Firstly, this is an opinion and a discussion, I would like to see how the community feels and thinks about VALORANT's placement system every season-end.

From my experience, I have been consistently Gold 3 throughout all of act 1, reaching Platinum 1 at episode 3. By the end of episode 3, I was Gold 2. I finished my placements, landed at Silver 2, then took a short break. Playing games in silver made me realize that it is harder to win in lower ranks thanks to the amount of smurfs.

This system works well in League Of Legends because for one, it has a solo/duo queue and a queue that allows all party sizes (except 4). The odds of boosters/5-stack smurfing in solo/duo is a lot less likely.

Take a look at Rainbow6's ranked system, every season-end, the calibration of your placements take into account your highest rank in the past season. Scoring 5-5 in your placements puts you at your highest rank in the past seaso. Scoring more puts you slightly higher, and scoring less puts you slightly lower. I hate Rainbow6's ranked system due to a lot of cheaters, but games in Gold/Plat are easier than Copper, and the following seasons give the players a chance to redeem and go back to their ranks.

To all who would say that I am just bad, I admit I am not good, but I queued quite a number of 5-man games over the course of act 1 with plat friends and we sometimes encounter diamonds. I always carry my own weight whether I'm a smoker, a sentinel, or an entry fragger.

I would be happy to hear your views on this and I hope we can give RIOT good feedback.