Apex SBMM is ruining my life. You’re telling me out of 70 million worldwide players, Respawn Entertainment can’t find anyone for a Public Lobby of my same skill level and instead has to smush my squad in with a team of 20 kill badge ‘Apex Predators’? I don’t think so.

Players like me, who average a few kills per game, delight in moments of absolute beastliness, yet fall prey to panic easily, can’t be in the minority. So why do my squad and I constantly find ourselves in casual lobbies where we have seemingly a 1% chance of winning?

The problem doesn’t lie within the Apex player base. It lies with the makers of the inherently flawed skill-based matchmaking system that Apex employs – the devs of Respawn Entertainment.

Some may find it to be a fun challenge to face off against players deemed “better” than them. I am not one of those people. I groan when I see a TTV_Wraith announced as the Champion for my match with her 25k kills, and my confidence immediately wilts. This goes without saying, I’ve clapped many a predator in my time. But it’s taken far too much effort, and more than a bit of luck to do so. Why can’t I just get even gunfights, where everyone involved is ‘good’, but still a bit rubbish; just like me?

It has become more than frustration at this point. From adoring this game to the point of obsession, I now sigh when I hear the ping of the group chat and sink into my chair, ready for the merciless torture to begin. SBMM has basically eliminated casual play in Apex Legends.

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HOW DOES APEX SBMM WORK?

That is the question on everyone’s lips. While many claim Apex SBMM is a broken system, and no one truly knows how it works, with a lot of blood, sweat & tears (and extensive research); I believe I’ve cracked the code.

The overall skill of any one lobby of players you’re matched up within a ‘Play Apex’ playlist may depend on the following elements.

If you’re in a pre-made squad

And they are of a similar overall skill level to you (above average, for example)

Or they are of an overall higher skill level

Your K/D ratio

Your Account Level

Your Ranked Tier

Your performance in the last few games (kills, damage, placement [or win])

These elements determine the idea of an ‘overall’ skill level, and a combination of these should work together to place you in a match with similar stats for more even gameplay.

Obviously, a lot of elements feed off each other, i.e. you’re guaranteed to be a pretty high Account Level if you’re a Platinum Ranked player, and your K/D ratio will be above average if you consistently perform well in matches etc.

As for the pre-made squad element, taking from Apex Ranked where you join the highest players rank for matchmaking, I think that’s what’s going on in public Apex SBMM.

In a now-deleted Reddit post by u/gonnagofarkidtr, the Apex player explained their research into SBMM, citing that once they reached Account Level 15 with a smurf (a throwaway account an experienced player makes in an effort to get placed in lower-ranked matches; we'll discuss smurfs in more detail later), they were placed into lobbies with Apex Predators, but as they started to ‘throw’ games (killing themselves immediately), they noticed that those Predators began to disappear from the lobbies.

They went on to discuss the fact that the account began to not only eliminate Apex Predators from lobbies but also Diamond players, after 15 deaths in a row. This backs up the element of SBMM that deals with performance in previous games.

From this test, we can glean that perhaps a win will almost guarantee you a tougher lobby next time you ready up.

SBMM should be a good thing, allowing lower-tier players a chance to improve, and higher-tier players a chance to hone their skills. In reality, every game starts to feel like a Ranked match and has some players turning to other games to get their fix of Battle Royale action.

In a now-viral Reddit post, u/dannypereira21 vented about their experience with SBMM in Apex Legends, saying most notably “I can’t just jump on and have a good time anymore. It’s not fun, I am continuously killed by premade squads who have a collective kills of 100,000.”