there are a lot of smarter players out there that already know boost = you're gonna get ****ed. the thing is that if you're **** and play with good friends, and if you're the type of player who actually gets good at games and isn't a scrub, then you will absorb a lot of the high level strats around you including the subtle stuff.

for example when i started dota 2 i played with very high tier friends and was basically able to quickly skip past the medium-high tier and went straight to competitive level pubs.