Hard to believe I got up to Gold 5 from Bronze.
It was some time ago that the game was supposedly infested with bots and many were able to run their scores up high into Gold region. Then the bottom dropped out of that market and many like myself tumbled from Gold 4 down into nether realms of Hades. I had left the game for at least 6 months pretty discouraged. Within past month I decided to sign in and see how things looked. I found that all my champs were intact but I had tumbled down to Bronze due to inactivity.
Upon looking around, I don't think I saw bots per se but quite a few low power teams (LPTs), mainly consisting of solo champs in arena and later on a multitude of solo arbiters. So I started methodically just attacking those LPTs. Little by little I found myself working up through the ranks. Lo and behold I just kept going and going like Forrest Gump. All along my arena offense has stayed about 150k, and I am surrounded by many with much higher power. But the solo arbiters and Duchess, etc are about 50k or so and easy to beat. Eventually as I got back up to gold I was able to get back to earning medals for the GH. So just plodding along I am up in Gold 5, and was able to boost my champs that way.