Ranked, Personal Skill, Consistency, and The Community.
Warning: Long Post ahead.
We see it pretty often, someone complains about the ranked system and the way it's impacted by toxicity or teammate skill and someone replies with the heavily insulting but logical sounding 'The only constant in all your games is you'. Often this statement is followed by attacks meant to shame the one complaining, 'Maybe you just suck', 'salt', 'but obviously you're a special snowflake that deserves diamond but is stuck in bronze, right?', 'git gud noob', 'lrn2play' etc etc.
Ignoring the utter immaturity and hypocrisy of using an argument supposedly based on it's logic and reason and then pairing it with fallacies like ad hominem, straw manning, hyperbole or various others, this statement ignores the utter contradiction that is a system which equates individual rank with the performance of random team members. It's a statement meant to paint Riot's system as one based completely and utterly on individual skill, but it's wrong. Since the only thing which affects LP gain or loss (and thus ranking up or down) is winning or losing (and not how well you perform in the game itself), you cannot ignore the effect the other four players have on any given player's LP gain or loss for each individual game.
Now, the common counter argument to this are examples like Wildturtle, who has climbed multiple times on multiple fresh accounts. Proving his skill and game sense beyond a shadow of a doubt. This shows that individual skill IS a factor in climbing. Is in fact a very important and relevant factor.
But it does not prove it's the only factor. Only that with enough skill you can overcome the Luck factor which IS inherent to riot's rank system because of the random, luck-inducing nature of throwing five (or so, sometimes less) random players together and telling them to work as a Team.
What it does not do is disprove the claim that luck has too heavy an influence on individual rank, which is supposed to reflect mechanical skill, knowledge, and game sense and not, in any fashion, how lucky you are.
So, of course, the next argument is 'well, see above, git gud scrub'. Only, not everyone is naturally talented enough to develop the diamond/challenger/master level mechanics needed to reliably drag oneself out of the hellish morass which is Bronze (and to a small degree, Silver) when you're playing against other Bronze (and Silver) players. Many people only gain better skills by pitting themselves against more skilled opponents so they can see and practice better mechanics at the same time. Except often the challenge is not 'outskill my opponent' but instead 'compensate for my teammate's feed/attitude', that doesn't give these people any chance to build their skill, but instead punishes them for being a different type/style of learner.
It also ignores the morale function of struggling through Bronze or Silver. How many of you have won 1 of your division promos, only to have teammates feed beyond your ability to carry in the next two? How many of you have won 2 of your Rank promos only to have leavers, feeders, ragers, trolls, etc ruin the next three?
How morale destroying is that? How punishing to your dedication is that? I know it all-but absolutely destroyed my desire to fend with Riot's rank system years ago. Morale is an important part of performance and it is inhumanly impossible to simply expect people to always maintain healthy, productive levels of morale after suffering through such punishing circumstances.
Combined, these various factors show that beyond a shadow of a doubt luck is an extremely important factor in Ranked. Not the only important, or even most important factor, but too important nonetheless.
tl;dr The argument 'you have to get good and that is the only thing stopping you' is not only incorrect, it's a tad bit heartless. The challenge is far more complex. Please stop making it.
