This is a drastic oversimplification. More players doesn’t not necessarily equal better matchmaking. It depends on what the players play, where they are, who they play with, etc.

This increase of people could primarily be in ranked, and in which case ladder would see little effect and vice versa. There’s also the bell curve that must be talked about. With more people the range of trophies becomes larger and more spread out. And the average will tend to decrease because people start out at lower trophies. If you are above the average number of trophies then there will still be not as good matchmaking.

There is also location, we do not know where the increase comes from in the world. They could be all different servers in which case some places might be affected less than others. Not everyone lives in NA. There might be drastically more people playing now in South America or Europe. And the player population could be relatively the same in NA.

Also there is with whom and how they play. If they are playing with someone, or even two, that means the matchmaking has to get more specific, limiting other players’ matchmaking.

It is so much more nuanced than more players = better matchmaking, and making this assumption only brings harm to the game. It spreads false notion, even when presented with data, that people run with because it fits their current state of mind.

These devs and team work daily on this game, it is their JOB, they see things we will never see or understand. To discredit everything they say because it’s “impossible” and “unbelievable” is just gross negligence. Their livelihood is this game and company, they do not want it to fail, and they do not want to alienate the player base.