Low ELO ranked is nothing more than a lottery

I've just had loss after demoralizing loss in ranked as of late, and it feels like I'm stuck in a system that doesn't reward merit, but instead rewards luck. Now, I'm not here to preach about how I'm stuck in ELO hell or how I belong in X division, but honestly I play to the very best of my ability every game, and I do have bad games where I play poorly, but it honestly feels like ranked queue is just a lottery. One game I might get a god tier singed that carries the day, or their team has an AFK, and another game I might stomp lane try to help my other lanes and still lose because they don't know basic things like pushing the side lanes before pushing mid, or warding, or when to contest drag, or I might have an AFK on my team. It is just frustrating to play this game to the best of your ability every single time, and still be punished just because you have an AFK, or several of your team mates are playing poorly. I had a dream once, a dream that I could make it into the gold division by improving my play style and winning games by playing well enough to earn the promotion. But now I'm just hoping that I can ride enough of a lucky win streak to get there so that I can stop playing and get the victorious skin. I mean, is this really what it has to come down to now? Hoping you win, not because you played better, but because you just got luckier than your opponents? I wish there were some better way to decide how LP is awarded, but in the mean time is there anything I can do to put the lottery in my favor? Because honestly I just feel like swallowing cyanide after most of my ranked games, whether they're wins or losses. There just isn't anything fun about ranked queue anymore and the fact that there's an ineffective report system doesn't help either