Yes.
If you climb too high, games will become too hard for you and you’ll start losing more than you win.
If you fall too low, games will become too easy and you’ll win more than you lose.
“Where you belong” is that sweet spot of inflection where things aren’t generally skewed for or against you. That’ll naturally result in a coin toss 50/50. Winning half the time and losing half the time is a good thing, because that means the matchmaker is found where you belong and can give you similarly ranked opponents.
I mean, I can’t really answer that. Many people conveniently claim its the rank they’re stuck in. To be fair, there’s an argument for all ranks.
Bronze and Silver: Bottom rungs of the ladder, even people in Gold (most populated rank) can drop down for some easy wins
Gold and Plat: Could have the most smurfs by the simple merit of just having the most players
Diamond and Masters: Higher ranked players just looking for a calmer game, maybe do some practice on a different hero
GM: Not really smurfs at this point, but still people trying to fill T500 with as many alt accounts as possible.
Literally anywhere could potentially have the most or be more dense with smurfs. It’s impossible to say without hard statistics, and that’s something not even devs know for certain.
What I will say though is it doesn’t really matter. Smurfs can throw off games here and there, yes, and they do make climbing more of a trek then it maybe should be, sure. But they’re simply not common enough to keep you down out of a rank you belong in. And even when they are in your game, it’s pretty much still a coin toss for which team they’ll be on, which results in another 50/50 evening things out, causing the main factor to still be dependent on you over time. This is why many people say “don’t focus on your teammates, just work on what you can do better.” Because given time, your performance is the single most consistent factor in your rank.
I agree that perception is important. But you have to realize that’s ultimately uncontrollable. You can have the same players playing with the same teammates and against the same opponents, and have widely varying results based on things such as map, attitude, or time of day. KotH games are great examples, honestly. You can have a one sided stomp at first, then come back to take the next two points and win. Same players, same matchmaking, but just a different map and a different outcome.
You can’t artificially create an illusion of fairness, you can only make things fair and hope it’s obvious.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Starcraft isn’t typically a team game. It’s impossible to falsely blame the matchmaker for rigging your teammates to force a loss when you don’t have teammates in the first place. If you lose, it has to be because the enemy outplayed you, and there’s no way around that. Compare that to this game where “I’m better than the enemy but my team’s dragging me down.”