I just noticed that I’ve never lost SR in placements. I asked a few friends who’ve also said they’ve never lost either. It’s usually a consistant 150-300 SR. Even on this account that I try to keep low to play with friends, I usually still gain around 50 or so SR through placements.
Is there a mechanic to try to “give people a chance” to prove they can play at a higher SR that I’ve somehow not known about for 3 years?
yeah you can absolutely lose SR in placements. I’ve had both gains and losses during placements.
think of it this way - if everybody gained SR during placements, the ranks would just inflate and lose any meaning over the course of 16 seasons.
you and your friends apparently just play well during placements, so kudos lol
Nice to know, thanks 
Guess I’ve been lucky.
As a long-time player on XBL, I’ve observed my placements awarding +/- 25 SR per win/loss after the patch that stopped win streaks from awarding stacking bonus SR.
Yes you can. But from what I’ve learned it all depends on your own performance, and not how much you won and lost. The more you are on fire the higher you are going to be placed above your ending result from last season.
My highest result was something about 250SR higher.
This is not an accurate representation of how it works.
Players’ 10 placement matches will start with Blizzard’s best estimate of each player’s MMR for matchmaking purposes15. A player’s initial SR will generally be close to his previous season ending SR, with a relatively ordinary adjustment based on 10 placement matches.
There’s of course more detail about border cases in the article. See the “Season Transitions” section.
Yes of course you can
Not alot. I saw people like losing 8 out of 10 matches and ended up roughly the same. Even people who didn’t play the game for a year or stay where they were.
For me it’s been working like this since I can remember. It doesn’t matter if I won 10/10 or just 4/10, I always placed somewhat higher than my last season ending result.
Also don’t know if that’s of any importance, but my placements are almost always a way better experience than the matches after. And I don’t mean because I’m able to perform there better or win more, but simply because more often you get people willing to form a proper team in these.