Decayed Players wrecking in lower comp matches
Jeff Kaplan, August 23rd 2017
Skill Rating decays but your internal Matchmaking rating (the thing that determines who is matched against who – not SR) does not decay.
I’m not saying that you weren’t placed in an unfair match. I am just trying to clarify that if that did indeed happen, it wasn’t because of SR decay.
We have some changes to Season 6 that should help with some occurrences of mis-matches, especially in the top skill tiers. I can’t tell what tier you’re actually playing at because you posted on an alt account.
We posted a video yesterday that explains some changes that are coming that should help.
Post 6:
SR closely chases your MMR up and down and is a more “digestible” number. With the exception of top players who have decayed, MMR and SR are closely linked.
Post 16:
MMR works very similarly to SR. There are some minor differences that make it feel worse though, when you just watch that number. For example, it’s possible to win a match and not gain any MMR. We make it so that if you win a match, you always gain SR – even if it’s just a little bit – to feel psychologically rewarding. But MMR’s entire goal is creating fair matches – which isn’t always fun to look at and certainly not “rewarding” for players looking for pats on the back or a sense of progression. So SR “chases” your MMR very closely, except in a rare case of severe SR decay at GM/Masters/Diamond level of play.