Do gold players go through ranked decay? I just got to gold (STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM NOW WE HERE) and was thinking of laying off of ranked for a long while. but i want to know that if i stop playing, will i be demoted before season ends?
No. Plat and up only.
You might want to do some matches and see how high you can get though (you have demotion shielding for 10 games). I was going to stop right when I got to Gold (because last season I couldn't even get into Silver 1), but I decided to do some more matches and now I'm almost Plat.
Your placement is based on your MMR and with a new season you lose some, so next season if your MMR is too close to the bottom of Gold you may get placed in Silver. If you raise it enough, you'll definitely get placed in Gold next season and won't even have to go through those Tier promo matches again. (you may already be high enough MMR, who knows)
Nice congrats on gold! And don't worry, you won't decay, here's the official statement.
https://support.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/204010760-Ranked-Play-FAQ#h7
