<500 SR And Trying To Rank Up?

Competitive Discussion
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I can’t call out this person by name, because that is against policy, but can anyone actually get to <500 SR without intentionally deranking? There’s a person in the forums asking for VOD reviews and then arguing with people about how their wins were just luck.

Is anyone willing to claim that their skill BELONGS at <500 SR?

As someone who was around 700 SR, and climbed to low Gold (but then took a break and really belong around 1900 SR now), there are so few people below 1000 SR that are not throwers. I don’t mean people who lack skill and are “soft throwing”, I mean people who are deranking in order to abuse people. I know that people intentionally derank, because I get in LFG, join their groups, refuse to pick a role, and then get a list of names to report for Gameplay Sabotage. Some times I pull up LFG and there are THREE separate groups with 3-5 people already in them.

So… Does anyone actually deserve to be <500 SR?

If Sub 1000 SR Bronze games weren’t full of people and groups trying to derank and be abusive, would anyone even deserve to be <500 SR? What if Role Queue was Solo Queue only? Would this problem still exist?

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I have watched said person’s livestreams on Twitch playing comp (since I wasn’t able to watch the replays itself). And I could instantly tell from the first few minutes that he intentionally throws to lose.
I will give a couple of examples:

  • Intentionally walking into Hanzo’s Dragons and just sitting there until dead while throwing a fire strike to the ground instead of actually moving away.
  • Sitting in the backline of his own team as Rein and doesn’t help frontline
  • Constantly going back to spawn midfight while the fight is still winnable and his team is in the advantage, just to stand near spawn and hit random objects on the ground for no reason.
  • Only pushes when his team is already mostly dead and goes straight to enemy team to act like he is shooting and dies

I have also seen his quick play games. Some of them he throws hard with crazy amount of feeding, while other ones he is suddenly a “God” compared to these literal bots and just absolutely destroys without them scratching him.

He is definitely of around Gold skill level, but had intentionally decided to go down to bronze to troll and have some easy matches.

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without wanting to shame them, they probably have some form of RL handicap that makes playing the game incredibly hard for them. Like a very old machine with low fps, a bad internet connection, slow reaction times and so on.

some are simply smurfs/derankers.

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All of the mentioned things are out of the equation.

That’s where the mentioned person lies in

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In my experience, SR slowly declines for people that basically only play their placement matches each season. The population of lower bronze is so small that the number of throwers completely dominate the games. I was able to climb to around 1200 through intentional effort and focusing on a single character / role. The big break through for me to climb much more easily was getting a better monitor.

I guess asking someone to out themselves as deserving <500 SR is a little rude.

In the games I played in the 700-800 SR range, there weren’t players that deserved to be lower, there were just throwers and jerks who disrupted the games and made people despair.

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Hi. My skill is definitely in the botom 1%. I can say this with confidence because I: 1. never throw, 2. am not banned for throwing, 3. always intent to win, 4. am plat+ border therefore more than enough of a data trail, 5. matchmaker is definitely working as intended and there is no rigging and smurfing is basically a non issue.

I make a lot of mistakes that a 700-800sr player doesn’t make. That’s why I’m so low. In order to rank up, I have to consistently beat 700-800sr players, which I can’t seem to do.

Who are you talking about? Do you have some kind of written admission of them doing that? I know of zero <500 players that intentionally try to lose. Are you actually in that rank to? If not, speak for yourself.

Most people I see in <500 are there because they can’t beat players of the next rank up, the 600-700sr bracket is REALLY hard. That and, they play “differently” than people expect - which often leads to blatant false reports, false naming and shaming for throwing or trolling, etc.

Who are you speaking of and how are you judging that? I’ve never seen anyone throwing in <500 and I live there. There literally isn’t a place to derank to, and frankly if you can’t carry through someone having a bad/off day, with partial afk or mistakes etc…(what a lot of people view as throwing, trolling, or sabotaging)…then you don’t deserve your rank.

People in our games are always fixing technical issues, but I can see how this could be misinterpreted if the audience is wanting someone to fail, wanting to falsely accuse, wanting to prejudge someone as throwing, etc.

Really it just comes down to being able to carry a bunch of <500s to climb to the 600-700sr bracket where the gods come out. I never report anyone in my games for anything, EXCEPT inciting false reports, and I expect the same in return.

You have to walk a mile in someone’s shoes, and you should be giving <500 players the benefit of the doubt, unless they’re actively suiciding or mei walling as per literal in-game terms and conditions.

How did you ever get that low? Was it a lack of skill just like me and the person in question?

I do have another theory to offer you about <500 bracket, but it involves a lot of math. And basically everyone in the forum discord is just unwilling to math.

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Four years ago I was 100% <500sr. I’ve slowly climbed since then and now sit mostly in the 1800sr area so yeah… it’s possible for people to be under 500sr.

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  1. I know that there are throwers, I find them in LFG and report them
  2. I fell to 700 SR by only playing placement matches each season
  3. I failed to rise because I spent all my time blaming everyone else
  4. Sub 1000 SR and 1000-1500 SR were dramatically different games because of the increase in legitimate players as a percentage

My skill was never deserving of being sub 1000 SR. Throwers and infrequency of playing caused that decline. I got that low before Role Queue as well. Role Queue dramatically improved the quality of the game. I made the mistake of trying to swap too frequently and play basically random roles every game.

