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Full premades are a death sentence

Shrikesnest·8/17/2014, 6:35:14 PM·14 votes·2,023 views

So this is something that has been bothering me. I have groups of friends that I like to play with, all of us pretty casual. None of us really play ranked, and if we did I doubt any of us would make it out of Bronze. That's okay; none of us are interested in being esports contenders, just having the occasional night of fun matches. There is some variance in our team's skill level, but nothing super dramatic. Again, none of us even play ranked.

But every time, and I mean every time, we form a full 5-man premade group in ARAM or Team Builder, we get matched against a group that's practicing for ranked. It's such a ludicrous bloodbath that we walk away, shattered husks of people, succor a distant memory. I don't know how the MMR calculation works, but it seems to be broken somehow.

It's extremely annoying not being able to play with a full group of friends. What's happening here? Is there some reason we get put up against commando teams that wipe the floor with us every time we queue as a full group?

22 Comments

Sir ArmaMalum8/17/2014, 8:22:34 PM5 votes

I know that pre-made 5's are prioritized to be matched against other 5's, and I think it's more of a matter of the pool of choices itself than the calculation. In other words, there are a hell of a lot more pre-made 5's that will be on ranked teams (and queuing as 5 to practice) than casual pre-made 5's. Am I saying there's nothing to done? No, but until pre-made 5's are taken at a different approach (like a separate "ranked practice" que or something) there's not much to do simply on the available options for pairing.

TEAM of ZOMBIES8/18/2014, 3:47:30 PM4 votes

I second the comment someone else said... Create a ranked 5s team with all your friends and play your 10 qualifiers (over time if you must) and you'll end up in an appropriate level for you and your friends. From that point, hopefully you can just queue up for ranked 5s and play evenly (~usually) matched games.

Good luck, try to have fun, don't get too frustrated! (things I tell myself) :)

Perv8/18/2014, 12:43:16 AM4 votes

Practice more and get better at the game?

NoxiousIce8/18/2014, 12:00:35 AM2 votes

The game has been like this since I first started playing way back in season 1. You cant play with a full group unless you're looking to either get crushed, or play super competitively. I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. Its ultimately why my play group fell apart. We had one player that was just awful, and while any one of us could carry her in a duo game, as a full team the burden was too much. Later on I played with an entirely different group, and we had a problem where when we were 4 premade with 1 random it didn't matter what the random was we would win almost every game. The moment we became a 5 premade though we basically sentenced ourselves to losses. We wanted to create a ranked 5s team, but because of the constant losses as a 5 premade we basically dropped the idea.

thicc as fuk8/17/2014, 7:17:15 PM2 votes

I actually have this happen to me a lot. Thought no one in my team is unranked when we queue up as 5 being only high to low golds and silvers we get placed against high golds and high to low plats with an occasional diamond. I don't really mind the plats too much, everyone is capable of making mistakes but on multiple encounters I've had to go up against 1-2 diamonds sometimes them even being diamond 1 in premades.

It can really get frustrating.

UnlawfulMonad8/19/2014, 5:09:49 AM1 votes

Thresh Disagrees

Rito Sheckelberg12/13/2014, 8:47:31 AM1 votes

You deserve it.

Sire Hippington8/17/2014, 10:55:38 PM1 votes

Well, i have a similar but still different problem: If my friends and i deside to play a fun game, going for out of meta strats or random picks or what ever, we always face a tryhard team picking the god-tier meta champs... I realy miss the S1/S2 times where people in blindpick played for fun and ignored tierlists and often meta.

i have no problem with tryharding in rankeds, i can understand people want to practice in draftpick for rankeds an therefor also tryhard, but in blindpick....seems to me most people play blindpick to pick the op-champs that otherwise are banned

I kinda like Sir ArmaMalums idea with a "ranked praktice" que, spliting draftpick into a 'casual draft' and 'praktice draft', but having even more diffrent ques would evt lead to worse matchmaking as the pool for each que would get smaller

Syvenon8/18/2014, 1:30:28 AM1 votes

Do you guys talk or skype or teamspeak or ventrillo? I think that might be a big difference. I play with friends a lot and we're not really "practicing for ranked" or anything, but we're usually in a skype call together (or even in the same room), which really helps team organization and stuff.

That might be the difference?

67chrome8/18/2014, 8:45:24 PM1 votes

Well - before the 5x5 thing was an option matchmaking used to assume a premade team would have a significant edge on a group of players the same Elo that were just randomly thrown together, so in the case of finding a few duo, triple, or multiple solo queue players it would cobble together a team with a noteworthy Elo advantage.

I'd strongly recommend trying to figure out how your friends play and definitely use something like Skype, Vent, or another such program to easily communicate. Even when you're messing around, taking advantages matchamaking (and other premades) assume you're using can be a big help.

TheShinx8/18/2014, 10:42:32 PM1 votes

But every time, and I mean every time, we form a full 5-man premade group in ARAM or Team Builder

There is reason 1. Team builder is more for practicing champs. If you wanted something like that then try Normal Draft. As for aram's. Well I can't help you. Aram's are just that, Random. You either win or lose. not much you can do.

we get matched against a group that's practicing for ranked. It's such a ludicrous bloodbath that we walk away, shattered husks of people, succor a distant memory. I don't know how the MMR calculation works, but it seems to be broken somehow.

I once thought that too. But I realized after being matched with Plat's, and sometimes Diamond level players on the Regular in normal's (losing quite a bit of them) That my normal MMR was higher then it should. I tend to play alone when that starts happening. What that does is bring My personal MMR back down to where it should be. Not sure how it works, but Even beating the plat's solo brings my MMR back into line with gold's and high silver 1.

It's extremely annoying not being able to play with a full group of friends. What's happening here? Is there some reason we get put up against commando teams that wipe the floor with us every time we queue as a full group?

Well all I can say is play more. Get better with a select group of champs. If you and your mates constantly swap roles, try pitching the idea of sticking to certain roles.

You also said you don't have much time to dedicate to Hobbies? Well it's really easy to misconstrued that. I was working 36 hours at one point while going to school. I was not only able to make time for other things but able to get a minimum of 4 games in a night. 4 games x 7 days is 28 games. 4 games isn't a lot but it's grows fast.