Play in a lobby for a few games. Sometimes you get a few good guys in one mercenary lobby. With the teams changing every game you can get a feel for who's giving you a game and who's not.

After a while you'll end up with a lobby full of 'players' or a lobby full of 'eejits'. If you get the latter it's time to bail!

In addition to Mercenary, I typically suggest a few matches of FFA.

If I get online and see there's not many friends available and nobody is running a party, I'll warm up with a few matches of FFA. This puts me in the mindset that there's no one watching my back and everyone is gunning for me. I rarely win, but I can usually work my way up to 3rd or 4th place. Don't worry about win:loss ratio, FFA losses get marked as a draw.

Ever since I started doing this, I've had far more success with random teams in TDM and KC. I don't play many of the objective game modes unless I've got some mates to party with.

The best way to play with randoms is just play how you play best and ignore your teammates.

In Kill Confirmed, I tend to stay away from teammates. If they're all running straight at the enemy spawn, I flank. If they are all taking a certain route, I take another one. If they All camp, I cut off some choke points leading to where they're camping. Not all randoms suck, and not all of them are clueless, but you have to play as if they are all the worst CoD players on the planet and basically not rely on them for anything. Bascially handle your own business, and pray to god some of the other guys on your team have a clue so you can pull out a win.

It's both hilarious and sad to have a team of randoms all rush in the same direction at the start of a match, then half of them getting killed by a single Hail Mary'ed grenade, giving the enemy a Triple/Multi-Kill, then 1-2+ of them rage quitting right after...

Play FFA! Thats the best time to play with terrible randoms. Other than that its a terrible experience for all involved.

Use Assualt, I prefer specialist myself but you're going to need assualt. You need something capable such as air support to keep some of the enemies back even if it isnt very strong. **** the randoms, use them as bait/useless people to alert you if enemies are coming. Also you're going to have to carry to extreme levels.

I would say that dlundebjerg28 said it best. Play your best, avoid the crowd and pray the others are doing the same.

You pretty much just have to worry about your own game and let them do their thing.  Play one game and see how it goes - after the end of the first game see how it reshuffles the teams - if you get put back on the team with all the low scorers jump out and try another lobby.  Definitely best to avoid going up against parties (clans) with randoms. See 4 or 5 guys with same clan tag best try another lobby.