What actually got me finally to Plat this season

Competitive Discussion
1

I have my main account somewhere around high gold, with more than 300+ levels and plenty of game time. I strongly believed I didn’t belong in this rank. That all matchmaking did was also take into account all the past mistakes from the long forgotten times I was in silver. Was tired of getting +27 SR for win and -25 for defeat. Was tired of the grind speed of ranking up I ws getting, being always around 50 SR higher each season. So, I got myself this account for two purposes:

  • Check if you will get placed around the same spot your main account is.
  • Do not care about the rank fanatically. Do not care about SR, as this is ‘smurf’ account, just play your best, play the heroes you want and just focus on being better.

Long story short, got placed around the same SR brackets as Main. The bubble popped - I really did belong in gold. Did not carry, was not top tier player, not on the path to pro with OWL contract waiting around the corner. I, naturally, got angry. At the game, at myself. I started tilting hard on this account too. Even when the purpose was clear - git gud, I still couldn’t stomach the idea of the same SR as the main account.
I used to watch a lot of these yt videos on how to get to (rank name here). Some of them are better, some of the are as useful as inflatable dartboard. But one thing out of all the ‘positioning / map tips / aim guides’ got to me. “You are in Gold. Shotcalling or positioning mistakes will happen, you should focus on improving yourself first.”

And so, I did.

I like to think that myself - as everyone else - is tired of toxicity on the ladder (even though I also humbly accept I had my fair share in that regard). Of tilters who swap to Widowmaker mid throught the game to “hard-carry”, or Torb mains on Oasis. Of people who use the voice comms to simulate puking / burping/ farting noises, or decide to tell what they did to my mother or myself when the Defeat Screen shows up.

So what did I do at the start of Season 10?

I know this isn’t ‘canon’ way of playing the game. I do realize I might be making a huge mistake by doing this. But so far, it has worked for me more than it didn’t.

When the match starts, I turn off absolutely all communications. Match, team, voice comms. I mostly lock Tracer I was so desperate to main for quite some time, disgregarding the Torb / Symmetra mains. During the match, I use the built-in communications, asking for heals and informing the team about the ult status. I flex too, if I get countered hard.

It requires more focus on the team positioning and tracking the kill feed more closely. But my main focus is improving myself, mechanically and in terms of awareness.

I have just recently surpassed the magical border of Platinum. I’m low Plat, but I am finally plat. I don’t blame people for what they do, I focus on the mistakes I make and what can I do better and how to improve. And I don’t have to listen how trash I am, because of a mistake I did, or because of a mistake of someone else.
Maybe, if I still will continue climbing I will turn on the voice comms again. For now, I am just happy to be where I am, and am looking forward to improving in the near future. And the games were never less toxic then they are now.

TLDR:
Bought second account to test SR for Main, got placed same rank, tilted, decided to improve and focus on myself; turned off all match comms and started climbing.

1 Like
2

Moral of the story, just play the fucking game

3

Congrats, it’s good to hear :slight_smile:
Have fun!

4

Comms are huge part of the game. But the truth is that it can affect both ways. Good comms can carry you few hundred SR up and bad comms can drop you down few hundred SR. I never understood those guys who think flaming and fighting their own team helps them to win some how. Some of then even come on forums and tell a sob story how they got muted because they just “told truths” about their team mates. Sure some times my team mates aint the best but I see 0 reasons why I would tell someone “f*cking noob” or something like that and thin its gonna some how increase my chance of winning.

5

It could also mean that most accounts get thrown in around the same by design. After all there aren’t really algorithms in place that could detect player skill and all that counts is just Matches won, and/or relative performance of your Hero which is just as idiotic considering that ones performance in this game can be directly proportional to the performance of the random strangers you get. Be it teammates or enemies. You could finish a game 41/2 kd but because it was a complete stomp there was nothing to it. Another match only 21/ 5, but this could’ve been the better performance if the enemies were really strong or your teammates complete potatoes. ect ect

This one you can easily test by doing placements duo with a complete dud and see if you get the same rank.
Funfact I did this and the funny thing was that I even placed lower.

TL;DR The placement fiasco is the root for the obvious skill differences in between teams of the same ranking.
Hence why Your Casualwatch ranking is meaningless.

6

Well the old system seemed to be pretty accurate. People thought that when the new system comes the torb and symm OTPs in top 500 will drop down because they were abusing the system. But they are still there and that proves that it was working (not talking about few extreme cases that happened with mercy for example and was fixed).

You performance wasnt monitored one by one game. Just to prevent when someone threw game you would lose SR normally, not -100SR because you did horrible. If you played at that era you would know this.

Look above.

Ive played since beta. I have 3 accounts total. Some seasons I played placements with total potatoes and it didnt ever affect my SR really. Pretty much every season Ive done Ive placed within 100SR (-50 to +50). I think my best was 9-1 and worst 2-8. Still going pretty accurate each season with the placements.

TL;DR Im stuck in a rank cuz I have mentality of a kid and I blame my teams for not ranking up. Im perfect I do no mistakes so I cant improve, only my teams could improve but Im unlucky.

7

thank you for your idea