@Riot: Why was the decision too..

remove the formation of a ranked teams place upon us?

What was it with the system that ultimately pushed you guys over the edge to remove it and replace it with Flex Queue?

**Context: "Flex Queue is the ranked queue that rewards more organized teamplay, allowing one, two, three, or five players **(within one tier of each other) to queue up together." -Riot

Let's talk about Flex Queue for a moment with a scenario where I'm diamond and my friends are silver to gold.

This new flex queue just places another bar against players who have friends across all elo ranges. Before, ranked teams allowed players to bypass this rule allowing any player to be on a team with one another regardless of rank. I myself put in the time to get to Diamond the last two seasons (solo) only to be rewarded with a restriction on ranked play. That's fine for solo queue, it doesn't bother me much. However, when my friends want to play ranked we always had the option to play as a team. Here's where you could throw in the argument of "that one high elo player will carry them," but that's not always true (most of the time). Rather as you play as a team you eventually get to a place where your combined elo sort of evens out, for us it was generally mid gold. Sure we may beat silvers and golds, but what happens when we start to face a team full of all plats? My 4 silvers/gold would start to struggle and I would hold my own or be a little above the curve. It all starts to even out.

I can't really come to a good reason why this game continues to further restrict it's player base. Queue health at the expense of x% of player experience?

You can't deny the fact that this game has a ton of players playing at any given moment. There's different peak times that influence that, but your recent "peak time ranked teams" addressed that to an extent. This recent addition just seems a little bit silly imo (post yours below). I just don't understand the further limitations of this. Teams that want to get to the top will do just that, and generally be a full team of higher elo players. Teams that want to run fun comps like dunk/aoe/fill in the blank can still do that if within one tier of each other. I don't see a major problem with allowing all elos to play against one another like before (share below of you have one). Outside of ranked 5's end of season boosting for gold, I can't think of any. Queues don't transition skill 1 to 1.

The age of playing with your friends across the ranks to see how far you can get is no more. Instead you can choose to play normals which if i'm not mistaken Riot, does basically the exact same mmr matching or worse but with zero reward (silly?). Rip ranked 5's.

TL:DR

Elo's across the boards can no longer form a team to see how far they go. Players who have friends to far below or above them cannot play ranked with one another anymore in any ranked environment. It's a little bit silly that they would put a restriction on organized team play but yet encourage the formation of teams in this team oriented game. Before it allowed for players to play with whomever they wish with no respect for solo queue rank. Some teams would make a team just to see how far they can get with dunk comps, or aoe comps, etc etc. Further restrictions mostly benefit the real competitive spectrum of ranked 5's when players push the leader-boards. These restrictions remove the opportunity for players to see how far they can get as a group (when differences in elo are represented).

This may create a healthier queue, but I think there was little thought on the impact of players who like to play the game for fun, as a source of entertainment with their friends. To see how far they can make it as a band of misfits, against the odds.

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