Omg that is my reason I keep playing. I make all my own decks and whoop ass. Unfortunately I usually stay in platinum, but at least I try and avoid stupid meta decks. like naturia's. .. yuck.
My play style is to study opponent(s) decks and create a counter deck that completely shuts down their decks. Take decks like Ritual-based decks. I packed in tons of traps that locks opponents from their card effects and destroy Ritual monsters once they hit the field. I also threw in Armor Break because tgese decks tend to run Fulfillment of the Contract or Ritual Weapon
hmmm so I got Plat 1 with just a raptor deck. Get in some fusions with the field spell and you wreck kids. I got inspired by existing decks but as I am f2p and litterally started 2 weeks ago I do not really have that many cards. It is not hard to get to high ranks in this game because people get their decks from here. So if you really think they get kog cause of their decklists you know nothing