The official Matchmaking blog post

@RedmattgameWhen discussing a person’s matchmaking experience, I often like to ask people where they place themselves (which you have done, so thank you), and what their overall lobby composition is.

I’m not saying this is you, but I often find average players complaining because 1-6 diamond to preds are in their match.

As of right now, the “top bucket” pubs are 80-95% Diamond to Preds. Basically everyone has a 4k 20 bomb or they are a smurf. I ask you this HONESTLY— is 95% of your lobby this type of player?

I’m in those lobbies. Correction: I am LOCKED into those lobbies. I often go 100-200 games with no top 5 placement because I am not good enough to beat an entire lobby of Masters and Preds. At best, I am a lower level Masters player; better than 90% of the population but locked into a situation where I lose 99% of my matches (because the top lobbies are all high diamond to preds).

You know who’s not in these lobbies the high majority of the time? Average players. Because if they were I would see them (over the course of thousands of games). Yes of course— sometimes an average player will end up in a top bucket lobby, but every game? No. This isn’t happening. 

So yes, the HIGH BULK of average players are being protected from the top players.

@Axs5626Sxa5001 You speak as a Masters level player & so how can you possibly know or even experience the calibre of lobbies 'average players' like myself experience all too frequently.& so you base your assumption that 'us average players' are some how 'protected' from the best players based on asking players honest enough to admit they are average or aren't as good as they would like to admit.And as a Masters player yourself are you a solo player with randoms or in a pre-made squad because both options are like chalk & cheese & as a solo myself the disadvantages are stacked against you from the start.A fair amount of matches I've played so far this season have ended very early as an unintended consequence of hot-dropping (even on the fringe,outer areas of the map) where say as a team we would land early, than numerous teams would land after & then we'd be pounced on by well-equipped,pre-made squads when we are scratching around & struggling looking for weapons,ammo & loot (rinse & repeat).And if there is any doubt as to finding the level of opposition I have been killed by I always tend to look at their kill stats after & if it's not a smurf player on such a low kill count (or unstated) it's usually by someone with around 10k kills.In one match last night I managed to finish 5th but chose to spectate the team in which they won but their combined total kill count was 123k kills (the highest player was 78k & the lowest was 18.5k) whilst my team had a combined total of 1.9k kills (me on the highest with1.05k kills & the lowest had 210 kills) & can you honestly this is fair MM.

I have approximately 8-10 accounts that I currently test the matchmaking on— I have often shared my findings here on the forums.

I have accounts that are intentionally bad (no kills and no damage). I have accounts that are intentionally average. I have accounts with very high matchmaking ratings.

I am beyond confident that I have an understanding of what goes on in an average lobby. And of course, I was average at one time myself.

As an average player, sometimes you run into lower skilled players and sometimes you get higher skilled players that get easier lobbies due to constantly losing to the highest skilled players.

The most important point here of course, is the fact that high MMR (top bucket) pub lobbies exist. Please think about that. At ANY given point in time, there is a lobby that is essentially all high diamond to Pred players.

If these lobbies exist (which they do) that means that THOSE EXACT players are NOT abusing the rest of the player base— because they can’t simultaneously be in your lobby and in their own lobby.

Do I see some 4k 20 bomb players on my average accounts? Yes. But they are very limited. Compare this to my main, where the majority seems to be better than me despite being a Masters-level player.

So again, what does this all mean?

It means that the bulk of highly skilled players are playing each other most of the time, despite the belief that they are not.

In Axnumbers defense I have the same experience only I need to be a premade. Anyone who has played with friends and without can speak to how the MM does try to seperate. Anyone that's played to Masters can also speak to how the MM tries to seperate the very top from the rest.

Will you see crazy good players and full teams  in random lobbies? Yes, definately. In my solo q lobbies I see them too. But there's a huge difference when you jump and see all purple, blue and red trails and that happens way more when in a team or your account is classified in a certain way.

@Axs5626Sxa5001It isn't that high MMR lobbies exist, it is that MM seems to put me in them or it drops those players into my lobbies when the MM timer for them goes off. Premade just makes it 500% worse, too.  My brother and I (both probably Gold players at best) play as a premade duo in Trios pubs and struggle to get kills for hours at a time and the MM does absolutely nothing!!!  We've played together off and on for about a year and have maybe 5 wins.  Our KDR playing together is probably half what it is playing solo.

Got killed by somebody last night with 10x the kills, damage, & wins as I have and pred badges all over their frame. I was juking all over the place and he basically killed me with 4 Wingman shots. Then he killed the other 2 in our squad just as easily. That is like showing up for pickup basketball at the YMCA when the Golden State Warriors got next. Screw that, I'll just hit the weights and go home.

Update 5/23:  I'm now in the camp for just scrapping all SBMM and making pubs matchmaking "first come, first served".  This crap is horrible.