My sleep schedule has been flipped lately so I’ve been grinding late night ranked games and the difference in player quality depending on the time is actually insane. At night it feels like you’re mostly playing against high skill players, sometimes it genuinely feels like Master or GM smurfs who punish every single mistake instantly. If you mess up even a couple of times they can completely shut down your lane and you’re basically stuck under tower without getting any gold and if you try to step up you’ll just get punished immediately or even hit with a 3 man gank under tower that makes the game feel unplayable.
Meanwhile in the morning or afternoon or what you could call genuine gold or plat players it feels like a completely different game. A lot of players just make really questionable decisions and the games feel way more random. It can honestly feel like a free win if you’re the only one actually playing properly but there’s always that chance you get multiple teammates who just run it down and you’re stuck trying to carry alone. They play so bad it tilts you (not me of course I’m a very nonchalant man I definitely don’t flame them at all!).
If I’m being honest though I think I actually prefer midnight games over morning or afternoon ones. Even though the games are harder players at night usually have better map awareness, track junglers more properly and actually use pings like missing no flash ignite barrier and so on. It just feels more structured overall even if it’s way more punishing.