So how does the matchmaking for ranked work?

Whenever you play a game mode (aside from bots), you are given a hidden numerical value that denotes your supposed skill level. This is called MMR (MatchMaking Rating). MMR is kept separate in each game mode. IE your MMR in ranked is different from your MMR in normal games.

When you queue up for a game, you are usually matched up with people who are around your MMR (within reason). This doesn't necessarily mean you will see silvers against silvers etc. It's possible for someone in gold to have silver level MMR and be matched against them (assuming it's ranked).

Your MMR changes depending on the outcome of the game and the people you played with/against. For example, if you have 1200 MMR, and lost against a team where the average MMR was much lower than yours, you'd lose a large amount of MMR.

If your MMR falls well below your division's average, it will result in you losing a ton of LP on losing a game and gaining little upon winning. The opposite is also true.

No, its based on your MMR alone. Its based on Team MMR, not individual MMR. If you are not at a 50% win loss ratio, the system will put you on an unbalanced team to ensure you either win or lose. The only way out of losing is to hard carry with a duo partner and get the other team to tilt somehow.

If you win 3, you will lose 3. If not exactly winning and losing the same amount of games, you'll eventually average out a 50/50 ratio of wins and losses. Look at the matched rank charts and see everyone is hovering around 48%-53% win rates. This is no coincidence, they engineer their system to make games wins or losses by being lopsided with MMR.

Its a garbage system, and this is why the game currently sucks ass right now.

Also I suspect honor has a way of altering your game experience too, I cannot confirm or prove this, but since MMR and Honor is not transparent I can only assume its for bad reasons, and I have suspicions.

The system isn't really making matchmaking fair, and the team balance doesn't seem to be in order. I just had a game against s1-g5 players, and my team had a TF with 0 ranked wins. So basically a first timer.

Everyone has to start from somewhere, but it isn't really fair for anyone involved to have games like this. The newcomers get torn apart in a match, where they barely know what they're doing, and end up against a one-trick katarina, who ultimately destroys them. In this way, matches are basically decided before we get out of the loading screen, and the enjoyment of a fair ranked experience is lost, because outcome was determined way before anything actually happened.

I haven't fully checked how provisional matchmaking works, but there seems to be a desparity between the mmr gained between normal games and ranked. At least that's how it seems, judging by the fact that people like this get into matches way above their levels.

And believe me, this isn't the first time...