Demotion protect (in its current form) does more harm than good
Firstly, I'm not talking about Tier demotion protection (e.g. Gold V -> Silver I). It's doing it's job of protecting long-term goals: Once you get to Gold, you're safe, and those juicy end-of-season rewards are nigh guaranteed. That's totally fine. On the other hand...
##Demotion protection between Divisions is creating some horrible incentive patterns, without protecting anyone in the long-term.
The short version:
Currently, when you get promoted to a new division (within the same tier), you get three games of demotion protection, during which you cannot be demoted. You also can't go below 0 LP. So losing those protected games don't cost you anything. This means that players basically get 3 games after being promoted that they can take off the tryhard pants and do whatever they want, whether that means blatant trolling or just trying out new champs/playstyles and unintentionally feeding.
On top of that, there's an argument to be made (not a good one, but it's there), that you should try to lose those three protected games. Because, while you wouldn't lose LP, you would still lose MMR, meaning you are matched into slightly easier games until you win enough to get your MMR back up.
Besides that, demotion protection only lasting 3 games, means that if you can't get beyond 15 or 30 LP then you're still at risk of demoting. It would only take a 2 or 3-game losing streak to get demoted from there. So the "protection" is very minor in any case. It's only there to keep you from instantly demoting in 1 game after a promotion.
What would be better is if you just started at 25 LP (or 40 if you didn't lose in the promo series). That still allows you to lose 2 games after being promoted, but it doesn't entirely remove the cost of losing. And it just makes more sense anyways. It's more clear and it's symmetrical to what happens when you get demoted (you get placed at 75LP or lower). Also it makes climbing a bit faster, which I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate.
Yes? No? Why or why not?
