Call of Duty: Warzone players take their games seriously. For all of the glitches, bugs, and unbalanced weapons that the free-to-play battle royale game has, its player base seems to only grow. However, that's not to say that players are entirely happy with the execution of certain aspects of the game—skilled-based matchmaking, in particular, has been a major point of contention among fans. Today we've learned that you might be able to get around SBMM and get an easier lobby, by simply making a purchase.
Call of Duty: Warzone, while free-to-play, has been one of the major contributors to making publisher Activision-Blizzard more valuable than it's been in 30 years. Of course, all of the money that the game generates must come in the form of micro-transactions. On the whole, these purchases are for cosmetic changes to weapons and operators, though there might be other fringe benefits to purchases that have gone unnoticed.
The Call of Duty news site @ModernWarzone shared information from another Twitter user who was tracking the difficulty of the lobbies that they were placed in. The user has a consistent K/D spread of just under 0.75 and, prior to making a purchase, was consistently placed in lobbies that are considered "gold" or "diamond"—where the average K/D spread of the lobby is above 1.0. Of course, the difficulty of the lobbies that you are placed in will fluctuate naturally depending on a variety of things, including your internet speed, and region—in addition to your skill.
Assuming that everything remained the same, with the exception of making a purchase, it would appear that this player did get placed in easier lobbies after spending some money. The difficulty of the lobbies dropped significantly two games after buying something. In the 40 games before spending money, the player only had two lobbies that were considered silver. In 35 games after making a purchase, the player was placed in silver-rated lobbies 19 times—and even found that they were placed in bronze-rated lobbies four times.
None of this is conclusive evidence that you will be rewarded with easier lobbies after making a purchase; nor is it anywhere near a guarantee that making a purchase will make things easier for you. It is compelling data, though. The situation is reminiscent of the "Dream" speedrunning scandal that ignited the internet a few weeks ago. As with that instance, we would need more information and (probably) a study of everything that goes into determining how a lobby is chosen before a conclusion can be drawn.