It seems like lately I have been having a nightmare time getting even a competitive game. Has Riot changed something with the way they do matchmaking?

I mean I went from seeing a lot of the same good people every game to people that barely know the basics of dom. C''mon I don't deserve to be playing with people who think going mid is suicide when they're camping top, that revive is worthless, teemo is better AD... There's no end to my frustration/amazement.

The best part is I've been receiving "loss prevented" quite a bit. What the hell is this bull ****? Give me back the top tier people to play against, not *******, an autoloss, and then basically say it didn't matter. SO FUN lol

Anyone know anything about this? I know all the little kids are on break, but they've pretty much been filtered out before.

The larger the pool the pool of players, the more likely you are to be matched up with people of varying skill.

Kids on vacation. Been running into a lot of immature ppl during this Christmas break, that are ignorant, flame, and troll.

I believe that many people, including Sauron, believes that Elo brackets are in intervals of 100's. So, it is possible that your elo recently dropped an elo bracket so you are now going against lower level players. Such as, if you played Ranked Summoner's Rift, players in the 1100 elo generally play worse than the players in 1200 elo. Some people say that the difference is significant.

The opposite is also possible. Elo is really the probability of winning. Matchmaking tries to make it so each side has the same chance of winning. If you get higher elo, you will get matched with people of lower skills to keep the game even. If you were to play during the busy times, then you will probably just get matched with people around your own skill level. The longer matchmaking takes, its elo search range increases.

So, your best bet is to try to play during the busy times. If it really frustrates you, then go to DominateDominion and find some people to queue with.

I don't see any evidence for these brackets you mention; it's a (integer) number, why would the matchmaker truncate it.

Queue times is what Sauron referred to as being in bands of 100. I assume that it looks at your "band", and needs some time before expanding to the next band. Or something.

If you ask me to find proof that these elo brackets exist, I cannot. I can only speak from people who play ranked or back when you could see your hidden elo in all queues.

Somehow, I heavily doubt Riot does Dominion, Summoner's Rift, and Twisted Treeline matchmaking with different algorithms.

However, I could be totally wrong and this could very well be something that is just a state of mind, such as "elo hell." Many low elo players absolutely believe in the idea of "elo hell" but statistically "elo hell" does not exist. Riot, most high elo players, and pro players have all mentioned that "elo hell" does not exist. Yet, people still think it does.