Thought I might share some of the things that I've seen people do which loses them rounds or game control in general.

I'm in a position where I can go through the ranks relatively quickly, quickly enough where I can experience each MMR. Before anyone asks, I'm not a smurf (level 50~) and I used to play CS:GO (ESEA leagues etc) so I'm not a stranger to competitive FPS games. However, this is the first Act I've played properly (over 10 games).

Here's a breakdown of each rank I've been in:

Silver

I got silver 2 since I lost my first 5 placement matches playing with some friends. The MMR was a bit screwed up since we were versing plats and my friends are all silver, so my account was probably creating imbalances.

The biggest issue here is not aim but no utility usage. I'm also partly to blame for this as I only played Reyna (and barely even used her flash). Players in this MMR don't have the best game sense either, so utility will be more effective in this rank. There was also not much comms when I solo queued which was frustrating. I think if you're able to effectively call out information, players will naturally listen, unless they're on purposely being a pain.

Other than that, this MMR also has quite a few smurfs, on either sides. It's just something we have to deal with unfortunately.

To get out of silver:

• Don't focus too much on kills (although it's good to have great aim), focus on gamesense and ability usage. Smoke (or tell others) to smoke off things like heaven or link etc.
• Try and communicate with people. I'd say most people are down to listen provided you're not making bad calls or doing bad plays yourself while micromanaging others. A simple "lets rotate back to A and smoke heaven" is enough to win rounds.
• Understand what economy is. Don't force on bad rounds like the 2nd round after losing pistol. Better to wait for 3rd with a full buy.
• Learn proper cross hair placement.

Gold

I skipped to gold 2 after 4-5 wins in silver.

The issues I saw in gold are similar to silver, but people generally have better aim and better utility usage. I think the biggest issue here is that most people don't really know how to play their roles effectively. For example, initators not initiating for their duelists, duelists hanging back or being the last to enter a site. I think the best thing to do in this scenario is just to give a friendly reminder to your teammates ie "Breach do you mind flashing into site for me as I dash in every round, thanks".

This MMR also has quite a few smurfs, but players in this MMR seem to use their mics more. There are also some pretty decent aimers in this MMR but they're hardstuck because you can only do so much with aim.

To get out of gold:

• Repeat of silver - focus on utility use, comms and economy.
• Newly added: Try and play to your role, and encourage others to do so too. Duelists/initiators need to be proactive and not play like controllers/sentinels, controllers/sentinels don't need to play like duelists/initators. In my mind, ideally the initiators and duelists should be working with eachother the most. There is honestly nothing more satisfying than having an initiator make entrying more bearable for their duelists, which the controllers/sentinels set up for a retake/lurk. Obviously there's no cookie cutter way of how the team should play but in general, players in this MMR don't really mesh together.
• Learn proper cross hair placement.

Platinum

I personally think this is where the game kind of starts. Most of my games had multiple people with mics and the information often helped a lot. Players in this MMR also can be pretty good aimers (towards plat 3) which caught me by surprise. The thing that is still lacking is still an understanding of roles within the team, although I'd say most players are starting to play to their roles.

The thing that seems to separate players who know how to carry in this MMR are now more pointing towards raw aim and better gamesense. This is assuming that these players already know roughly what their role needs to do.

Game sense is a huge thing, it's more evident in platinum and above because it becomes increasingly hard to carry through just pure aim and ability usage, unlike lower MMRs. An example of game sense would be predicting where their lurker might be, or knowing how a particular enemy plays. Everyone has their own playstyle, for example, if the enemy team likes to push a lot, you can easily counteract that by playing slower and setting up util/holding advantageous angles. I've gone from 2-11 to 13-11 just because we figured out that if we play slow (or play super fast), the enemy can rarely adapt. I've also lost a bunch of games because the enemy changed their strategy to counter our playstyle. Unfortunately, sometimes it's impossible to get everyone in the team on the same page.

This MMR has less smurfs, but the smurfs seem to always be insanely good, like immortal+. However, it's also easier to counter smurfs if your team has good comms and knows how to play their roles. I also do find boosted players in this MMR (and probably in gold/silver too) but it's just way more obvious in this MMR. I've seen a fair few players who still aim at the ground or not understand their role in this mmr. In general, your aim should be sufficiently good enough where you can hold your own and climb even if you're solo queuing in plat.

To get out of platinum:

• Repeat of gold, although your aim should be pretty good by the time you're high plat.
• Develop game sense, try and understand how the enemy team are thinking and try counter it. Momentum is a huge thing is this game, so a few won rounds could mean the W. Seriously, don't just play the same losing strat every round and expect something to happen. Catch their lurkers off guard, learn who likes to push/hold.

Diamond

I feel like there are two sides of diamond. Low diamond (mostly low diamonds with a couple of plat 3s) and high diamond (all d2+ with immortals in the mix). Low diamond is pretty much the same as high plat so nothing new there. However, in diamond lobbies where everyone was d2+, I felt a huge difference in gameplay. I would say that my raw aim is my biggest strength but I felt like there were just better players with worse aim outduelling me. This is because they have better game sense than I do, and know how to use their util better. Players in this MMR generally know how roles work and it's rare to see baiting duelists or what not.

I've seen a few smurfs in this MMR and from what I can tell, they all have a very good sense of gameflow and just seem to know how everyone plays - on top of cracked aim. In the lower MMR's, a Jett updrafting would probably mean a free kill for me but some of the Jett's ive seen in this MMR will insta one-tap you during their updraft.

Something else I've noticed is that lobbies seem to be kind of uneven, there always seems to be one team which is much stronger than the other.

Here's some proof: https://i.imgur.com/qk0WsXB.jpg

Hopefully this was an interesting read.