Originally Posted by
Lysah
The way I understand the system (which is pure speculation based on other games using MMR by the way), the search bar should work like this-
If you're a 2000 player it will start looking for 9 other 2000s, as the bar expands it's because it hits the time limit it spends on this search and opens up to 1900-2100s. After the time on that expires it expands more, and so on. A big search bar should theoretically mean a big search, that is, if you're a 1600 player and the search bar is near full the search has expanded to include 1200-2000s, at this point, you're going to get a matchup that is something like 1200/1200/1500/1600(you)/1800 vs 1300/1400/1400/1500/1500. Of course, the system will use mathematics to say that this is still a fair matchup, even though the entire enemy team is going to epicly stomp your 1200s, which could lose you two lanes by default and therefore the game. Or just as fun, one of the 1200s will instalock a jungler and the other will instalock mid, forcing you to go top against a trilane where their hard carry will free farm while your mid gets epicly stomped by their 1800 and their team raxes in 18 minutes.
So yes, a bigger search bar is indicative of a worser game.