The point of my post is that currently the ranks do not convey any perceptible skill level. It's why currently 14% of all playerbase is stuck in Initiate I, which is 5 times the size of any other rank division. In my games I have players who range from 'playing for the first time' to having perfect mechanics and decision making. There is nothing that defines an Arcanist, a Ritualist player; or a player of any particular rank.
I'm not sure if any action can qualify as 'deserving to be out of a rank' if at most a player can hope for is having an above 50% winrate. I could reach whatever rank I want after playing a 1,000 games at 52% winrate - but it would be reached not as much as a result of improvement but the sheer amount of games played.
If ranks actually conveyed a certain attitude or skill expression then it would be possible to counteract it and have a high win-rate for the rank (60%+). As it is currently you can meet any type of player at any rank (who knows if that is partially as a result of smurfing). The result is that you're not trying to outwit a particular skill group - you're trying to outwit the meta-game of the ENTIRE ladder, starting from Initiate I to Eternus. By doing so you can only hope at a slightly above 50% winrate at most.
That's not also to mention that maintaining the winrate can only be done with characters that are designed to snowball and effectively slaughter the enemy team. That is, characters like Mina and not something like Paige.
Playing Paige well result in games like this, which will make your winrate even closer to 50% therefore taking even more games to rank up. I don't think I will have Mina results playing Paige. At least playing Paige thematically and not something like gun Paige.
It also does not help that I have supportive tendencies and I like sacrificing myself for objectives. It's good in theory but not when most games hinge on killing the enemy (so that they don't kill your teammates). I play characters like Mina begrudgingly.
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Obviously there is a degree of speculation in what I am writing, but if I am at all right (and Valve does not treat this space just as a misdirection for venting), then it could be a useful testimony.