Here’s the thing: I’m lactose intolerant and over the last two years, I’ve discovered that my relationship with ranked is like my relationship with dairy -- I don’t need it, I don’t particularly want it, but it’s familiar, it’s everywhere, and every once in awhile I am compelled to overdose on it to make sure it still hurts me.

So two weekends ago, after having abstained from competitive for the majority of the last two seasons, I made the conscious decision to play copious amounts -- at least 55 games and 20+ total hours -- of ranked solo queue. For science.

Spoiler alert: I’m still allergic.

Unfortunately, I’m a team player. It simply is not in me to throw or be selfish or play anything other than the hero my team needs -- which meant that I filled every single game at the expense of my personal happiness and mental fortitude.

You’ve likely heard complaints recently about the main tank experience, how completely miserable the role is to play amidst the surplus of stuns and hacks and knockbacks in the game, but I hope you haven’t endured it yourself. I hope you’ve filled your days of ranked with gloriously gimmicky Doomfist; that you’ve frolicked up the ladder on the back of Brigitte’s insufferable Shield Slam; and, that you have never known the horrors of playing Reinhardt whilst trapped in the bowels of Platinum with little more than a Moira to support you.

Because that, my friends, is suffering.

"...when combined, the passiveness of traditional support play and the lackluster mechanics of the Caduceus Staff create a wholly unstimulating, sleep-inducing experience,"

You want to main tank? Ha, no one wants to main tank. Let me rephrase -- you want to off-tank but are forced to main tank for the good of the team? My condolences!

Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times because you’re about to spend the next fifteen minutes of your life being booped, bopped, punched, stunned, and hacked left, right, up, down, and center. Prepare to be Discord Orb’d and headshotted time and time again; your one second of allocated healing ain’t gonna do nothing to stop you from returning to spawn.

Kiss your dreams of gold medals and performance-based SR gains goodbye. Support compositions at this elo consist of Moira/Zenyatta, Zenyatta/Brigitte, and Brigitte/Moira, and everyone wants to be Jjonak 2.0. The moment you lock in that Winston or Reinhardt or Orisa, through-put healing is off the table; unless you’re playing her, Mercy is nowhere to be found.

Luckily for your win-rate, lackluster comps aren’t an instant loss in Plat and Diamond -- you can get away with a lot down here -- but your gaming experience will consist of pushing a payload; shielding; dying. Your team may be able to win fights, but hey, your hitbox is as big as the broadside of barn, coincidentally the only thing the opposing team can hit, and there sure as hell will not be enough healing allocated to your needy self to compensate.

Don’t worry though -- that end of game Good teammate! endorsement will make it all worth it.

When I was blessed with a main tank player, I had the absolute pleasure of playing Mercy.

The dynamic gameplay this underrated support offered was a refreshing divergence from the tedious left-clicking of Winston and right-clicking of Reinhardt -- after all, I was now free to left-click or right-click, and it only came at the cost of my sanity as out-of-position players spammed my audio with demands for healing.

What I discovered about Mercy is that no one between 2500 and 3000 is capable of punishing her. This is great for when you’re feeling a little dangerous and want to Resurrect your overaggressive tank in the middle of the enemy team, but not so great for when the enemy Mercy thinks to do the same. She will get away with it and your team will die.

For me, the side-effect of Mercy play was an odd disconnect with the game, as if I were watching it rather than playing it despite the fact that the hero has been the cornerstone of Overwatch for too many seasons to count. When combined, the passiveness of traditional support play and the lackluster mechanics of the Caduceus Staff create a wholly unstimulating, sleep-inducing experience.

But Mercy's the best support, so you play her anyway.

"[Ranked] banishes players to a frustrating purgatory in which they feel simultaneously responsible for the outcome a game and powerless to effect it,"

Initially, I thought that shotcalling was the engagement I needed to bring me back down to earth, but mostly it served as an unwanted reminder that even simple phrases like “group up,” “don’t get picked,” and “no more ults” have lost all meaning.

This became painfully apparent in my fourth game of the weekend when I stood by as three of my teammates, one after another, peeked and died to a Widowmaker at the Temple of Anubis Point A choke. Repeatedly. For two full minutes.

We ultimately won the game, but all hopes of having fun were dashed during those two minutes, and on the very next map -- Horizon Lunar Colony because Blizzard loves me -- my general dissatisfaction turned to abject dread as our objective A defense crumbled in seconds. Pretty makeover or not, there is nothing in this game that breeds as much misery and dejection as settling in for a seven minute hold, just hoping against all hope that your team won’t feed and your opponents will be too incompetent to win one clean fight.

I’m just kidding -- playing for the draw shortly after was much, much worse.

Overall, voice chat proved irrelevant at best and detrimental at worst. Like I said, I’m a team player, so the peer pressure of the whole thing kept me active regardless of the outcome. Shotcalling was enjoyable intermittently but, truthfully, felt futile and too often threatened to give way to uncontrollable rage when teammates did things like die repeatedly to obvious environmental kills or stagger indefinitely.

