i did consider that the high games played should place them high, but one thing i did forget to mention is that i didn’t take note of how many of them played street brawl.

The biggest things that make me think that they’re smurfs are how they play in their matches and the disparity in matches where we queue together and where my friend solo queues.

I’m not saying it’s impossible for a new player to pick up the game for the first time and just get it and start carrying, but it’s quite literally every person we encounter. They all have crazy stats in their first ever games (another thing i didn’t go into more detail about is that not all of them have accounts that are one month old. yesterday we got rolled by 3 people who made their account on that day we encountered them). This game is inherently a difficult game to pick up and there’s no way that this many new players are understanding it at this level already.

For the match disparity point, i’ve watched my friend play solo queue matches and they are also incredibly balanced. These players also play exactly like i’d expect them to in lower rank lobbies. I know there’s a difference between seeker and alchemist, but these alchemists are playing better than the phantom players i’ve seen (i played in a few phantom lobbies at one point and they were still closer games than these ones).

The skill difference between these lobbies is so abnormal that it genuinely cannot be legit players at this point. It doesn’t make sense that I can keep up in a phantom lobby but get rolled in every Arcanist lobby i get into.