Over the summer I have been playing a lot of video games, and one of the games I’ve played the most is CS: GO. Lately one of my friends wanted to get more into the game, and since I’m the only person that’s half-decent at the game that he knows, he asked me to help him get better.
I’ve had the CS:GO for a little over four years now and next year in April I will be rewarded with a 5-year Veteran Coin in-game. Even with over 1,400 hours on the game, I still wouldn’t consider myself a “good player”. The average matchmaking rank for most people is Gold Nova 3 which is the 9th rank out of the 18 ranks that exist in matchmaking. I currently sit one rank above that, at Gold Nova Master which is the 10th rank; just barely above average. For reference, my friend has gone all the way up and down the Silver ranks which are the bottom six ranks.
My friend isn’t a complete beginner to the game. He’s had the game for a little bit over two years and has around 600 hours in the game. I’m quite positive that he knows the basic understandings of the game and how it works. From what he’s told me, is that in the lower ranks (Silver) the teammates you get are almost always really bad or throwing (trying to lose on purpose). I can vouch for the fact that players in the lower ranks are typically not the best since I was there too, but I never remembered so many people throwing as my friend describes. However, if this really is the case, and you’re a low ranking player trying to climb the rank ladder, I’d suggest finding someone that is also of your skill level that also wants to improve. Playing with that one, or even more, people that you can get along with will make your matchmaking experience much better since it eliminates one random factor that could make your game less enjoyable. This is what I did ever since grade 5 when I started playing with a few of my brother’s friends that also played. We all started off in Silver a few years ago, and now we’re all around the Nova skill group now. Forming good teamwork, communication, and relationships in general with longlasting teammates isn’t something that can be done with random players you find in low ranks.
Besides teammates, I think game sense (your understanding of the game and the way it works) has a big impact on the way you play. While playing more games will improve your game sense in one way or another, I think that a good way to improve your game sense is to watch other people play (preferably professional/high ranking players). Don’t just watch them, but try to understand what they’re doing and why. After that, you can go back and watch replays of your own games and try to figure out what you did wrong in certain scenarios and what you did right. When you watch, don’t worry about your aim because that’s a completely different factor than your positioning and use of utility.
The last few things I told my friend to try and do are to practice his aim and memorize the maps. At the end of the day, CS: GO is still a shooting game, so if you don’t hit your shots, you’re chances of winning drop significantly. However, if you improve your knowledge of the maps you play on, and common spots people play from; you’ll also have another step up on other players.
Overall, if you want to improve, you should practice with teammates you know, as well as your aim, utility usage, and watch other people that are better than you play. Even if you lose games or get bad teammates, as long as you see yourself as an individual player improve at what you’re doing, you should keep playing and eventually rank up.