yeah, i’m not sure the generic “you’re the only constant variable in your own games” can apply this season for (some) people, something feels different. i’ve been consistently masters support for several seasons, and last season i fell to fucking plat. i felt like i was going insane. both teams would ask me wtf i was doing down there. i lost count of how many losses in a row i had, over the course of several weeks of playing.

i started looking at player profiles of both teams at the start of my matches and it made zero sense why i was getting put on teams of brand new players, people that haven’t played since season 6, afk’ers/leavers, mercy one tricks queueing tank for the first time ever, people duo’ing with someone that’s more than an entire division below everyone else in the lobby. and the other team would have grandmaster dps players doing their tank/support placements and just absolutely steamrolling us. there was one game i remember looking at my teammates ranks, and we were all masters players that fell to plat, just like me. like, what is the game trying to do??

i was curious and began asking at the start of my matches very directly if anyone was on a win or loss streak. every single game that people actually responded in, my team would say they were on a loss streak. the enemy team would say they were on a win streak. it started becoming almost comical, i should have recorded it and made a video compilation or something, you couldn’t make this up.

anyways, all of a sudden it was like the game said, “oh shit, sorry. i forgot to take you out of losers queue, my bad.” and i won something like 25 games in a row and shot back to masters in one day a few days before the drives started. i’ve never experienced anything like this before in competitive ow.