If afk exists, every round should be eligible for surrender. I believe being stuck in a game that is mostly losing is more punishing to the active players than the afks getting a time from playing the game.

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There should be a compromise between an entire team's mmr loss from losing and fully giving the afkers the full blunt of mmr loss by redistributing the mmr loss so that the active players only lose half and the afkers take that much more in terms of mmr loss.

Also, if the team with afkers win, the afker should not get the win mmr and that same amount should be distributed amongst the active players.

This way, people don't feel as cheated when they are imprisoned by necessity of playing the game and groups/wintraders can't abuse the mechanic to have one player behave like a heatsink by afking so the rest can preserve their ranks. It's not perfect, but it certainly answers the problems with the extremes. It is likely that the AFK deserves the rank they do so they'll return to that rank and wintraders can still use the mmr distribution mechanic to negate some of the loss, but it also forces more work for both parties overall, discouraging such practices.

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This might create some nuanced issues, like if an afker was only afk for a round (because dc) or only shows up at the end of the round (to get credit for the game). In that case, assuming there is round based and match based calculations, calculate the afks into round by round basis and, if they were only afk for one or two rounds, they should still be able to get the match win mmr, for example.

This is not a legitimate punishment for afkers, since some afk and surrender to derank and smurf, but at least those who are victims of afkers don't take the full blunt of unjust loss and overall alleviate some of the frustrations of playing ranked in Valorant right now.