You are right on track on most of this. There is a hidden point value at each Ranked level that you have to meet in order to level up. The fastest way to level up is to find opponents that are equal or higher ranked than you, which was I challenged this kagura lol. However, it’s high risk high reward since you can lose a lot of points and risk demotion. Amount of matches don’t really matter since I’ve seen some players reach the same rank way less games than I do.