My deck runs Yrden, and I often get big monsters matchups. I run artifact removal, and run into plenty of decks that run artifacts.
That is, of course, just an opposite example of subjective experiences. Regardless, it strengthens my existing, strong belief that what was said a year ago is still true.
The first paragraph above would make sense if the MM were basing it's matching on deck composition though.
I played roughly 700 games last season (yeah, really). I wouldn't say with absolute certainty the MM is making it's choices based on more than advertised. I would say I consistently experienced a lot of suspicious behavior over those games.
I highly doubt it's "rigged". So I dislike using this word to describe experiences. Rigged, to me, would imply it's fixing games based on win rates. As an example, you go on a winning streak and the game suddenly decides to look for bad match-ups for your deck, gives poor starting draws, mulligans, etc. to force that win rate down. I doubt it does this because of the presumed complexity involved. In this case it would presumably have to compare decks and match based on those comparisons. Furthermore, it would have to account for win rates and intentionally force poor draws/mulligans. The former could probably be done. The latter.... ehh... I think the latter of the two is tin foil hat land.
With that said, I could see a reason for attempting to force win rates closer to 50%, somehow, someway. If only because people tend to set goals. Reach the next rank or a certain fMMR. When they easily reach those goals the incentives become diminished. You hit a point where you feel you've hit the maximum. If you suddenly hit a loss streak at a certain point it prevents you from hitting that goal. Don't hit the goal and you want to reach it even more. Thus, you play more games. On the flipside, constantly losing leads to frustration. Frustration leads to less games played. So, it's not a stretch to see the logic. You could make similar arguments for rewards and things of that nature.
I wouldn't be surprised if it does factor in deck composition. I'll admit I couldn't program my way out of a paper bag. I still don't see why it would have to be super complex. Cards do things. If you categorize the card functions, and lump cards with similar purposes together, you could then presumably look to match players based on those categories. Artifact removal would be the most simple example. As an example, player 1 has artifact removal and player 2 has artifacts. So perhaps the MM would look to match player 1 and 2 to create a "competitive" game. P1 has to use the AR on the correct artifacts to win the game. P2 has to find a way to make those artifacts work as intended. What aspect of this requires a lot of trickery? The game already presumably tries to match based on fMMR or rank. Adding more "variables" to the decision making in the form of card categories doesn't sound like much of a stretch.
Going back to the rigged commentary.... If the game does indeed try to rig matches to force specified win rates it doesn't do it very well. If that were the case 70-80+% win rates over 20-30 games probably wouldn't happen. The MM would intervene and stop it. Likewise, hideous loss rates over 20-30 games probably wouldn't happen either. Not if players of similar ability were being matched together. I've experienced both of these quite a bit. It doesn't compute
. This makes me believe the culprit is poor play, poor deck composition or lack of adjustments when people claim it's the case.
"Perfect counters" coming up frequently is to be expected. It shouldn't matter if the other player has the perfect counter to a particular concept if your deck is strong and you play around it correctly. This gets into the nuance of match-ups and the "little stuff". Obviously, in some match-ups a loss is likely. You cannot beat everything. However, any quality, strong deck is strong precisely because it doesn't face many of these circumstances. The label "tier 1" implies the ability to beat most other decks if you play the match-up correctly. Barring extremely poor luck anyway.
Getting to the point... If I build and play one deck and hit certain match-ups with high frequency, where it looks like they have counters to my stuff and vice versa, it's not shocking. If I swap to a different deck and those match-ups inexplicably change it's suspicious. Over those 700 games last season it felt like this behavior occurred like clockwork. To the point where it was almost predictable. Even changing certain cards felt like it would adjust the matches. Yes, this confirms nothing. Again, it did raise a lot of suspicions though.
The problem with these types of claims is it's hard to prove. Even if the MM does account for deck comp it presumably wouldn't be a static yes or no. It would presumably attempt to match based on certain criteria and, as time elapsed, expand the scope. In other words, it looks to match A vs B but when it cannot find B it matches A vs C after a certain time interval. If it cannot find C it looks for D and E. Based on all the variables of time of day, whom is playing, what they're playing, rank, fMMR, etc. it would be extremely difficult to say how it matches with certainty. Player 1 might play concept A and get paired with concept B because concept B is common at the time. Player 2 might play concept A but fail to meet concept B because it's not in the queue.
Apologies for the wall of text
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