Valorant's matchmaking has never been good, but recently as I approach silver, its been getting really weird. I often queue with 1-2 other people. So it's possible this may be why matchmaking gets wonky.

However, I often find we a team of Bronze 3's and 2's, will be matched against 2-3 silvers. Other times we will be matched against low bronze 1's. This leads to us either dominating, or the other team dominating. It is so back and forth that one game I can drop 24/12/5 and then requeue to go 15/17/2. My guess is that my MMR flip flops with my actual rank, and the game tries to compensate. This causes these constant matches that are unfair to on team or the other. Furthermore the games compensation for this only exacerbates the issue.

Riot says they account for personal performance, teammates, enemy performance and rank to decide how much RR you will win or lose. It seems that it might take MMR in to account more than anything, because I can win 30 RR in an easy match that pairs me against low bronze or even iron players, or win 15RR in a close match against silver players with my lower ranked bronze team. In theory, you win more RR for beating a harder team (in the most basic form, a low rank beating a higher rank team) and less RR for beating an easier team. In practice, it often seems random and redundant.

I know a lot of people complain about ranked, but in most cases there is legitimate criticism and confusion that gets lost in a sea of saltiness. Valorant's ranking is honestly some of the strangest I have seen. It's very bottom heavy in rank distribution compared to games like rocket League or even Rainbow Six Siege.

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It seems riot was so excited that they correctly matched these iron 3's they forget to match the other ranks.