how matchmaking works

a lot of people apparently dont understand this so i thought i would explain a bit.

basically this is how it works - everyone has a hidden matchmaking rating or mmr. if you win your mmr goes up about 20 points. if you lose your mmr drops by around 20 points. your next match you will play against players close to your new mmr.

20 points may not sound like a lot, but it is! each tier is only 60 points apart (about 3 wins). that means a bronze V player could reach silver 5 mmr with just 15 wins in a row! it would take the player longer to raise his actual rank to that level but he could very quickly find himself matched up against silver V players with such a winstreak.

this means every time you win you will be playing against much tougher competition on average. for every loss you will be playing much weaker competition.

since your mmr takes such big jumps for every game it will move people to their correct rating very quickly. also once you are at that correct rating it does a very good job of keeping you there. if you get just 3 wins in a row you will have to play players a full tier above where you were before, who likely have a much greater skill level.

this matchmaking system is why everyone who plays LoL ends up close to a 50% winrate. if you go on a winstreak you soon will be playing beyond your skill level and it will be answered with a losing streak until you are back where you belong. if you go on a losing streak you soon will find yourself in easy matchups and you will win back to where you belong.

even if you raise your skill level to such an amount you jump from an entire division, that is only 15 wins. as soon as you reach your new mmr, you will go back to winning 50% until you can raise your skill level even more.