My friends and I have had some weird experiences lately. Friend #1 is not a great PvP player. She would play with our raid fireteam leader sometimes (a skilled player) but a few weeks ago said she couild never play with him again, because she would get wrecked by the competition he was bringing due to the SBMM. Running solo she would do fine, would often be at the top of the scoreboard. When I play with her (I'm average), we have a lot of fun, and do well usually; I think our particular combo gives us opponents we can beat (like maybe our actual skill level is higher than our 'rating'). We had been playing an increasing amount with Friend #2; he's less experienced and has been learning, but has good gun skills. His stats have been steadily rising. We'd been having a lot of fun playing together (the three of us), winning a lot. Suddenly, playing with Friend #2 has become horrible. Last week he messaged me saying "Help!" because suddenly he couldn't win a match and felt like he was constantly running into MLG players. I wondered if he had gone up a tier in SBMM matchups when his skill level wasn't really ready for it. I joined up with Friend #1 and Friend #2 last night; they said they had been having a horrible experience and had just lost 7 matches in a row. Playing with them I was brought into their hell- we won one match but the rest it was like we were mired in mud. To me it actually felt like a connection issue (somehow my shots didn't seem to do damage and the enemies seemed unkillable). I messaged them that something seemed wrong. Friend #2 was ranting, couldn't understand how we were constantly getting dominated. I have no idea why playing with Friend #2 has suddenly become unbearable. It sounds like you're somehow caught in a bad part of the SBMM algorithm curve. As others have commented, I've seen a strong effect going in solo vs a team, and a very strong effect of having a lesser-skilled player or two on the fireteam. A few Iron Banners back, I went in solo and struggled with a 0.6 K/D over a few matches. Joined a team with four solid players and two really poor players (was common for them to have a 0.19 or 0.3 K/D for the match). The fodder brought in by our weaker players meant we went 12-1, and I averaged a K/D of over 4 for those matches. After that, I joined my raid fireteam leader (skilled player) and Friend #1; I had a K/D of 1.3 over three matches. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that in that 12-1 run, the weaker players weren't doing great, but our team won and won- so it's like we were in a favorable part of the SBMM algorithm curve somehow, whereas you're in an unfavorable part (your team loses and you're not having fun). Maybe your friends are too high a skill level compared with the people I play with. Anyway, just some thoughts- and as many say, perhaps the only way we can get past these kinds of issues is to actually someday get good connections in crucible, so we don't have to wonder what is lag, what is causing the lag (SBMM forcing long-distance matchups), and see if a well-designed SBMM algorithm will work when connections are solid. I hope your health improves.