Overall match quality is godawful now - even if you play your heart out there's absolutely nothing stopping matchmaking from putting new or way lower rank players on your team, and most games are completely imbalanced stomps. I have spent 150 games climbing from Initiate to Alchemist (after formerly being Ritualist but rank decay is absurd and will tank you all the way to low Initiate if you take a break). Currently the only way to improve your match quality is to climb since ranked and casual are now merged and technically "every" game is ranked. Therefore, the BEST way to get back to your rank isn't to grind, or even one-trick your main; no, now the best way to not waste 100+ hours attempting to return to your former rank is to make a smurf and simply spend 20-30 games letting the system rank you properly again.
Yes, smurfing is bad because "high elo players shouldn't be stomping low elo lobbies", but what's the point in not doing it when you're ALREADY getting matched with new players constantly? If anything, smurfing actually results in less "imbalanced" games if your rank decayed hard enough.
Something seriously needs to change with both the elo decay system (a 2-week, non-seasonal irreversible decay that literally puts you at the bottom of the rankings is insane) and how matchmaking is currently throwing people of WILDLY different elos together. As of the current system, it's honestly arguable that Valve is unintentionally PROMOTING the creation of smurfs given how many matches are already being ruined by this and smurfing being the only way to fix this in a reasonable amount of time.
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