Guild Wars 2

Making it into Amber, Emerald , Sapphire and Ruby is not indicative of a players skill. Because you lock in tiers Amber-Ruby (ending in ruby) play enough matches (grind) and eventually you will make it into Ruby division. If you are in a lower division and see a player with a Ruby icon that may mean that player is in a team that has done exceptionally well and that they are a skilled player but it more likely means they have just been playing a lot more PvP than you have. Given enough games even horrible players will get carried enough to lock in tiers. This is also why solo queue is viable Amber to Ruby, however it’s going to be a very, very long haul if all you do is solo queue.

If you see a Diamond or Legendary icon, those are the players who made it where they did though a combination of skill and also grinding matches (probably feed on a a lot of meaty solo queues in the lower divisions).

TL;DR It all really starts it Ruby. If you don’t have a very good team, it all ends in Ruby. Everything before Ruby is really in place just to enrage the solo queue players, keep them queuing up and keep them going to the cash shop for boost items, skins, etc… (there isn’t a 1:1 relation with playing more hours of PvP and cash shop purchases, but players who play the game more in general spend more in cash shop. This has been documented by many other game studios and reports on monetizing and freemium models in general).

In the end, as much as we hate the current system it was designed this way for a reason. It allows them to maximize profits and to steal your time in the process. PvP in GW2 is a poison.