My newly discovered issue with DQ...

I played 4 games today. All 4 were losses. In only one of these 4 games was victory even a possibility. But the reason why is not simply the classic "fuck DQ, premades ruin the game" complaint (albeit this is still entirely valid). No. The reason for 3 out of the 4 losses was far more sinister. In 3 of these 4 games, the enemy team had a smurf. In two games, they announced in the endgame lobby that they were smurfing (confirmed by the 12/1 KD ratio and the general outplay that they displayed in game). The third had a similar KDA, and only only 4 ranked wins, so I am assuming here, but I feel confident in that assumption.

The point is, now that ranked in diamond and up (and maybe even plat) is complete shit, high elo players have no reason to keep playing on their mains. So they turn to the only other way to have fun, and that is stomping low elo players on their smurfs. The really disturbing thing is, both confirmed smurfs and the suspected smurf had fewer than 10 games played when I checked their ranked stats. This means that new smurfs are being created with alarming frequency. And these are far from the only smurfs I've seen recently, this was just the most I've seen in a single day.

Now, before anyone hates on me for being unskilled or whatever, I am mid gold right now (perhaps low gold after today's shitstorm) and was plat last season. I may not be great, but I'm pretty far from being bad. To any that check my profile and see the DQ banner, I do duo with a single friend who has struggled this season to get gold (and understandably so given how hellish DQ has made climbing), but the vast majority of my games are solo and the reason for the banner is a recent binge with this singular friend. Also, none of the games mentioned above are duo. The point is, I do know what I'm doing. I've demonstrated that I have at least some skill at this game and that I know how to play well enough to climb into plat on my own. But right now, I feel completely powerless to win games. Despite my best efforts, the difference between winning and losing seems to lie solely in the fucked up algorithm that is matchmaking, and I have little to no say my win/loss ratio.

TL;DR DQ has ruined ranked for high elo, so high elo players have taken to their lower level smurf accounts in an attempt to enjoy the game, thus utterly ruining the game for all other elos. Do something Riot, the damage is quickly becoming irreversible. You can't expect these smurf accounts to just go away at this point.