‘Fresh Placement Accounts’. In Korean, they’re called ‘생배’, but for our convenience, let’s just call them FPAs. It’s a term that the Korean community started to use to label those accounts that have never played placement games in ranked solo/duo queue, or those that have just finished their placements.
These FPAs are ruining the KR solo queue environment, especially on the top of the ladder. If you take a look at the rankings in Korea, there are quite a number of these FPAs. The win/loss records and the win rates of these accounts aren't that different from the other accounts. However, these accounts have a lot more LP, and the reason behind this is because these accounts gain more LP through winning, but lose more LP from losing.
To understand more about this, you need to understand how MMR [Matchmaking System] works. It’s a totally different concept from how LP works in LoL. It’s a measurement system in League that shows you which players you’re paired up with. It’s not visibly shown, but it’s definitely there. If you go on a win streak, your MMR rises, so you’ll play with those in higher tiers. If you go on a loss streak, then you’re paired with those in lower tiers than you. It’s all because of the MMR system. And the FPAs take huge advantages from the existing MMR system.
One other term that’s heavily associated with these FPAs is called ‘Low-tier Duo’. Again, for our convenience, let’s call them LTDs for short. LTD stands for those that duo queue with someone that’s one tier lower than them. If your tier is Gold, then your LTD partner would either be Silver or Platinum, if Platinum, then Gold or Diamond. You get the idea. In cases like this, the MMR system averages out the two accounts’ MMRs, but when the LTD partner’s account is of lower tier. That’s when FPAs become troublesome.
FPAs aren’t trouble just because they start building their MMR from scratch without game history from previous seasons. They’re trouble because they have abnormal win streaks in normal games from level 1 through LTD, thus having abnormally high MMR. If the LTD is Diamond/Master level players, normal games would be a piece of cake for them, and Bronze-Platinum would be an easy win streak. Even if the streak gets broken, they can just simply create new accounts, thus allowing these FPAs to easily reach the top of the solo queue ladder.
“But if you’re a Diamond player, wouldn’t you simply not be able to survive in GM/Challenger queue?” There’s a very illogical answer to a very logical question. Because these FPAs have such high MMR, they don’t lose a lot of LP when they lose. If they keep losing, then the LP gain/loss would eventually even back out with normal accounts. However, during that process, players that play with those that use these PFAs would suffer.
High elo games [Grandmaster/Challenger] are very different from your normal ranked games. It’s the place where pro gamers spend almost every day practicing to get better. On the KR server, there are pros from both in and outside of Korea that occupy the top of the ladder each season. That’s why these games are closely correlated with the professional league. The high level gameplay must be maintained at all cost.
If you think that this is a problem that only applies to a select few, then you’re definitely wrong. Recently, the FPA problem is also plaguing Platinum/Diamond elo in Korea. Some high elo players even announced that they’ll no longer play ranked solo queue out of frustration. Solo queue LP is a very sensitive topic for pro gamers, as pro teams commonly set LP goals for their players [I'd know, since I've also set LP goals for players in the past as well in my previous tenure as head coach]. Solo queue is slowly dying because of unfair competition, thus an overhaul on the MMR system needs to happen quickly before even the pro players start to stay away from solo queue.
