Surviving 3k: Encouraging your allies to pick around you

Every match, you should be doing certain things:

1. determining how your team is going to communicate
2. assessing how flexible your team is going to be in roles, picks, and lanes
3. trying to convince your team to pick strong heroes, counterpick the enemy, and pick around the hero you want to play

There are many other things, but these 3 you can determine right at the start of the game. For the purpose of this post, let's focus on the last part of point 3. If at least one other person picks a hero that synergizes with what you pick, you multiply the effectiveness of both heroes thus increasing your chance of winning.

Surviving 3k means you need to use all your skills, not just DOTA related, to get that coveted MMR. If you play a great hero x and you know you pair well with hero y, then encourage someone to pick it if they're good with the hero. A few notes about this approach:

• Try a logical argument. for example, if the enemy team has a Storm Spirit and you want to play Omni, you could try: "Antimage counters storm and will play great with my Omniknight because you won't have to get a bkb."
• If the logical argument doesn't work, then try an emotional one. Generally, people make decisions based on emotion; how a decision makes you feel impacts greatly what you decide to do. With that said, most people will respond positively if you ask nicely, but some might respond if you are more aggressive. Caution: people tend to hide behind their anonymity on the internet so being aggressive isn't usually as successful as asking nicely. "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" is the old adage.
• Sometimes, no one plays a hero that partners well with you, like you want to play LC but no one picks heroes with burst damage.
• When some one says no to a line of reasoning, try another; sell your idea any way you can. Always keep in mind that the goal is gaining MMR, not making friends or enemies. If you happen to make those, that's fine too, but this is solo queue not social hour.
• Don't constrain your hero pairs to one that will only be in your lane or play a certain role. Try to harness the strength of your team's abilities using snap judgments and making quick decisions. If those decisions don't work after a couple tries, move on to something different.
• Don't get emotionally involved with a hero, hero pair or strategy. Being involved with your significant other is fine but this is, again, solo queue. There is work to do and whispering sweet nothings into your microphone isn't going to get you that +25 at the end of a match. If the game calls for something outside your comfort zone, do it. 
• On the other side of that coin: if your team wants you to pick a hero you aren't good at, try to find a compromise hero, otherwise tell them to pound sand. You are responsible for your destiny. If you're going to make it to 4k or 5k or whatever your goal is, you have to do it. Picking Techies with Tusk may sound like a good idea, but if you haven't played Tusk before, you will be a burden to be carries by someone else.

How do you determine what heroes to pair with? Make sure to check your dotabuff and see what heroes you pair well with. You should be spamming between 3-5 heroes in solo queue (another post for another time) and will therefore build up stats related to those heroes. With those stats you can make more informed decisions about playing the game, include what heroes you pair well with.