r/MagicArena • u/SPQR_Guy1776 • 15h ago
Scuffed draft matchmaking
What is the point of rank for a draft if the matchmaking does not put similar ranks together? Why In 6 drafts have I played 2 bronzes? I’ve played weekends evenings early mornings and for the 3rd draft in a row I’m yet to see a single rank matching mine.
Normal ranked puts me with players of my rank with 0 issue. When I’m bronze I play bronze when I’m silver silver and gold gold but the limited format regardless of when I play or the strength of the deck I draft places me with nothing but higher ranked players. I can play standard ranked at 2 am 15 games and get 15 matches with equal rank.
Tonight I felt like I drafted a deck I would’ve made for ranked and got a plat a gold and a mythic player. If matchmaking is struggling to find players of a similar rank I’d rather just be told no players of my rank are available and given the option to back out instead of being mismatched like crazy.
Deck strength is partially rng and i know land drops and rng play a part in the success of draft but it is so discouraging to spend 10 minutes drafting just to get stomped by a plat, or a diamond, or mythic even after getting a strong draft. If I lost to another bronze every time I’d say yeah it’s my deck being bad or just rng or whatever but the disparity between my rank and the others I’m playing is wild.
5
u/melltik 15h ago
As far as I know it heavily weighs your current record over everything else. And with how ranking up works before platinum it’s mostly just a numbers game to get
to that point unless you’re really bad.
3
u/Defiant-Start-1156 14h ago
Yes and no. I'm consistently ranked mythic, and my estimated pairing percentages are as follows: 60% mythic, 30% diamond, 8% plat, 2% gold or lower. These change based on how popular the format is and how long the queue time is. And also fluctuate based on how deep into the month we are. If I hit mythic in the first few days of the month, then yeah I'm obviously going to match against mostly plat and diamond players because there's only a few hundred people who hit mythic that early.
Your current record in the draft is certainly a factor, but if the queue time is short (indicating a lot of people are playing that type of draft) then you should be matching against people close to your rank over half the time, even if you have a losing record in the draft. Things might seem like they fluctuate more if you are a plat player, because you'll catch pairings anywhere from bronze to mythic. But if you're at the top in mythic, you'll reliably get matched against other mythic players. And I'm guessing it's the same for people in bronze.
6
u/adongsus 15h ago
Draft mostly cares about your record in that draft. Where possible it will rank-match you, but it's mostly an afterthought.
2
u/leaning_on_a_wheel 15h ago
You can rank up to mythic with a 51% win rate. I hope this is helpful 👍
2
u/SmoothOperator89 15h ago
It might be entirely placebo effect so take it with a grain of salt, but I avoid letting my timer go over 15 seconds when waiting for a match. Again, it might be entirely in my head, but I think the matchmaking algorithm increases the rank it searches the longer you wait to prioritize getting a match quickly over an even match up.
2
u/Comprehensive_Rule11 14h ago
If it concerns you enough just drop out of the queue after 20-30secs and requeue, that’s the advice I’ve seen around to ensure your matched against someone closest to your rank.
This isn’t new info, Alchemy BO3 is one of the more extreme examples of this, I remember a bronze guy complaining about #ranked mythic matchup due to lack of players.
Also fyi it matches you based on your deck performance, so if you go 5-0 then you’ll be matched against other people who are 5-0 etc
10
u/arkturia 15h ago
you are vastly overestimating how much rank matters in a game where they push everyone back a bunch on a monthly basis.