Every now and then the topic of the quick play matchmaker is brought up. I’ve seen so many different answers at this point. Some say quick play has no matchmaker. Some say it does have one, but bronzes can play with diamonds because of grouping.
How does the MMR actually work? Has Blizzard actually said?
Anything said regarding to MMR and the matchmaker in QP can pretty much be found here:
Now they haven’t been that specific, though there is an MMR system.
MMR is pretty much a hidden number that decides your place on the ladder, in QP it’s only used to determine roughly your skill.
In competitive there is a limit to how much this number can vary, someone with an MMR with 20 cannot get grouped with someone that has an MMR of 120.
Competitive has a seperate MMR system from QP, meaning that your rank in competitive is pretty much irrelevant and not considered when matching you into a QP match.
They’re working on new matchmaking mechanics, so i’m not sure whether or not what they’ve said will be correct once such changes have been made.
To keep it simple, the matchmaker works to pair two teams of a relatively average team matchmaking ratings together. Now how it finds players does have a few factors. First, the measured latency of each player and group working to pair players to the best possible data center based on their geographical location and connection. Second, groups of players typically are paired up in close to equal numbers. So a 6-stack faces against a 6-stack, duos to duos, etc. This is not always perfect, but it’s a priority.
This is correct, quick play does have an independent matchmaking rating from that of Competitive, but the matching is looser than quick play and there are no grouping restrictions. This is because quick play is intended as a casual environment mostly intended to play for fun without too much pressure to win.