CS:GO – Ranks guide (How to rank up in Competitive matchmaking)

Everything you need to know about ranks and competitive matchmaking.

If you’ve racked up hundreds of hours in competitive CS:GO attempting to rank up, chances are you’ll have realised that it’s not easy to climb the ladder. There’s a lot to think about and consider, even if you’re a seasoned FPS veteran. Below we’ve put together a number of factors to think about if you’re chasing the competitive grind, as well as few tips and tricks to help you on your way to the next skill group.

Think we’ve missed something out? If you’re a high ranked player, or someone who’s recently found a way to climb several skill groups, we’d love to hear how you did it. Just let us know in the comments below and we may just feature it in this article!

The CS:GO Ranking System Explained

Here’s a breakdown of all 18 CS:GO ranks:

• Silver I
• Silver II
• Silver III
• Silver IV
• Silver Elite
• Silver Elite Master
• Gold Nova I
• Gold Nova II
• Gold Nova III
• Gold Nova Master
• Master Guardian I
• Master Guardian II
• Master Guardian Elite
• Distinguished Master Guardian
• Legendary Eagle
• Legendary Eagle Master
• Supreme Master First Class
• The Global Elite

To obtain your first competitive rank in CS:GO, you’ll need to earn enough EXP from casual matches to reach Private Rank 2. Once you’ve reached this milestone, you’ll gain access to Ranked or Competitive matchmaking.

Jump into competitive and you’ll have to win ten games before you’ll be given your rank. There’s a limit on the number of games you can win each day, with the cap being set to two wins only. It’s a little annoying, but power through and the restriction will be lifted once you’ve got your rank.

While it’s true that your matchmaking rank doesn’t necessarily represent how good or bad you are at CS:GO, it does help to display your overall expertise with the game. See the ranking system as less indicative of skill, and more to do with experience. Being placed in Silver after your placement games doesn’t necessarily make you a bad player, it may just be you need some more time with the game to understand its intricacies.

If you’ve been in the silver ranks for over twenty games, it’s worth taking yourself away from the game and actively aiming to improve through other means. Master Guardian 1 is where the majority of players will understand how to play CS:GO, but they may be let down by their aim and team strategy.

By the time players have reached Legendary Eagle Master, they will almost certainly be playing in a group with members that they know and trust to execute specific gameplans. Global Elite is the highest rank you can achieve in CS:GO, as you might expect, these are a collection of the best players in the entire game.

In the past, Valve has confirmed that CS:GO bases its matchmaking on the Glicko-2 ranking system, employing additional factors and modifications to adapt it to 5v5 scenarios. You will have likely heard others refer to ‘Elo’ in CS:GO, which is commonly-used in Chess. To cut a very long story short: you need to win consecutive games in order to guarantee a rank up. Finishing games with the highest score on your team is great, but if you aren’t winning the game as a team then your rank will never progress.

On average we’ve found that if you can maintain a win streak of at least four or five, you are on your way to a rank up, though this isn’t always the case as there are other factors to be considered. You can technically be ‘boosted’ by your team, meaning that while you may have very little impact in the game, the other four members will work to win every round, in order to secure the game. This method does work, but you can rank up faster by winning MVP awards and by keeping your kill/death (K/D) ratio above 1.0.

This video by WarOwl also goes into the CS:GO Ranking system and is very helpful! Do make sure you give it a watch and consider subscribing to his channel for more quality CS:GO videos.

Wingman

Despite being a completely separate mode from normal Competitive matches, Wingman works on a very similar ranking system, placing players in one of the skill groups listed above. That said, you may find that your Wingman rank is higher than your Competitive rank. This is due to a number of factors, but it’s likely the fact that this mode isn’t as popular as Competitive mode, meaning that less players participate.

For the same reason, it’s highly likely that you’ll bump into unevenly balanced teams more often, as there are less players in the pool for your duo to match up with. With regards to ranking up, our recommendations are the same as those mentioned in the Competitive section; K/D is not the overriding factor here, so you’ll need to win games and score MVPs to see results.

Trust Factor

Trust Factor is a system which ensures that you’re paired with other players that are similar to you. So, if you’re a positive player who wants to take matches seriously and avoids being toxic, you should, in theory, be paired with others who have a similar mindset. Of course, there are flaws in the system, but it is something that Valve claims they are constantly adjusting in order to improve it.

