The new ranked system

Really, it doesn't sound appealing. At all. It's still grindy regardless of the splashing system being implemented or not. Not only that, you're not solving anything by keeping MMR in the game. For a more smoother climbing curve, I honestly believe you need to decide which system it is you want:

MMR or actual ranks. It's absolutely bonkers to keep both because MMR is one of the sole reasons games are completely wonky in the first place. It's a mismatch between your actual rank and the people whom you're facing. It's also incredibly difficult to determine whether someone's MMR is simply inflated due to insane lucky sprees or deflated for vice versa. In short, it doesn't work all too well.

I bring this issue up a ton once in awhile. And considering you're aiming to change the climbing process next year, I honestly urge you to take a deep and better look of whether MMR AND the rank system is actually healthy for the game or not. I, for one, find it seriously overbearing playing vs plat players trying to get into Plat. I'm a plat player, but do you honestly expect me to climb out of gold when I continuously have to fight people in the same Elo as me and move onto a new rank when there's barely any difference in skill between me and the enemy, but a huge difference between my teammates and the enemies?

My skill level is only that of a plat player. I can't get to plat having to beat plats. Just like you can't expect a bronze player to climb to silver fighting silver players. And I'm not just talking bottom of the line players either. This is the MMR in place. Plat 3 players mmr is super low because of losing sprees, but that doesn't mean they're at a gold level. And then gold 3/2 have high MMR so fight Plat 3s and 2s who have lesser MMR. It's atrocious when you think about it, really.