I've had an odd run over the last 5 or 6 days, with some pretty big losing runs taking me from starting at 2150 as tank, down into the 1600's at one point. A 8 game unbeaten run brought me back over 1800, but I just seem to have some very bad luck recently. For example two games where a guy has literally just said 'you guys are idiots, I'm just going to throw' and they wonder around the map emoting. I wouldn't mind but one time it happened so early, there was no telling if we had a chance or not and the other time, we probably could have won. We capped one point as a 5 and fought hard on the second. Then I've had leavers and just moron DPS that refuse to switch to counter. As tank I find you do feel more at the mercy of your team mates.
Andy,
Big tip for you.
The game and the meta completely changes at different ranks.
You need to play completely different at different ranks.
It's why a lot of people get stuck at their rank. As they get further up, the way they are playing is no longer relevant. Or same goes other way as well, as your rank get lower you need to expect less from your team. The lower you go the less you can count on your healers so you need to hide more when you take damage.
Also the higher you get you need to take into account how much more damage your taking.
Basically in silver you want to play like it's a free for all and ignore trying to play as a team.
Take Rein for example at say 2600 sr you can still just keep going with random charges trying to get picks and people will call you a decent rein. Then not much higher say 2900 if you charge in trying to get picks people will say "wtf you doing rein". Your role as rein changes from getting as many kills and damage as you can to more leading the team and keeping constant shield up and hiding when the shield goes down.
Another example in diamond and higher if your team gets a kill the whole the whole team will push forward together and kill the rest of them. In masters the whole team will push forward all the way to the other spawn room to chase down kills. If you try doing that in low plat/gold you will end up being the only one leaving the point and have ya people flame ya for overextending any time you leave point.
I will try and explain better tomorrow when I have had some sleep with some more examples.
When i play early mornings at 2900 one game I will be the only play in a diamond game and the next will be gold and plats. It can be hard switching your mind set for each game. In the diamond games if your not really careful with rein he just gets instantly deleted.
I will edit post after I had some sleep.