Made a comment to just point out the blatant stupidity of 90% of the comments on this thread. Why're people trying to justify bots? "Newer player's won't notice, so it doesn't matter." "You're smurfing so why're you complaining?"
Who the fuck cares if he's smurfing, he's not breaking the ToS? The amount of bots, and de-ranking bots in particular completely does ruin low elo. I've played at every elo up to masters, and when I played in Iron/Bronze 4, I noticed a concerning amount of bots. A concerning amount, as in I would see one every few games. And this is a legitimate reason as to how some people can be stuck in the elo.
For anyone trying to act like it's not a problem: Level a new account. And then play your first game of placements, most of the time you'll see a bot on the enemy team or on your team :>. It's always in the 1st game because they're really low elo.