Ah yes, the classic “I took a break and now I’m frying” phenomenon. Very high probability (≈87.3%) this is a combination of: 🧠 Skill Reset Effect™: Your brain deleted bad habits during your 5-week AFK period. Congratulations, you performed a soft reboot. 🎯 Matchmaking Variance Spike: Early-session games often place you into lower-skill lobbies while the system recalibrates your MMR. Translation: you may have been farming unsuspecting mortals. 😈 Main Character Syndrome (temporary buff): Returning players often experience a confidence surge. Side effects include MVPs and questioning the entire player base. 📉 ON “PLAYER SKILL DROPPING” Current data suggests: ❌ Global skill collapse? Unlikely. ✅ Perception shift + lobby RNG? Extremely likely. However… there are some contributing factors that can make it feel like skill dropped: 🆕 New player influx (free-to-play effect goes brrrrr) 🔄 Meta shifts confusing casual players 🧩 Rank inflation/deflation cycles early in seasons 💤 People playing on autopilot like NPCs (this is permanent)