The people who were legitimately Bronze didn’t play significantly better or worse in lower bronze vs upper bronze. Their aim wasn’t worse, they didn’t feed worse, there were fewer trolls and throwers.

This is simply not true below 1000 SR.

If you want to be 1200 SR, you can be. You must play Role Queue. You must solo queue. You must focus on a single role. You must pick 1 hero to focus on. You should pick a 2nd as a backup in case the other person on your team wants your main hero. You will climb if you play 50 games per season.

This is clearly not true. The population of <500 is so tiny that there is basically no chance to have games of just <500 SR people that didn’t throw to get there.

In the 700 - 800 SR range, there were games of people that so clearly didn’t belong there. I had a game where the enemy team had a Mercy Ana duo that were running around murdering everyone and refusing to touch the cart. If everyone was the same skill level, then they would make a mistake and die eventually. If it was just a trickle fest and the whole 6 person team was staying alive and killing people, that would be understandable. But there were tons of games where clearly a duo or trio of people were getting their jollies by picking on poor bronzies.

It was routine for people to absolutely DESTROY my team, but then leave with 5 seconds left in the round so that they wouldn’t take a win and rank up.

For the people that belonged in 1000 SR, there was no significant difference between them and those encountered in 700 - 800 SR. The game quality was SOOOO bad below 1000 SR, that it was rare that games would lack clear smurfs.

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I know few people who are or were legit 500 players. Yes i played there too as experiment and i met many who are trying to rank up but they struggle from various reasons.

One bronze 700 player i know made it to plat recently.

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I met, over the years, 2-3 guys on xbox who were (high)goldish mid-season and as close as possible to 500 bronze at the end of the season. :sweat_smile: Recurring. :see_no_evil:

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Some will intentionally drank to <500. But not everyone.
When I’ve started playing, I was ranked <500 because I tried to play Doom fist when there was like 1 more second to every of his cool down and without learning the hero first. I was trying my best but I was a terrible Doomfist main and never touched Doomfist again when I reached <500.
I climbed a bit since then. I’m still bronze, though.

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Four years ago I was around 2300ish gonna hit 2500 soon…

I miss it, I’d forget overwatch and do it all again.

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When you have 12 deaths as Rein per match you deserve be close to <500. I fall there few times during this season. No I’m not charging 1 vs 6 or jumping from cliffs. I’m just bad. Slow reaction, coordination, bad physical conditions. People like me exists. It’s normal fair players. Don’t forget what not everyone good at dynamic fast games like overwatch.

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I have a hard time with this. Anyone who plays against a team that is a tier higher than them will have a large number of deaths. Yes, I think matchmaking works, especially in the highest population section (high silver - plat), but any time you’re in the wrong place, you’ll die a bunch. Dying often doesn’t mean that you automatically deserve the bottom possible rank, just that you need to be adjusted down a little.

I guess here’s the main thing: I don’t trust the players in sub 1000 SR to actually belong there. From experience, I think people just get beaten down and have a defeatist attitude, and they are helped along by all the throwers that are there to screw with them. As I recently put in another reply or post, I’ve seen so many instances of clear abuse in the Sub 1000 SR range…

So it is routine for people to derank in order to screw with people.

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unfortunately yes.

There are differences between players within ranks as well. It doesn’t even have to be a tier.

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Yes, and a corollary to that is this: As a 610sr player zoning into a 700sr match with say, 800-900sr skilled players, there is no way you could be expected to carry. And yes absolutely your best intent gameplay will look like throwing. Playing like a 900sr (whether throwing or sabotaging or not) would technically be carrying the match.

It’s like if a Diamond played like a plat to carry a gold match. They’re sandbagging their performance, but it’s still technically well above the contributions expected of that rank.

To win a <500 match you should have to play like a 600-700sr player. And to be hosted in a 700-900sr match you better believe the sweat level, performance that is unable to impact, and some very terrible stats. No real debate on these issues, that’s just how a fair unrigged system has to work. All bets are off though, if the game is rigged - at that point SR evaporates and is no longer an indicator of skill (even remotely).

As someone who lives in the <500 for 25hrs/week, I should statistically NEVER be the one carrying. In fact, I should be reviewing the gameplay footage of these 900sr players for tips and tricks to see what I can/should be doing to become better and make fewer mistakes. No1 is trying to be silver, just not the worst possible rank in the game for 4+ years straight. High bronze tips and tricks would suffice.

There is just no way a <500 player, certified labelled paid out for this many seasons, can ever hope to not be carried. If I’m in the match, those 800sr gods better show me how it’s done.

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For some, but there is many reason why people do it. Those who do it to destroy bronze players for fun are minority tho.

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Yes, I’m the person you’re looking for. I’m the one who tries very hard to play well and do my best in game, but only possesses the skill to be <500. I’m not there yet, but I’m close. At 527 sr I’m just a few games away from being <500.

So, yes, we do exist as natural players. There are those of us out there who truly are so bad at this game that we rank amongst the bottom 500 players in the game.

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Ugh, getting out of sub-1000 as support SUCKED. I tell this to everyone who plays support but make sure you’re following someone and no matter how bad the team is support your dps and use corners - be aware of sight lines.

Playing support made me 100% better at the game as a whole…

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Oh absolutely. I’m working on trying to be better. I was just making my response to the OP, who believes that anyone in <500 is only there because they do so intentionally. Its just not true. Some of us lack the skill to be able to play at a level higher than the worst in the game. I’m sure we all work to do better, but for some of us, it just doesn’t click.

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