Friend every good player and you won't have to MM.
But I like having rivalries with half the vet community....
well basically technical vets (hi lvls) that are not up to my standard of what a vet is (like the 5 major competitive clans of olde-who those clans were? compete for it)
Basically I don't like adding "vets" that don't play at least the quality of old lvl 10. With me at old lvl 10 as my point of reference (technically I'm old lvl 13 now).
I mean I can rely on rowho to do his job correctly. I never have to check his work. And in turn he knows I'll give him the win he wants because he trusts in my skills and tactical ability.
Those kinda ppl are what I consider friends in the game sense.
Heres another case study for you.
Me and rowho and Rinn were on the first dev match. We were crew to one of these supposed vets. lvl wise everyone's averages tallied up to us having a technical advantage with more supposedly skilful pilots and crew.
This "vet" let 4 ships escape. And for each kill we died, because of idiotic positioning (killing that one retreating ship into the arcs of two enemy teammates was so smart... we all saw it coming except this "vet"), arcs were constantly wonky as lower lvled pilots outsmarted this "vet."
Next time. This "vet" was on an opposing team. I was the pilot. Rowho was glad of it. He knew I could turn this around.
Match ended 7-1 with a muse ship dying on our end. If I didnt pilot on that session. Rowho wouldn't have gotten the dev match win he wanted.