While most players will have heard of Trust Factor, many are unsure of what it is exactly. This is because Valve purposely choose not to share the list of factors that contribute to your Trust Factor ranking. We know for certain that individual ratings take your experience in CS:GO into account, as well as your experience on Steam, in general. Consequently, if you’re brand new to CS:GO, but have proven to be a positive member of the Steam community in the past, your Trust Factor rating will still be relatively high.

If you’ve created a brand new Steam account and bought CS:GO to go with it, your Trust Factor score should be the lowest it can possibly be. While this might sound frustrating for brand new players, this is the best way Valve can take some kind of action against hackers and smurfs (smurfing is the act of a high ranked player creating a new account to beat new players).

However, if your account is five years old and you’ve played several games on that account, you will be placed into a different category to someone who’s brand new to Steam. This is because your Trust Factor score is higher thanks to your time spent playing other games legitimately on Steam.

The third case scenario is if you have an old account that has been VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat, used in all Valve games) banned in a different game and you’ve gone into CS:GO as a reformed player. As a result of your VAC ban in an unrelated game, this will impact your Trust Factor score.

Valve has chosen not to disclose exactly what players can do to improve their Trust Factor score other than, “Be a positive member of the CS:GO and Steam community”. While we are unable to tell you how to improve your Trust Factor score, we know exactly what you can do to avoid making your score worse. All you have to do is avoid being reported by your teammates for toxic behaviour, hacking or smurfing. Avoid doing those three things, and in time your Trust Factor score should improve.

Prime Accounts

Having a Prime account should add an additional layer of legitimacy and protection for you as a player. Again, in theory, the Prime account system is supposed to prevent verified players encountering new accounts (owned by potential smurfs) and those who have received a VAC ban (even if it was not in CS:GO).

Prime Matchmaking is something that Prime account holders can activate in Competitive lobbies where they select their map choices, before searching for a ranked match. If you’ve already verified your Steam account for Prime, simply tick the box at the bottom of the lobby labelled ‘Prime Matches Only’.

Before you can activate Prime on your Steam account for CS:GO’s Prime Matchmaking, there are two things you need do first. If you are a relatively new player, ensure you have reached Lieutenant Rank 21. If you’re struggling to do so and want to speed up the process of reaching this rank, check out our Best Ways To Get More XP And Level Up Fast guide.

In addition to reaching Rank 21, you’ll also need to add your phone number to your Steam account in order to verify your account. Bear in mind that you can only tie your phone number to one account, so if you have multiple Steam accounts for whatever reason, ensure that you pick your main one. Upon reaching Rank 21 you’ll receive a notification when you launch CS:GO, offering you the chance to sign up for Prime Account Matchmaking. Simply click on the notification to start the process.

More popular CS:GO guides:

• 1. Guide – CS:GO – Guide 2018
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• 3. Recoil Control – CS:GO – Recoil control guide
• 4. Crosshairs – CS:GO – How to change crosshair
• 5. AWP – CS:GO – AWP guide 2018

Maximising Your Chances Of Ranking Up

While there are a lot of technical factors to take into consideration when trying to rank up, the easiest way is simply through improving your CS:GO skills. Spending substantial amounts of time in Aim Training maps, learning how to use grenades like Smokes, Flashbangs and Molotovs effectively, and familiarising yourself with each of the maps in the Competitive pool will make you a better CS:GO player.

By training often you’ll notice your progress in Competitive matches will eventually translate into more round wins and more overall game wins. Practice hard enough and you’ll have a greater impact in your games, which will gradually lead to ranking up. If you’d like more guidance on how to hone your skills, check out our Best Training Maps guide.

Ranking up doesn’t have to feel like a chore in CS:GO and you should remember that the reason you’re playing CS:GO in the first place is to have fun. Grouping up with friends will make ranking up a more enjoyable experience as you’ll be playing with people that you can trust, and who you can train and practice strategies with in advance.

If your friends don’t play CS:GO, consider utilising the Nearby Lobbies section in-game to find other players around your skill level, or if you just played with a team that seemed friendly, you can locate them in the Recent Teammates section to invite them for another match. In addition, you can send a friend invitation on Steam to group up with others in the future.

