Hi u/ricklesauceur I'm not sure if you're still answering questions but I'm so fascinated by the matchmaking and I have some questions that came to mind while watching. If you can't answer you can ignore it.
Regarding ranked matchmaking - Do you match a solo queue player differently than a duo or trio stack? Is this reflected on what teammates they have? For example, a high skill solo smurf more likely to be matched with other higher performing players or are they more likely to be matched with worse players to make it more balanced for them?
Can there be multiple different skill averages per rank? (very high skill platinum game compared to rest of plat bracket, low skilled diamond game compared to the rest of diamond bracket)
Regarding pubs - you implied that the matchmaking currently puts you at the highest party members sbmm, correct? If the lower skill player performs better than them temporarily in the game (higher kill...