Last game, my Gold 3 left because the 3 ex Immortals are 1 tapping him every round. Okay, we lose - fair enough. Game before last, the Diamond 2's one tap the Gold 1's and 2's a few times, but we manage to pull it back a little and still lose. Cool. New game. Everyone is around d1-d2 last Act except for two players who finished in Immortal 2 and 3 last Act. Maybe a close game? No... we won 13-0 and the immortal 3 got 42 kills. All of this happened in Gold 2 - Plat 1 (This seasons current ranks).

Is it really necessary to grind back to a rank every few months, only to go through these patches of really poor quality ~~competitive~~ gaming?

As someone who enjoys playing competitively, when a new act is released, I want to stop playing almost immediately due to the lack of consistency in the matchmaking.