Very recently.
I was going to ask what you meant, because the quickmatch one was random warlords last I'd played it, but I just checked and you're right, it is indeed full distribution now.
Small Earth 1v1 Auto Dist also seems to be full distribution now.
https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=16184816Here's a Auto Dist game from a few weeks ago to show that it definitely used to be random warlords as well.
As for the reason, my guess is Fizzer decided the early templates weren't cancerous enough as is, they needed to be made even worse.
"This change was made so players were more familiar with full dist RoR cancer."
Like, seriously, no. Yes, random warlords manual dist on small earth is very often a pick lottery. Yes, this change does, sort of, fix that.
What it does instead, is turn it into a farming template where people make the exact same picks every game. That's exactly what we want to introduce new players to the game to - Raputin/Beelzebub style farming - where new players get steamrolled by people playing on autopilot.
Edited 9/3/2018 13:26:43