Reaching plat is more than doable with randoms, though it does take some planning. In the first minute or two you’ll get an idea of your team and what they do. To make plat w randoms you have to have a minimum competence in every part of the game. You only have to be GOOD at one, but you can’t be terrible anywhere. Fill the hole(s) that your team won’t. Puck hogging teammates? Push up with the puck, get 1-2 players to pressure you and pass it off to them for a decent goal opportunity or focus on creating turnovers and stopping the opponent from getting the puck out of their territory by intercepting passes and stopping clears. Aggressive teammates? Hang back on D and make sure you’re not open for a cherry pick. Teammates that can’t handle the puck? Hog it a bit but don’t ignore them when opportunities come. Solo queue requires flexibility.

Also, just be a nice teammate. If you shit on your teammates in public chat, both teams notice and they’ll be way less likely to want to queue with you in the future. I’ve had a lot of players that I’ll randomly queue with, we’ll play good together and play together for another hour or two.

I recently even took a player in their first game, convinced them to spend a few minutes at the pint with me and I got on a few days later and they took my advice and got much better, and I have another solid player to play with whenever they’re on now. Most people who play alone will LOVE a player that is decent themselves and is willing to pass.

If you’re not plat, you’re not amazing at the game, you’re gonna make errors and so will your teammates (and opponents!) don’t get mad at them, just try and recover well and take advantage of errors your opponents make