There are always complaints about poor MM in ELO systems. Here are some explanations.
First of all is understanding the basics of the ELO system and how it works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system
ELO systems work best and will be most accurate when
1-the number of games played is greater
2-the pool of players is static (no new entries into the ELO ladder and in general, inflating it and widening it over time)
3-it is an individual game (or has static teams) and not a randomly matched team game. e.g. chess, starcraft 1v1
Here are obstacles in why an ELO system is tough for a team game like DOTA/LoL
-The larger the pool is, and believe me, the pool seems to be very damn large, the more variation. One problem is that because accounts are free, there are players who create "smurf" accounts and play with others. Due to Riot's MatchMaking system giving an (ELO) edge to players that are NOT on an arranged team, I've come across two teams where they were teamed with an extremely low level character. They were obviously all friends looking to steamroll a pug due to the amount of shit talking.
You will also have arranged teams of less than 5 (sometimes just 2 or 3 friends) of high skilled/high ELO players queuing as an arranged team with one of them being a "smurf" new account.
One also needs to realize that the smurfs start out from the bottom and are going to screw up / skew games. That level 15 has to start somewhere, and along the way, he's probably steamrolled a lot of lower ELO players. These people tend to throw lower level games, since if they actually played a ton of games on that account, their true ELO would be a lot higher.
In games, sometimes one particularily strong player will gain an advantage on a weaker player, and then they feed off them the rest of the game. Sometimes its clear that one player is at fault when they are 0-9 and the rest of your team is 0-2 0-1 1-3, ect.. However, because it's a team game, you gain rating when you win, and you lose rating when you lose. Often, it's about who you random to be on your team, since at lower/entry level skill ratings, there could still be players that are rising in ELO and not quite at the level of the game they're playing, hence throwing the game if you understand what I mean.
Case in point,
www.throneit.com is pub dota league. They have 3 tiers of play now, 2 of them being fairly competitive. Back this summer, I managed to ladder up to #6 on the Tier 2 ( the top tier at the time) after about 100 games played. Games were determined by ELO shuffle, meaning #1 3 5 7 10 vs 2 4 6 8 9 or something like that. I was nowhere near the skill level (most of these these guys were competitive league dota players) of the top players, yet I managed to eek into top because of this elo shuffle, which was not the most accurate due to the low number of games. Again, I had played over 100 games, with some having played over 200. Most had played less than 100 hundred though, and although 100 games may seem like a lot, when you have a large pool of players, 100 games is not going to be very accurate. Now... take the pool of LoL. It's freaking huge.
Finally, if you're struggling to raise your ELO and wins and think you are good, play a carry. My games were kind of static for a while when I first started playing (between level 15 - low 20s until I started playing carries like Twitch/Teemo. It's really hard playing support like soraka to people that aren't that great at the game and won't protect you.
Bottom line:
Matchmaking is not perfect, but it gets better the more and more games you play.
The better your skill level gets, the more even and fair games you'll find.
If you have played a lot of games (in LoL, getting to be at least level 30 with 250-400 games played) but are still of mediocre/below average skill level, then your games sometimes still might be screwed up due to new but high skilled players climbing the ladder.
sorry for the long blurb, I need to entertain myself at work
id be happy to hear anyone's opinions on my opinions
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