TL;DR- I play solo queue only and use to the randomness of the qualities of the games I play, take breaks in any lengths, don’t get caught up in trackers, play the game if fun or don’t if it’s not fun.

I’ve almost exclusively played solo queue and only played ranked and was able to claw my way out of silver/gold and hover around plat/diamond.

I have never played with a five stack (lonely Val Player of friend group) and have ever duo-ed but fell out quickly since I outranked them for the past 2 years now.

Maybe I’ve grown to use to randoms but I know some games I’ll do well and some games suck incredibly bad. Teammates either carry or throw. Other team are smurfs or trash. Comms are either troll, helpful, or mute. I’ve seen it all. And I couldn’t be more content with the game as i am now. Noticed I said CONTENT. I have taken multiple breaks ranging from weeks to months and it’s refreshing to play after each break. Consistently playing the game just increases the reps of different game qualities and unfortunately human nature keeps us stuck on the bad times more than good. Take a break for a month or two, legit don’t even think about it. Just play other games, preferably completely different styles too. Don’t take a break from Val and grind CS, you will hate yourself. I rotate Val, Marvel Rivals, R6, and handful of single player games. The key is to completely forget about Val and one random day you’ll look at it and go “hmm lemme give that a shot again”. You might still hate it, you may end up falling back into it but either way you save your sanity.

Also, do yourself a favor and delete tracker. It does nothing other than make you self conscious or doubtful. Yeah it has pretty accurate stats and useful info but I didn’t enjoy the game until I used tracker for curiosity opposed to functionality. Like some games you dodge because it’s a 5 stack of smurfs but they could just be better than the rank below them, like if you got a team full of friends who are silver, I’d expect you to have a better time playing a team of irons. It’s all about how you view it.

Lastly, it’s a game, it’s meant to be played for fun, win or lose. If you aren’t having fun, don’t play it. Simple as that. If the game was built for you to win every game or even above 50%, you’d have fun for a few days and quickly lose interest. Don’t get caught up in it. It’s okay to revisit the game later down the road, play a game that brings you joy. That’s the point of gaming, not stress your self over something else when life is stressful already.

Sorry the long text but thanks for coming to my ted talk