A fix for the ranked matchmaking

"since they are always in a group you end up with 2-3 masters and pred teams in a lobby filled with diamond players."

If you look at the percentage of the total player base who achieve predator, and then at the percentage who achieve master, and then at the percentage who achieve diamond... you're looking at roughly 6 or 7 percent of all players. From a matchmaking standpoint those players DO all belong in the same bucket. Trying to weed master/preds out of diamond lobbies is, from a numbers standpoint, exactly like trying to weed low platinum players out of high gold lobbies. Nobody in this game ever gets a ranked match made up of entirely of players at their own rank, not even in platinum where the largest chunk of the population lives. Everybody ends up playing people in adjacent ranks. Diamonds shouldn't get a free pass just because their natural enemies are the best players in the game. I know it isn't satisfying to hear, but this is definitely an "is what it is" situation.

I know that sounds like I'm discounting everything you're saying, but I'm not. I will 100% agree with anyone who wants to say out loud that the dev (all devs) was wrong to build a game with such an insane and incomprehensible skill gap. I would also say that there is a real possibility that some, maybe even many, of the predators that a diamond player encounters are, in fact, cheating. I'm told cheating is rampant at those levels, which is another reason I'm reluctant to look for a matchmaking fix to a cheating problem.

I guess there are no easy answers. And if what you're suggesting would make harder the lives of predators/cheaters then there's no reason at all for me to stand in the way of it. I would imagine, though, that a huge part of what makes a predator a predator is their relentlessly practiced team work. I know if I hit that point with a stack that I knew and trusted, then I'd be reluctant to risk my achievements on the vagaries of random teammates no matter their rank or skill.