decent mastery of the champion!" Well, if you're on tilt and have a bad game with a champ you're normally good with, or have a bad or unusual matchup and perform poorly, then I guess you either haven't truly mastered all aspects of the champion yet, or aren't displaying that mastery in that particular instance. Just do better in your next game to continue to gain points. DEMONSTRATE your true mastery, and you will be rewarded accordingly.

Is this a little bit of a harsh solution? Maybe. Will it take longer to level up your champion mastery? Yes, definitely. Will it be a frustrating and arduous process? For sure, especially for me. But will it more definitively prove that you have truly MASTERED the champion you are playing? I think so.

Thank you if you have taken the time to read through all this. Any feedback and responses you guys have would be awesome. Let's see if we can get some Red posters' attention and see what they have to say! GLHF