The official Matchmaking blog post

@Airish85

What bucket are you in? I’m not sure, man.

Rather than judging a lobby based on the presence of one opponent, I typically have to see divetrails and I have to look at boxes to see badges.

The top bucket lobbies are a majority of 4k, 20bomb, diamond to pred players. Playing with a friend will instantly increase the likelihood that you end up in this lobby. I think the only people who aren’t 4k 20bomb players in my lobbies are the (average skilled) premades that did well in their last game. It’s a terrible product of the algorithm.

I swear to you though, under-average to average pub lobbies 100% exist. I access these lobbies consistently on my intentionally weaker accounts. These lobbies often have absolutely no divetrails. And upon inspection of boxes, you very rarely see 4k 20bomb badges.

I urge you to not look at your KD as a “true measure” of success. The algorithm is also looking at your placement. And I have a hunch that accuracy might even play into MMR; I will be testing this in the future.

My point is, their algorithm is probably assessing you as higher than you assess yourself. I encourage you to make some more accounts and continue to run tests.