Can you climb to top 20 these days without spending crystals?

My experience has been that at the end of a meta, more and more people have it, and therefore you get pushed farther and farther down before your climb. Combine that with a meta that is not terribly reliant on mods (GAS), and you end up with a ton of people able to climb that weren't before, pushing you down even farther.

And then the meta shifts, and it won't take long before you're locked out of the top 20 regardless, unless there's a viable counter that you are able to utilize.