Riot: Please End Matchmaking Manipulation

"Matchmaking Manipulation" (or, as I sometimes call it, "Duo Boosting") is the act of duoing with a player using a second account that is a different MMR than your main account.

Let me explain.

A Platinum 4 player owns 2 accounts. His Platinum 4 account, and a Silver 5 account. We'll nickname him Strong. His friend is a Gold 1 player. We'll nickname him Tiny.

If Strong duoed with Tiny using his main account, the matchmaking would on average look something like this:

Team A ------------------------vs.-------------------- Team B Strong (P4) ------------------------------------------ Player B1 (G1-P4) Player A2 (G1-P4) ------------------------------- Player B2 (G1-P4) Player A3 (G1-P4) ------------------------------- Player B3 (G1-P4) Player A4 (G1-P4) ------------------------------- Player B4 (G1-P4) Tiny (G1) ---------------------------------------------- Player B5 (G1-P4)

Strong wants to help Tiny get Platinum season rewards however, so he hops on his second account. If he duos with Tiny now, the matchmaking would on average look something like this:

Team A ------------------------vs.-------------------- Team B Tiny (G1) ----------------------------------------------- Player B1 (S5-G1) Player A2 (S5-G1) ------------------------------- Player B2 (S5-G1) Player A3 (S5-G1) ------------------------------- Player B3 (S5-G1) Player A4 (S5-G1) ------------------------------- Player B4 (S5-G1) Strong (S5) ------------------------------------------ Player B5 (S5-G1)

There should be an immediate concern here. Let's adjust this for true MMR:

Team A ------------------------vs.-------------------- Team B Strong (P4)------------------------------------------- Player B1 (S5-G1) Tiny (G1) ----------------------------------------------- Player B2 (S5-G1) Player A2 (S5-G1) ------------------------------- Player B3 (S5-G1) Player A3 (S5-G1) ------------------------------- Player B4 (S5-G1) Player A4 (S5-G1) ------------------------------- Player B5 (S5-G1)

This is doing a few things.

1. Strong is (on average) likely to beat all 5 players on Team B individually.
2. Tiny is (on average) likely to beat 4 players and go even with 1 player on Team B individually.
3. The 3rd-5th lowest MMR players (2nd-4th lowest MMR accounts) on Team A are (on average) likely to beat 1 additional player than normal, since he is being matched against the 3rd-5th lowest MMR accounts of Team B.

Duoing with a smurf raises the likelihood of positive performance of each individual player on the team with the smurf account substantially, even if those players are neither smurfs nor duoing with a smurf. This. Degenerates. Matchmaking.

Riot thread on boosting from Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2lhy60/2014_season_mmr_boosting_update/

As we have said in past threads, like this one, http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4191851 at Riot we believe MMR Boosting ruins the spirit of competitive play and devalues the effort many players have invested in our game.

Please.

This is COMMON (and legal). Secondary accounts are LEGAL, duo queueing (as states in the above thread) is LEGAL. Therefore, boosting is legal. Boosting via malicious matchmaking manipulation.

If this is allowed, then stop with the "it ruins the spirit of the game" rhetoric. Illegal MMR Boosting is already disallowed under the TOS due to the fact that it involves account sharing. Account sharing is illegal, therefore boosting via sharing your account is obviously illegal. You don't have to say a word of the "spirit of competitive play" because it's irrelevant.

If, however, you DO care about the spirit of competitive play - deal with smurfs please, or at least duo queueing with smurf accounts. A smurf account will generally balance itself out if the player truly belongs at their elo, and I'm not advising the elimination of smurf accounts. The problem is when a smurf account is used to gain an unfair matchmaking advantage for another player. And it's mathematically not just because the "smurf is a better player and can carry." All five accounts involved in that game benefit, statistically.

Sure, sometimes it's not all malicious.

1. A guy duoing with his girlfriend (I have a Diamond 4 friend who hopped on his Silver 1 account to get his girlfriend Gold).
2. A person leveling an account to teach their friend the game (duoing ranked to coach them).
3. 2 friends who want to duo but can't due to the new no-more-than-1-tier difference (which, by the way, is bypassed by this method - yet people complained about that, but not this?).
4. A coach/teacher (like old PhantomL0rd streams where he took students into ranked on one of his 4 smurfs to teach the game).
5. A streamer duoing with viewers (GoodGuyGarry duoing Bronze to Challenger series).

These seem like legitimate methods of play, but at their core they are manipulating the matchmaking for easier games. That's why people do it. (Well, now you have to since >1 Tier duoing was outlawed).

What's the solution? Banning all smurf accounts? Disabling duo queue permanently? Who knows. It's a problem though. Anyone with a second account who has ever played 1 ranked game in duo queue is guilty of this. It harms the integrity of matchmaking, and it's unacceptable.