Every Way to Get Easier Lobbies, Ranked by Risk and Effort

Here’s the short version: what each method costs, what it risks and how well it works. Free methods come first, and ours comes last.

Activision’s published matchmaking research, written about core Multiplayer, describes searches loosening their targets the longer they run, because a slow search means there aren’t enough players to match you as tightly as it would like. The skill target loosens faster than the connection target does.

Fewer players online means more of that loosening, which is the whole case for queueing late at night. It’s free, but the effect is weak, it can cost you ping, and it only helps if you can play when everyone else is asleep.

Partying with a genuinely lower-skilled friend works on firmer ground. The same research treats a party as one unit, and its own example puts a 99th-percentile player partied with a 50th-percentile player in the middle of the two, not at either player’s level.

That’s why your friend gets stomped when you play together, which we explain in why lower-skilled friends struggle in your party. It’s free and completely safe. The catch is that it depends on them being online, and the lobby is rougher for them than they’re used to.

The theory is that turning crossplay off keeps you away from PC players, so lobbies get easier. What it actually does is narrow the pool you draw from. It doesn’t change how matchmaking measures you: Activision builds your skill from your kills, deaths, wins, losses, the modes you play and your recent matches, and that comes with you into any pool.

Activision’s own settings label turning crossplay off as worse for matchmaking quality, and on PC through Steam or Battle.net there is no off switch at all. We haven’t seen any evidence that a smaller pool means softer opponents.

The idea is to play on a second account whose record says you’re worse than you are. Starting one mostly costs time. But matchmaking learns from recent matches: the better you play on the alt, the faster it stops looking like a low-skill account, so the effect fades the more you use it.

The upkeep is the real cost. An alt has its own progression, unlocks and camos, and none of it counts toward your main.

Buying a ready-made low-K/D account is a different matter. You inherit whatever was done on it: Activision’s enforcement policy holds the account holder responsible for any infraction on the account, no matter who was playing.

VPN routing sends your connection through another region in the hope of drawing from a softer pool. We’re covering it for comparison only, because the trade is poor: Activision says connection is a top priority for matchmaking, so a route that adds ping works against the system from the start.

It’s also a gray area. Activision’s enforcement policy doesn’t mention VPNs by name, but in November 2024, as part of its Ranked Play security updates, Call of Duty adjusted ping thresholds so players have to play in their own region, specifically to cut down on VPN abuse.

It usually costs a subscription on top of the ping, and results vary. A VPN also changes where you queue, not who you queue with. Your party still reads as you.

Reverse boosting means deliberately throwing matches on your own account to drag its skill down, then playing properly once it’s low. We won’t describe how, because it’s the worst trade on this list.

Activision’s current enforcement policy lists boosting as an infraction, and an earlier Call of Duty security policy named reverse boosting outright and punished it with suspensions and bans.

It’s also the opposite of 2boxing. Reverse boosting tanks your own account’s record, while with 2boxing your account plays normally and the low-K/D teammates are separate accounts in your party.

2boxing and 3boxing mean queueing with one or two extra accounts that have a very low K/D, and it’s one common way players get streamer lobbies. Think of it as the lower-skilled-friend method without needing a friend online: you join a queue for your region instead, and our accounts are manually played to keep their K/D extremely low.

Doing it yourself used to mean a second console, another copy of the game and backing the extra account out by hand. With Zerobox it runs from Discord: join the queue for your region and, when it’s your turn, friend the bot once (it accepts automatically), join its party, pick a mode and hit Search.

Our accounts back out before the match starts, and your own account plays it normally. Nothing is installed and no game login is shared. A 2box region leaves room for up to two friends; a 3box region, one. Max adds Black Ops 7 Multiplayer 3boxing, and we’ll support Modern Warfare 4 Multiplayer from its launch day, October 23, 2026.

If you mainly play Warzone, you may have heard skill barely matters there now. Since Season 01 in December 2025, its non-Casual modes have used Open Matchmaking, where skill is minimally considered. Minimally, not zero. In August 2026, Call of Duty said every game in the series has had matchmaking that considers skill, and party composition is on its list of factors, the one 2boxing works on directly.

On risk, our position is the same as our FAQ: 2boxing and 3boxing aren’t bannable, and from a matchmaking perspective it’s no different from playing with friends who have low K/Ds. The full reasoning is in our guide to whether 2boxing is bannable.