User blog comment:Texas Snyper/Elo Hell and You: Part 1 - The Impassable Barrier/@comment-92.100.91.189-20110911204849/@comment-3360527-20110913223136

MM does not work like that. It doesn't give you 4 noobs and match you up with 5 good players. It tries to find 10 players that are all within a close enough range and match them up into 2 teams with as close to equal total Elo rating as possible, then match the overall lesser rated team on the (i believe) purple side. I forgot which it is, but I think the purple side is worth approximately 50 Elo pts extra to the team total due to slight differences between the two sides.

I could be mistaken and it might be the blue that is worth 50 pts.