So I've been playing this game for a year now and I'm not the best player. I've been inconsistent with my skill and how frequently I play the game. But just before the start of episode 6 I had a bit more time on my hands so I started playing regularly. And soon after the episode 6 release I started ranking up steadily. I was playing more so I started improving and it wasn't rare to be the match mvp for me.I climbed from iron 1 to bronze 3 in a month. I thought yeah that's going good and I was looking forward to cracking silver and then gold so I could queue with my friends who were plat.

This lasted till the day I hit bronze 3, then I just started losing. This loss streak lasted until I was back at iron 2. After that I have just been struggling to go back to bronze 3. I win some and lose some. But my rank just stays bronze 1. Winning gives me +15 rr but losing takes away like 25 rr from me. I don't play much now due to lack of time, only on weekends. Still for the past 2 weeks my climb was going good and in act 3 I had a win rate of 66%. I was consistently topping lobbies until today. I queued with a friend. The first match was good. I played well and got mvp but when I hopped into the second match I just couldn't play. I didn't think much of it like yeah just a bad game. But then we started another match and the same thing happened. Then I realized maybe this is the same thing that happened to me like a few weeks ago. I just couldn't play against them like they were just better. Then I got tilted because I grinded hard to start ranking up again and lost 3 out of 4 matches today.

I don't think this was just a skill inconsistency because I queued right after. I know that there is a hidden rank in valorant which decides the skill level of your opponents but I think the algorithm is a bit weird because once I start performing good it just throws me into a lobby with much better players where I struggle and derank again. I think the change should be gradual rather than so sudden. This has caused me to stay hard stuck in the low elo for a year now and I am really getting tired of it. I think I will quit valorant if this keeps happening.

What are your thoughts on this? Is there anyway to get around it?