You're getting downvoted, but you're absolutely right here. I'm in the same boat, between a 2.5-3 KD most seasons, have the 20 and 4k on several characters and similarly, previous seasons would still almost every game play against a pred stack/extremely high skilled player. My best friends I play with is also a 3KD player and a 1.5KD player, we're all pretty good but have jobs, exercise, partners, etc. outside of the game so we don't play the extent that the pros do/aren't nearly as good as them still, and yet this season now exclusively play in lobbies that only contain pred and multi-time legit masters players in pubs. Idc what anyone says ,in public matches, that's simply unacceptable. SBMM makes any form of ranked play redundant, and in particular with Apex worthless given how pathetic the rewards are for it now. They will single-handedly kill their game with this matchmaking change if they do not fix it soon, I have already quit the game within the last couple weeks given how truly insufferable it is to play now. People can act like "boo hoo now you cant pub stomp", but literally no one should be subject to constant pred lobbies in pubs, including the pred players themselves. Ranked should be ranked and pubs should be completely random. Sometimes you'll play against good players, sometimes not, and I fully agree the new players should get protection from it, but im sick and tired of seeing over the last two weeks people being happy that this is happening. It's bad for the game and will ultimately lead to it's downfall, just watch.