I agree with that, I think this should be fixed. But I think this is how it works at the moment. Or it matches people with ratings closest first.

So, basically it's a vicious cycle. TLA doesn't get matches but there's enough of them that at least some get matches (on templates that they sign up for), so they get byes. But byes (not free wins) count as losses for rating purposes. So TLA's rating gets dragged down. So the matchmaking algorithm deals with TLA last. So TLA doesn't get matches, but they get byes. And the cycle starts over again.

I see 3 fixes that should solve this vicious cycle:
1. Stop counting byes as losses. I'm not sure if this is happening, I just gathered it from Rento's explanation, and why a bye would count as a loss makes no sense to me.
2. Use a good matchmaking algorithm. Matchmaking is a solved problem, isomorphic to some or other matching problem. Using min-weight graph matching with disallowed edges should get you close to an ideal matchmaker that creates as many games as possible with reasonable rating differences. What we're seeing here is the pitfall of a simple greedy algorithm. If Fizzer is interested in going down this route, I can help. It's most likely just a matter of finding or cannibalizing an existing library for min-weight matching.
3. Randomize which players get matchmade first. You can keep the ordering (from highest to lowest rating), even, but just start in the middle (e.g., start with a randomly-selected player, matchmake lower-rated players if there are any, and then matchmake the higher-rated players if there are any).

Hope we get a fix to this in 5.12! Seems like the status quo vicious cycle makes Clan Wars less-than-fun for some clans, like TLA, and might hamper participation.

Edited 3/17/2021 21:05:13

Fizzer went over this yesterday dude, were you not in the stream?

I wasn't, no. It was during work hours for me. I'm just responding to the thread and what Rento relayed about what Fizzer said on stream. Specifically:

Fizzer answered on stream yesterday.
If any of your clanmates got a match on the template you signed up for, no free win for you.
otherwise a clan could sign up 40 members for one template and get tons of free wins
was the argument
and it keeps happening to TLA because apparently they are the lowest rated clan, and matchmaking goes from top rated to bottom rated, so it gives byes to TLA whenever possible
also, byes count as losses (to the rating), as evidenced my Nestlings rating being negative after test season with their only game being a bye win.
so you keep getting byes because your rating is terrible and the byes lower your rating so you keep getting more byes, is what I understand

This screams design gap to me, and so I laid out the gap I see (to make it clear) and shared three fixes that came to mind. Did Fizzer mention on stream that he was working on some sort of fix? As far as I understand, Fizzer is not aware of the vicious cycle problem and on stream yesterday he merely talked about how he designed the system. Obviously, just because something is by design doesn't mean that it's working as it should be: design gaps are a common cause of bugs in software.

Edited 3/17/2021 21:07:50

Well if that's how it works, it should be changed - it should favour complete matching over accurate matching, I think. Otherwise yeah, the system is effectively rigged against low rated clans, whether that's intended or not. Maybe this issue might lessen if more players join (and therefore more lower-rated clans) but I still think it's and issue, and needs to be fixed; if you've got 20 players queued for a template, you should be prioritising getting 10 inaccurate matchups, as opposed to getting 5 accurate ones and having 10 players miss out.

Rento (and maybe others) already reported this as a bug, and Fizzer is working on this