Just went into rank after 7 years of playing. Play mainly in SEA server so I do know the toxic playstyle of SEA players, esp the more pos 1s the better (picking right clickers), hence not wanting to play rank for the past 7 years.
What made me change my mind was noticing how adapt I had in playing dota with better knowledge on warding and positioning, stack camping and all (for context I main pos 3 and 4, but can mid with heroes like huskar and Necro that are low learning curve heroes) and realising I'm beginning to lose interest in the game since ppl in unrank weren't playing seriously (match the other day had 4 pos 1s, and arguing with who should have been, etc.).
Ok so I finally tried my hand in rank (calibration so they put me at crusader/guardian matches) and played 2 matches today. Damn was it bad…
My 1st match was a win but felt toxic since offlane picked pa, which I felt was a decent choice since me (om) was laning with her and our lane was super easy (kotl and Luna) esp cus Luna wouldn't last hit and kotl would leave her and pull. My pos 1 tiny would toss pa deep into enemy tower to get ganked on and raped, and was like gg offlane pick since start of the game. But we won easily so there's that.
The 2nd match was the one I rly felt beyond fked up. For context, I picked 2nd lich as hard support (can't rly play hard support lich, and wanted to play other pos 5 heroes like bane or aa but aa was banned and lich felt better with luna) with luna (mid) as 1st pick. Bam! Enemy picked sk and silencer, it was bound to be a hard lane. My pos 1 then went on to pick dr (!) into an alr hard lane and didn't lvl gust til she was lvl 4… We got harassed so hard at safelane and mid somehow failed so hard against lion that lion ultimately had 17 finger kills at minute 24, it was practically gg. I camped at base with shadow amulet with dr saying gg no def, who ofc being SEA player went to def with the others and reported me. Couldn't rly support too because my Luna was hoarding the wards so hard that she would solo no smoke enemy jungle just to place wards when we weren't pushing but defending towers (no bkb for her and dr aft 24 mins, no infused raindrops nth to deal against magic dmg, not even nether shawl was picked up).
I personally know my skills are not good, esp as hard support, but I do know that my playstyle as pos 4 made me know where to place wards, stack camps, lane when pos 1 is farming, etc. I also know it's a diff angle from a pos 1 pov but wow the 2nd match felt worse than my past 3 months of unranked which included the occasional griefing, toxicity, blaming etc.
Forgive my rant but I'm new to the ranked scene and from what I've heard, what I experience in these 2 games is what the dota ranked scene is, but isit rly this bad? Esp in the sense of dealing with toxic behaviour and also the apparent skill difference (game 1 was to my advantage, felt like my team knew what they were doing, whereas game 2 was a fkfest, from the drafting to the fact that my Luna doesn't know how to deal with wards and get easy kills).
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/tk7u43/sea_rank_firsttimer/