Custom CC Games are way better than Ranked

[Atreus]

And do those other means include prominent Discord servers using the power of their large memberships to lobby the devs? Or is there something so cunning and subtle going on that it is completely invisible?

They include talks with community reps who are on the larger Discords (not mentioned here). They include discussions and collaboration with the JP playerbase, whose section sees far more engagement and hosts far better discussion. They include interactions with Yoshida himself, who actively participates in scrim days on JP. They include the tournaments we host that SE reps tune in to, where they constantly draw data on job balance. Even REDDIT gets better discussion than here.

I’ve spoken with at least two people who felt that Discord tournament communities were partially responsible for the queue time issues Ranked CC faced before 7.1.

I’m not sure how widespread this belief is

It's not, because that's insane. The queue time issues are because the reward for ranked is the same as it's been since season 1 with a different roman numeral. No one cares about them anymore. They only care now because the system is new and there's a bigger pool of players.

Maybe your negative experience is common and part of the reason for the skepticism expressed by some in this thread?

Without even knowing what his experience is, you're just dying for that sweet validation huh