I only play ranked to avoid decay.

Well, at Plat 5 0 LP at the moment, had reached mid Plat 3 like 4-5 months ago, and I dropped due to a series of bad games and losses, to the point that I just didn't find this game exciting anymore, at least ranked. At this point, I just play ranked games once a month to avoid decay, and rest assured, my mechanics are rusty as hell and I am a liability to my team. I think I've lost 3 out of my 4 once-a-month ranked games, and a lot of it was on me.

I'm not gonna go in-depth on why I quit ranked. Basically it's because 1) a lot of my friends quit so it's not really enjoyable, 2) so many trolls, 3) bad matchmaking, 4) not enough time, 5) flamers. This game is just not fun anymore, which is why I only play ARAM for like 90% of my games.

Back to my ranked games, though, why does decay exist? I realize it's necessary at Challenger to avoid spot hogging, but at Plat and maybe even Diamond? What's the point? If anything, you are essentially forcing a rusty player to get on a ranked game and put their team on a huge disadvantage, probably costing them the game, as it probably happened with me. Why? Just remove that thing.