Introduction
I reached a low rank of around 600 in season two (after casually dropping in season one), and just touched platinum for the first time (at the end of season 11). As such, it is a good time to report lessons learned, in the hopes that other may benefit. Many of the guides out there are written by top players and aren’t really appropriate for someone stuck in the lower ranks, because they will never be stuck and their method for getting out often involves just having ridiculously good mechanics and killing everything. A genuinely new or weak player should have a more well-rounded approach to getting good.
Psychology
This game has a surprisingly significant psychological component. Tilt is the SR killer. If you find yourself yelling at your teammates (either over voice or internally), yelling at matchmaking, coming up with elaborate theories for why you are not the one at fault for your rating, take a break from competitive. Play quick play, arcade, a different competitive account, or some non-Overwatch activity. Don’t come back till you feel better.
Acknowledge that you are bad, and the only way to rank up is to get better. “Get good” is not a toxic statement. Getting good plus enough games played is how you gain SR.
There will be times when you lose many games. On one hand, it may not seem like your fault. There were leavers, trolls, attack Torbjorn’s, etc. However, if you were good enough, you would not have lost. You put any Overwatch League player in that match, on your account, and they would not have lost any games in gold or below (and lose very few in Masters and below).
SR is only accurate to +/- 250 in ordinary circumstances, and +/- 500 in extreme circumstances. Don’t take the slings and arrows of outrageous SR fluctuations too seriously. As your SR drops, think, “Hey my games should get easier now, good!” As your SR rises, think “I’m getting tested, I need to step it up!”
Patience is key. It took me two years, three months, and 555 levels to make it to platinum. Each transition bronze → silver, silver->gold, and gold->plat had multiple false starts and setbacks of hundreds of SR before I broke through for good. Now, if you are younger than me, can train your reflexes faster, and have more time (I’m a forty year old dad gamer) you can do it faster, but still: expect it to take a long time.
Technology
Many guides don’t talk about this, but having a good setup is key to having good aim. There are lots of guides on how to aim train, so I won’t talk about that.
- Have a 144 Hz monitor or better, and a video card and CPU that can reliably supply that many frames.
- Have a high quality gaming mouse and large mouse mat.
- Use low mouse sensitivity. I use 1600 x 2.25.
- Set your graphics settings low. High graphical settings will cost you frames and make it harder to see what is going on. I use The Ultimate Guide to Overwatch Settings - YouTube for the most part, though it is a bit out of date at this point.
- Choose a crosshair that help you aim. I use a green dot + circle, but there are numerous choices that are better than the default.
- Use high quality headphones. This will make it so you can hear footsteps of flankers and such, and get directional info. Don’t listen to music while playing. Be in voice.
Hero Choice
You should focus on a very small number of heroes, and work on getting good with them. Switching constantly will just make you bad at many heroes. Try to pick heroes that are both very effective when played well, and are not too team dependent. An example of a bad choice is Mercy. She is incredibly dependent on her team to perform well. If you damage boost someone that can’t hit anything, you are just wasting your time. If you resurrect someone who just feeds again, you’ve helped the enemy more than yourself. Reinhardt is also poor, as in the lower tiers people will not reliably stand behind your shield or move into the space that you create. I chose Zenyatta, who has worked out well, as when I do it well, I can cover both the healer and damage roles and I’m expected to shot call. Zenyatta is not the only choice.
Don’t Be a Hero
You’ll often here the advice, “Just carry yourself out”. This only works if you are grossly in the wrong rank, and will lead to you trying to 1v6, killing three, dying and then wondering why you team couldn’t win the fight. Well, they were in spawn. Which if you treated them like teammates instead of bots, you probably would have noticed. At every level, work with your team as much as you can. Try to make them better, and let them make you better. It’s a team game, and teams win games, not individuals.
VOD reviews
Generic guides like the one can only do so much. To really get insight into how you can improve, having a better player review your VOD is best. You can submit your request on various forums (reddit’s Overwatch University is best) or to various YouTube personalities. I can review VODs of support players in Gold and below.
Looking for Group
The Looking For Group feature came out when I had been in gold for several seasons, and helped get me to plat. I recommend it for anyone who plays in a region/platform/SR/time/day where there are enough players to find a group. It doesn’t magically fix your SR, but it makes the games more enjoyable, and it makes it feel more like a team game. Also, if you are a player who actively works with your team (as you should be) it may make ranking up easier (as it did for me). If you are a toxic lone wolf, it will probably make things harder. 
Also, if you always choose a team leader with an SR a bit higher than yours, you can improve the quality of your matches a bit more. Just beware, you are also improving the ability of the enemy team.
Low Bronze (< 1000)
Low bronze is a crazy, crazy place. You will have people that genuinely belong there, people that are trying to get even lower by throwing, people that are on their brother’s account and boosting it, battle Mercies who are somehow proud of having more elims than low Bronze Soldiers, outright trolls, occasional packs of trolls, etc. So a lot of the games will feel random. However, just work on fundamentals (how to kill, heal, use abilities, stay alive, etc.) and mechanics to be better than the average player (who is quite poor) and you will rank out reasonably quickly.
High Bronze (1000-1500)
Things will still feel really random. The truly atrocious players will be gone. Trolls, boosters, and throwers will still be there. Your goal should still be improving your mechanics and playing the objective. To get out, you should almost never lose a 1v1 (no matter what hero you are playing, or playing against) unless the other player is a booster. You should be learning how to avoid getting in situations where your odds are worse than 1v1.
Silver
Silver feels much the same as High Bronze, just with a somewhat higher level of play. The troll count will go down, but you will still have many people that are inaccurately ranked, often through no fault of their own. You should still be winning most 1v1s (unless the other player is a booster). You should also work on voice call outs. Try to get people to group up and attack the same targets. People often won’t listen, but it is good to get the practice. Don’t get too frustrated when people ignore you.
Gold
In Gold, games will start to be a bit more consistent (but streaks will still occur). Gold (especially above 2200 or so) is the first tier where you will get people trying to work as a team more than 50% of the time. Use this. Be active in voice, calling targets and getting people to group up. Try to pay attention to why you are losing, and make suggestions on how to fix it. Continue to work on mechanics and positioning to keep your kills/heals high and deaths low. Be aware of enemy ults and counters to enemy ults. Don’t use ults after the team fight (team fights actually starts to happen in gold, as opposed to lower tiers) is already won or lost.