One of the contentious exchanges in this forum featured someone asking if s/he should be expected to carry bad teammates in order to advance tiers. In a word: Yes. Here’s why. (You can skip to the summary if you’re afraid of words.)
Major League Baseball teams have minor-league affiliates at the Triple-A (AAA), Double-A (AA), and Single-A level (yes, there’s also rookie ball and such, but we’re keeping this simple), in descending order of proximity to the majors. Within each division, there will be a broad range of players. Some guys will be sure-fire major-leaguers just getting their reps; some guys will have one great minor-league season and get a brief shot at the majors; some guys will never make it out of the low minors.
Being one of the better players in AAA might net you a call-up, but it doesn’t mean you are actually able to perform at the next level. You might just be a really good AAA player.
In baseball, even one dominant player can’t affect his team’s chances of winning as much as in a sport where the top player spends most of the game on the floor.
If you put an NBA player on a high school basketball team, they would win every single game. If you put that player on a college team, they would at least win most of their games; they could go undefeated if the rest of the team was good. Put the guy in the D-League, and his team will likely win the majority of its games. Put him back in the NBA, and he’ll be at the mercy of the rest of the roster. Why? Because he is no longer so much better than everyone else that he can carry.
I’ve played a fair number of games. I’ve seen very good players and very bad players and I’ve studied both. The biggest difference between the levels of play is the speed at which everything happens. Better players make decisions faster, react faster, and push their buttons faster than lesser players.
When a player carries, s/he is so much better than the opponents that it generally doesn’t matter how weak his/her teammates are. Every fight will be over very quickly. It doesn’t matter if teammates are making bad rotations, dying, disconnecting; the player carrying through that division is good enough to overcome all of it. If the carry is consistently impossible, then that player does not actually belong at a higher level.
I spent most of this season in Gold 3, which I consider to be fair because I think of myself as slightly above average. Back when I played a lot more, I might have been good enough to stick in Platinum, but I simply don’t play as much and I’ve grown rusty. I rely on my understanding of rotations and matchups to compensate for my degraded mechanical ability.
I am Gold, where for most people “proper rotations” means key-turning in a circle. You will see some decent players, but a lot of the gameplay is downright awful. My inability to carry myself into Platinum is my inability. I am good enough to be one of the better players in Gold; I am not good enough to carry bad teammates to the extent that I would move up. Is it sometimes frustrating? Sure, but I know that if I were to be advanced a division, I would be one of the weaker players, and that’s not much fun, either. It’s on me to improve or to accept being a pretty fish in an ugly pond.
Summary: There is a broad range of ability in any given division. If you are so much better than the competition that you can carry your team to victory sufficient to climb tiers, then you belong in the higher tier. Once you are at a level that you cannot carry, then you have in most cases found where you belong. You might be a good player for your tier, but you’re still in the right tier.