I’m honestly open to it, but even though I constantly hear about it, I’ve never seen any evidence or anything that even suggests that the matchmaker tries to keep you at a certain rank. So, to all those who complain about it, do you have any evidence, or are you just salty after a loss streak?
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From the forums, its a lot of this
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Absolutely think so as well, but I have experienced some (though very rare) weird loss streaks as well. I don’t think it’s impossible that it is rigged, I’d just like a basis other than “I’m stuck in Gold”.
I’ve discussed experiences wiith many people both on and off the forums, and I do believe that forced losses are a thing.
Even in Quick Play - The second you win too many games, you WILL begin to lose. Your teammates will be noticably worse (and in competitive, usually lower ranked), and your opponents will be noticably better (and higher ranked).
Some people think it’s got to do with the match maker trying to “test your skill” and see if you can solo-carry a bunch of bad players against players who are better than you are. Which…no, no one can do that. Especially if you’re queuing support 
- As for my opinions on that theory…I don’t know, I’m open to it.
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It’s not so much that the goal is to make you lose.
What it’s like is…
You win a few games with decent teammates. Suddenly, a switch flips and all your teammates are toxic, feeding, throwing, even leaving the game for 5 games in a row. Then that turns off and goes back to normal. Over and over for 21 seasons.
At this point, my duo partner and i sarcastically say “wow, we became so good at the game over night” during these obvious swings in difficulty. Whoops. The next day we just forgot how to play. Major swings in difficulty each alternating day, like clockwork.
I just think the hidden MMR used to make “even matches” is overtuned. It overcompensates, probably in some effort to make people grind and log in more often.
Edit: I also think it works differently for every single player. Because it’s based on your stats. It’s trying to find an even match with YOU in it. So, whatever teammates you receive are there to balance you out at that SR. Since everyone’s play style is different, i’m convinced that the experience is different for everyone. The game is made to make each player feel like they’re winning about half the time, while the system decides behind the scenes where you should be ranked. Probably results in some really unnatural matchmaking for certain players.
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I mean, yeah these kind of games suck, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it even happens as bad as often described. Streaks are normal, being lucky and unlucky with toxicity is normal. And I believe people like to exaggerate.
I’ve had a lot of days where every game is a steamroll in win-lose-win-lose order.
It’s because of MMR right? When you’re doing well, the game is matching you with better opponents. eg. You spawncamp a team all game, you suddenly have a much higher number of dmg/eliminations than usual, so you get matched with better opponents who have those numbers more consistently?
Until it gets to the point where you’re out of your level, then you go back down again.
That’s always what I assumed it was anyway 
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It also makes me think that, if i hopped on a silver smurf’s account… the games would be harder than what i am used to. They’re being artificially challenged at that SR, playing opposing smurfs or tough matches, just to force even odds.
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I’m sorry, what exactly do you mean?
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Recently hopped onto a silver account, literally went 24-2 (in my 2 losses, i could’ve played much better)
Dont think the game sees 4 wins and decides “this person must be stopped”
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There’s handicapping that occurs. Or so many believe, a forum user named Thorny made a pretty sound argument for this
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What’s your peak on your main? GM or T500? If GM, how do you do in Master games, if Top 500 how do you do in GM games? Do you experience streaks there?
The issue with that is they don’t do the same with your teammates.
Comparitively, it’s like putting one professional AFL player with the Kids’ League, going up against a team of Olympians.
T500. GM games are pretty similar to T500. I perform similarly, just a littie better in GM than in T500. I don’t experience streaks, I don’t think the game forces me to lose games in any rank, I know i could do better, regardless of what rank I’m playing in.
Forced loss streaks don’t exist because you cannot guarantee a loss in a game of 12 players who have free will. Further, the matchmaker isn’t trying to keep anyone a certain rank. A better question is if handicapping exists. Unfortunately, if you’re attempting to hold a scientific standard, personal experience doesn’t cut it. Aside from people trying to fudge it, the amount required to rule out observation bias and white noise would be absurd. That said, I made a case for it here, based on an observation about bronze to GM streams combined with blizzard’s own statements:
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Really? Literally every T500 I’ve heard talk about said the exact opposite. That there are worlds between 4k and 4.3 as well as worlds between 4.3 and 4.6.
Anyway, yeah I’d expect exactly that. The most loss streaks I have experienced were 3 I believe, and that was when I was playing badly.
Considering that im like, 4300 (finished #340 on the leaderboard), most of my games are around 4100-4200. It’s rare that I get games above 4400 SR, and even watching high SR streams, like a 4500 player, they’ll often get 4100-4200 games.
If there were consistent 4300 games, I’m sure it’d feel much harder than 4100 games, but I don’t get to experience that too often.
Yeah I often have times where I lose and it’s due to my own play (namely dying with life-saving cooldowns still up), so I know something I have to work on to improve.
He means that smurfs get put up vs other smurfs or get wood tier/ thrower team mates to drag him down.
I’ve seen this first hand duo with a gm smurf in gold. He told me the gold games were harder than playing in gm.
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Going 24-2 in silver/gold. Hasn’t happened to me lmao.
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Fair enough. What hero/s out of interest?
Could be confirmation bias. Played five games with him, of which we had an easy win, two losses and two draws, as I recall.
Conversely, few seasons back got ten wins in a row to a career high. And the games didn’t feel any harder as I Climbed. In fact, felt super easy as my teams felt consistently Favoured each time.
Matchmaker is definitely volatile.
There’s very little consistency. Gold Mercy running in and dying every twenty seconds, vs gold Mercy using flight tech to never get hit.
Plat team feeding their brains out like imbeciles, vs silver team making dry push, regrouping and winning point with massive ult advantage.
Imo mmr matchmaker needs to go. Base it purely on Sr.
Perhaps have an mmr to adjust Sr gains to get smurfs up faster, but no reason matches should be subject to handicapping.
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