People Rigging Games for Diamond Tiers in 3s

Archive post, October 2012. There's no 3s ladder left to rig. Riot retired Twisted Treeline on 19 November 2019, at the end of Season Nine, and the 3v3 Diamond badge the whole argument is about went with the map. The ELO reset the post mentions dates it as well, because ranked standing runs on tiers, divisions and League Points now and the rating behind them stays hidden. Read it as a snapshot of what ladder integrity looked like in Season 2.

As those of you aiming for the Diamond tier in 3s have probably noticed, there's a lot of "win rigging" going on, where those who already have the Diamond tier throw games so that their friends can get Diamond tier as well.

While noble as a friendly action, noble is the wrong word when it comes to the rating system. By gaming the rating system, it really diminishes the honor of having a diamond badge in the first place.

Although I personally just put it off to the side thinking nothing would come of it, it seems that Riot's actually been "quietly investigating behaviors like this" and as a response, RiotYegg had this to say:

We've been quietly investigating behaviors like these (commonly known as "win trading") for awhile now. We just hadn't said anything for a couple reasons:

1. We didn't want to risk making win trading more popular by drawing attention to it.
2. We're still a ways out from completing the analysis and deciding on appropriate punishments, and we generally don't like to talk about anything that isn't going to happen shortly.

If we find players who achieved rewards solely through behaviors like this, we won't hesitate to remove those rewards. If we find that teams are getting to top spots on the ladder through win trading, we won't hesitate to reset their Elo to a more appropriate number. We'll take care of it. :)

Here's an example of win-trading taken by redditor McDonaldDuckk (although you could easily go into many of the 1800+ teams and see similar behavior)

Surge Smite...Viable!