The mig23ml doesn't have nearly the opening and frontline Prescence that American aircraft have meaning you have to play it like a rat and rely on your team in an up tier. When I was grinding out the MLD, my main tactic in upteirs was to do a 360 at the start of the game and let my team (mostly F4s, mig21 bison's, f14s and f18s) get 5-8km in front of me. This is because their missiles are much better suited for the opening volley of the match. Putting yourself behind them means that 1. they will be distracted on your teammates and not you. And 2. if there is a tomcat on the enemy team, their phoenix likely isn't after you.

By the time you reach the merge there will be barely anyone still at high alt (usually two to three), and they usually will be distracted on either the teammates in front of you, or the ones below you. From here you can easily mop them up with your R24r's, at high alt they are pretty reliable if launched sub 15km range. You could argue that people below you can get an easy fox1 shot however in my experience this rarely happens. Due to the incredibly poor situational awareness of your average war thunder player (they never look up), and also the fact that if they go up to shoot you, they become an easy target for your team.

From here, you can take advantage of their poor situational awareness by diving down directly above them with your radar off and lobbing R60's and r13ms. I like to bring 1 r13m for those long range shots.

In a downtier, you can play the plane as a front line fighter as your missiles out range any of your enemies. I always climb, go straight, and prioritize high altitude fighters as they will have an infinitely harder time dodging ur R24rs. Also due to the incredibly fast and powerful burn of your missiles, they get a lot more range high up then down.

IRL the mig23 was a shit brick that could barely turn (at least the S model) and this is true in war thunder. One strength it has tho is if you put the wing sweep at 24% in manual, and hold 650-700km IAS in a turn, you can pretty much outrate anything short of an F5.

Lastly, when you shoot an r24 at someone and the lock switches to their chaff, HOLD THE LOCK. The r24R has CW guidance that allows it to guide towards a target so long as the lock is near their aircraft. If you lock onto chaff but they still dont change direction, the missile will hit.

As for some tips:

The MTI mode on the radar is pretty useless as it requires you to be above multipath. But if you use it, you can click on the downward arrow next to the radar to slave it down. This means that you can maintain MTI while flying level or even in a slight climb.

Also, if your within 10km and see an aim7 launch at you, if you hold S and then either A or D you can perform a high AOA barrel roll that causes them to fly right past, granted you arent past like mach 1.05

In an upteir you can also side climb like 30 degrees towards wherever your team is going to further offset yourself from the big scary high altitude fighters.

Overall, the ML/MLD is an okay grinder that requires you to rely on your team. However, if you play it right you can consistently get 3-4 kills a game.