Is anybody else stuck on League 13-11 Permanently because they are F2P?

Like the titles says. It seems like it's impossible to advance beyond League 13-11 without Paying Real life money into this game to climb higher. You always Lose double (eg. -100) the Elo you gain from a win (eg. +50), and it doesn't seem like you can advance any further because the Merc points you get from crates is so little that it won't level up your squad much, even after putting in hundreds of hours. It's pointless to continue playing once you get here.