Matchmaking needs addressing

Dear Riot, I would like to address the recent horrible drop in matchmaking quality. And from the posts by other people, I am hardly alone. For starters, if matchmaking is balanced, people should have a similar skill level: a. champ skill b. macro/map for laning phase (ganks, avoiding ganks) c. warding d. split-pushing e. teamfighting f. etc. When one lane can 1v2 while being camped from level 3 on and go 3/0/0, that is not balanced. But maybe they had a lucky game right? Not when they expect to be camped in 85% of their games and still pull it off - half the time vs a counter-pick who takes ignite/exhaust to the tp he/she takes. Clearly the player is better than the people in their rank.

Similarly, when said player regularly gets 1 or 2 lanes who start the game 0/4/0 or 0/4/1, without even being ganked more than maybe 1 time max -- if ganked at all - those players are not at the same skill level as their opponents. Clearly they deserve to be in a lower rank where they stand a chance of winning instead of getting bullied and losing or getting carried by smurfs 4 elo's above them.

People are being giant babies about their ego when they feed/int/troll, and instead of being punished, the people who say ANYTHING to try to help them improve are being ganged up on and harassed in game plus reported out of game. If I am smart enough to ward when I push, then my bot lane should be too without having to ask them. I will still kindly remind them... until I am ignored for 3 straight times as they die and feed. Then I will not be nice about telling them to ward. Similarly, people should be smart enough not to force 3v5's or position where they get easily caught out by 5 enemies by themselves when you have clear vision of the enemy team - especially when way behind. If I and/or a teammate of mine is smart enough to recognize this, all players at that level should be. Granted, maybe you mess up one time, but then you learn and don't make the "mistake" again. If you do, you are clearly trying to lose the game for your team. If you do it 3, 4, 5, ... times you are inting and need to be temp banned from ranked. And if someone reminds such players that they said 3 times already NOT TO DO what their team just did, they are being gang reported for "toxicity". Since when is asking team not to position where they will get caught out 3v5 when very far behind "toxic"? And worse, the enemy team will listen to feeders and trolls and report the player in post game because his teammates are offended that he/she told his/her teammates they are "idiots" for not warding (after being ignored about warding for 8 times of asking NICELY)or some similar dumb stuff.

Let's assume I am at my proper rank and my teammates are too. I should win about 50% of games and lose about 50%. I should actually be challenged by my lane opponent on a regular basis - not once in every 50 games. Similarly, I shouldn't feed 4, 5, 6, ... kills in laning phase alone on a regular basis. If that is happening, I need to be demoted immediately because I am screwing over up to 4 other people by handing them a GUARANTEED loss. Which means their 50% win rate tanks dramatically by having people like me in their matches regularly.

One person in a different article summarized it nicely -- i will have to paraphrase because I cannot track it down right now: If I am gold 3 and placement games put me in bronze 1, I don't suddenly lose the skill that had me in gold 3.

• If I am regularly starting with a positive kda, winning lane, and out-cs'ing my opponent while getting ganked 4x as much as any of my teammates, I should be able to have an impact after laning phase ends. When I can literally do nothing in teamfights - itemize correctly as a bruiser and just get deleted, we have a problem. Seriously, if I died as much as my teammates do from 2v2's and 1v1's and the 2 or 3 ganks in the first 15-20 mins as they do, I would spend 85% of my games starting 0/10/1 in LANING PHASE ALONE. And should my teammates have to carry such a player? Should they have to do that regularly? Pretty sure the answer is no. So why do I have to? Even If I can 1v2 all game or 1v3 distract and tank 3 fed carries in a teamfight, it is almost never enough.

When there are people who could legit be considered smurfing in their current elo and they are unable to have even a 50% winrate, there is clearly an issue. Some people are clearly getting shafted with matchmaking -- people should be having opponents of the same caliber as their teammates, and this is NOT HAPPENING. If you want people to stop being so toxic, you need to do something. a. remove inting players -- yeah if you are camped 1v2 or 2v3 or 2v4 or 1v3 you will have a bad kda or very low cs during laning phase, but if you are literally ganked 1 or 2 times max, your kda should not be something like 0/4/1. Especially when these people are FORCING fights after they are 0/4/1, they need a ban for awhile. b. remove toxic players -- not the people who are reported by their team for being "toxic" because they ask their team to ward or not take a 2v5 vs fed enemies -- but the people who are forcing the outnumbered fights while behind and then harassing their teammate for asking them to stop doing what they just did and play safe. c. apologize to the playerbase that has been shafted for the large part of this season -- having to lose games where they are singlehandedly better than any one (sometimes any 2) players on the enemy team, yet having to lose game after game after game after game after game after game (not a typo -- literally 4, 5, 6, 7 + game losing streaks) because literally always have the trolls and int/feeders on their side. Seriously, if you do not do this, you are going to keep losing many faithful players. And lose views on your pro matches. And lose future players because their kids will not play a game their parents hate or forbid being played. d. look into the actual gameplay of bronze-gold games -- not final stats which can be very misleading; go play some matches in disguise in games with people like me who claim they are being screwed by matchmaking. Pay attention to how they do. Then ask them afterwards about how several of their matches rated that week, so you can tell if you played in a typical match for them, an extremely bad one, or a great one. Do this for many players, then analyze the data.

I would really like to play league and be a positive force. I enjoy helping and encouraging others whenever I can - teammates and opponents alike. But getting beat down, harassed by toxic feeding teammates, and being asked to carry 1v9 or 2v8 on a regular basis is killing that. I would really like to be able to keep playing league and enjoy more than 10% of my matches win or lose (I have had good losses where I was proud of my whole team and wins where I wanted teammates banned for toxicity to other players - not just me).