What's with normals matchmaking?

I recently came back to league after a tough semester at uni (I know, first mistake) and I queue up for normal draft mode.

These games have been chock FILLED with new/bad players, even though I'm currently level 64.

Few games back (maybe a week ago? Shows up on my client but not on op.gg for whatever reason), I got matched against a master yi who was level 7 at the time. Needless to say, he was level 4 when I was level 7 and he he didn't do so well, much to the ire of his own team.

Next few games were duo with my cousin, so it wasn't as bad (even though we got stomped, mostly because I'm rusty and bad).

Today, I got paired up with an adc sivir that literally did not use E the entire game. When I asked her to use it, she said "I have no mana you dickwad".

What's up with all this? Is it because it's preseason? Or has the algorithm gone completely nuts?

EDIT: Found the game with the yi.

https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2929633127/207939182?tab=overview