Most of the time communication consisted of a few hellos in the starting room -- a half-hearted attempt to inspire camaraderie before lapsing into silence -- but every two games or so, oh boy, did things go wrong.

“Hello. I am a Torbjorn main. I will not swap Torbjorn, you will not convince me to swap Torbjorn, and you should not try. Thank you for understanding,” said one player on Hanamura by way of introduction.

(We did not understand.)

In the next game, a young-sounding girl kicked off the map with an apology for her history of toxic behavior and a promise that she had “turned over a new leaf.”

(She had not.)

On Nepal, a trio of inebriated 20-somethings insta-locked a triple DPS comp; joked about throwing the game; shouted a few racially-charged expletives; and, cockily trash-talked the enemy team in match chat -- all before the doors had even opened.

(Okay, we won, but I’m still conflicted.)

The highlight of another game came when a teammate politely told another teammate that his keyboard was loud, so he might need to turn on push-to-talk. The man in question responded in a haughty, matter-of-fact tone: “It’s called mechanical, moron.”

(We listened to his button smashing and under-his-breath complaints for three rounds.)

I played Junkertown at least three times in one day and there must have been something in the virtual Australian air that turned everyone’s words to whines and insults. During a particularly frustrating first attack on Junkertown, the DPS players began to bicker, one calling the other bad for being incapable of killing an enemy Pharmercy and the other retaliating with comments about gold medals and number of ultimates built.

The only reasonable thing for the latter player to do was swap to Torbjorn, of course, and then the other DPS refused to leave spawn for a good minute while our main support called them both trash and insisted that if he were playing DPS, we’d have won by now.

Eventually the off-tank player joined in on the fun and once his feelings were properly hurt, he began typing in match chat about how bad the DPS were, fishing for sympathy from the very people who were rejoicing in our incompetence, and as I endured one defense and a second attack of this internal strife, my aggravation turned to empathy.

Ranked Overwatch, I think, banishes players to a frustrating purgatory in which they feel simultaneously responsible for the outcome of a game and powerless to effect it, and this in-between state breeds much of the toxicity that has come to define the space. This isn’t to say that there is any justification for spewing vitriol in team chat, and I’ve certainly reported my fair share of teammates for unprecedented cruelty and harassment, but I think we’ve all been caught up in the stress of ranked at one time or another.

Focusing on yourself, as it is often recommended one do, mitigates the persistent annoyance and impotence ranked piles on, but there are only so many unwinnable games you can endure before you snap. You have to be an immovable bastion of light and positivity -- an Emongg, if you will -- to withstand the turmoil of solo queue for very long, and, well… that’s an oversized prerequisite to having a good time in a video game.

"...eleven seasons of ranked have yet to convince me that Overwatch is worth playing with a competitive mindset,"

There were a few bright spots in my weekend -- I played one match with a young kid who didn’t really know what was going on, but was excited and adorable nonetheless, and I had a handful of stellar main tank performances -- but overall, I would be lying through my teeth if I told you I had had any fun.

Any potential enjoyment following a win or even a string of wins was tempered by the knowledge that the bubble would inevitably burst and a few loses would bring me back down to the customary 50% win-rate. Most games were lopsided, with my team either steamrolling our opponents or being steamrolled ourselves, and between ultimate disadvantages, staggered deaths, and tilted teammates, recovery from a bad start often felt impossible. “Close” match-ups savored of anti-climax as players threw in the final moments or maps ended in draws.

Over 45 games spent playing the heroes necessary to give my teams our best shot at victory culminated in a whole lot of misery and about 60 SR gained. My desire for personal improvement -- which, regarding most things and certainly most games, is powerful -- was eclipsed time and time again by my desire to, y’know... escape the perpetually frustrating, unrewarding, stress-inducing cycle of ranked. And from what I can gather, the experience doesn’t improve much the higher you climb.

Therein lies my dilemma: I could sink more and more hours into competitive, but to what end? Unless you're making money from the game or trying to go pro, eleven seasons of ranked have yet to convince me that Overwatch is worth playing with a competitive mindset. 

Video games can be and often are grueling and frustrating, but there is usually a substantial payoff at the end that justifies its players’ misery. Ranked Overwatch, however, piles on so much dissatisfaction that even victories feel hollow. The gameplay that surrounds the heroes who are essential for wins is, at this point in the game, fundamentally frustrating and unrewarding, which only goes to punish those playing for a team rather than themselves, and the habitual introduction of new characters mid-season forces players to resign themselves to losses at the inexperienced hands of those who will inevitably play them.

No desire for a sense of self-accomplishment -- which is ultimately all I have ever played for, seeing as I’m not in need of another spray -- can overcome the blatant toxicity, unsatisfying gameplay, and straight up not fun state of ranked.

At least, not for me.

There are plenty of challenging, competitive games in the world and after eleven seasons of Overwatch, I’ve begun to question whether its familiarity is enough to justify the heartache.