How do I get into Low Priority?

There are two ways to get into Low Priority - abandoning games when they aren't safe to leave, or being reported.Valve is not transparent at all about the way these systems work, in order to prevent people from gaming the system, but I've done a great deal of hands-on testing and I can tell you generally how both of these methods work.You get one free abandon per week. I'm not sure when this resets but it seems to be over the weekend, probably on Sunday. On the other hand, it might be a week from when you last abandoned. This is intended to allow people who have poor connections or other issues that arise during the course of a game to be able to quit a game in good conscience without being punished.If you abandon more than once per week, you will get into Low Priority. This is not a 'cross your fingers and hope for the best' scenario - you will definitely get put into Low Priority for doing this, no exceptions.You will count as having abandoned if you are AFK for more than 5 minutes, or if you are disconnected for more than 5 minutes. If you're in a normal game and your team is competent, tell them that you have to go, share hero control with them, and cross your fingers. Do not disconnect; as long as you are connected to the game, that timer will not count down and you will only have to deal with the AFK timer. In Dota 2, being AFK is defined as 'not gaining XP.' If you gain XP, you're not AFK, even if you're not there at the computer.The second way to get into Low Priority is to be reported. This method was more difficult to test and is the easiest to abuse. The report system works automatically on a variety of heuristics (which are, obviously, not available to the public, but I've done a lot of testing and I think I've determined a lot of them).If someone gets angry and reports you, nothing is going to happen. A single report from a single player, or even from multiple players, doesn't matter. You are only going to be put into Low Priority from reports if you are reported over multiple games in a short period of time.Thanks to the introduction of the behavior report that you get every 10 games, you can tell more or less how many reports it takes to get into Low Priority. These are numbers that I've hand-tested, so I can't tell you if they're 100% accurate, but it seems like you need about 8 or 9 reports within that 10-game period in order to end up in Low Priority.In addition, I believe that reports made against other players in Low Priority either do not count or are greatly discounted. I have never had my Low Priority games reset due to reports while I was in Low Priority.Muting is a different issue which I haven't investigated. I have never been muted and while I believe it works on similar principles to being put into Low Priority by being reported, I am not sure.In simple terms, to avoid Low Priority, do not abandon or get an abandon more than once every seven days or so, and do not feed intentionally more than once every three games.I'm not sure if Low Priority acts any differently for Ranked games as opposed to normal games. Reports seem to function the same, as well as the one free abandon per week, but I would still be cautious of abandoning or feeding in Ranked games nevertheless.Because Valve have recently changed the number of reports available to players, and because of how the new UI works, there is a big loophole in this system: if a game becomes safe to leave (because, for example, you're feeding so hard someone gets fed up and abandons), anyone who leaves WILL NOT be able to report you. You can only report people at the natural end of the game now, and if you leave prematurely that option is no longer available.