If you’re dead set on solo-queuing for Competitive matches, ranking up is definitely still achievable, although you’ll have to work extra hard. Solo-queueing largely puts you at the mercy of the rest of your team, meaning that even if you have good map knowledge, train often and want to cooperate, the rest of your team may have different aspirations. In these situations, strive to be the best player by remaining positive, communicating well and reporting players that actively try to ruin matches by cheating or griefing. For more information, check out our How To Improve At CS:GO guide.

CS:GO ranks and how they work

Learn how to rise through the CS:GO ranks with this dedicated guide.

Want to rise through the CS:GO ranks? You’ve spent more hours than you want to admit grinding through matches in Counter-Strike’s competitive mode, but no one really knows exactly how the system works. While we continue to fret over our ranks and win rates, Valve isn’t giving anything away.

You’ll need to invest more time in aim training if you’re eager to improve. I also recommend practicing your smoke grenade placements, and learning the best strategies for your favourite maps. Unfortunately, CS:GO’s ranking system is not an exact science, but I’ve managed to dig out information from the most reliable sources (including Valve) to give you a better idea of how it works. I’m here to walk you through what the CS:GO ranks are, explain MMR decay, and help you break into the next rank bracket.

Here are all the CS:GO ranks:

This is every rank, from the lowest to highest competitive skill groups.

How CS:GO ranks work

To earn your initial rank, you’ll have to win ten placement matches, at a limit of two per day. These allow time for the game’s ranking system to determine your caliber. Note that an unranked player will be unable to queue with anyone of rank Master Guardian II or higher, unless queuing with a full team of five.

Once you’ve earned those ten wins you’ll be assigned into one of 18 skill groups, depending on your performance. You’ll now be able to play as many matches as you like, but can only queue with players within five ranks higher or lower of your own (once again, excluding a premade team of five).

Based on successes and failures, your rank will be adjusted at the end of each match, assigning you a higher or lower skill group, if necessary. The mechanics behind this are still unclear, but the surest way to improve is by winning as a team.

Play no matches for a month and your skill group will disappear, requiring a win or draw to return it. Again, you’ll no longer be able to play with ranks above Master Guardian I until you’ve earned it back.

CS:GO ranks distribution

CSGOStats, an independent analysis website provides a breakdown of the CS:GO ranks distribution, showing the percentage of active players in each rank over a day, week or month. This data is collected through randomly sampled matches, so extending the catchment period to a month gives a good idea of how the ranks spread out.

In the sample above we can see that the majority of players are found in the Gold Nova bracket, with around 34 percent of all players placing here. If you’ve made it to Legendary Eagle, congrats, you’re in the top 10 percent of players. In fact, you might be even higher than you think. The site’s random sampling technique means that because higher ranked players will, in general, play the game more often, they are disproportionately likely to be sampled. But what does each rank actually mean, and how does the game determine where to place you?

Elo and Glicko-2

Unsurprisingly, Valve has kept incredibly tight-lipped when it comes to the inner workings of its games, for fear that some players might game the system itself, prioritising their own progression over the success of their team. But back in 2015, a Valve employee let slip that CS:GO initially based its matchmaking on the Glicko-2 ranking system, though it has since been adapted and improved, involving some heavy modifications.

The more games you’ve played, the harder it will be to change your rank.

Chances are you’ve heard of Elo ranking. Designed for player vs player competitions such as chess, each combatant is assigned a number to represent their rank. The difference between two competitor’s numbers indicates the expected outcome of the match, with the victor claiming points from the loser. Should the player of higher rank win, he’ll take significantly fewer points than the lower player would, outcome reversed.

Since the adoption of Elo, many variations have been designed to combat some of the system’s flaws. Glicko-2 is one such alternative, assigning a Ratings Deviation (RD) around a base number. A player’s Match Making Rank (MMR) then becomes a range (e.g. 1324), rather than a single number (e.g. 1500). This improves accuracy; the system can then say it knows a player’s rank will lie within this bracket to a 95% certainty. The better the system knows your real rank, the smaller this range will be. Glicko-2 also takes into account a player’s ‘volatility,’ how much a rank is expected to fluctuate over time (increased through erratic performances, decreased through consistency).

However, despite Glicko-2 being an open system, clear limitations stop it from applying directly to CS:GO ranks. Both Elo and Glicko were designed with 1v1 competition in mind. In a 5v5, team-based game, far more factors come into play. An individual player’s impact on a game is a difficult thing to judge. Sure, one player can earn four kills in a round, but that may only be because of an ally securing the bomb-plant, or placing a well-timed flash. From K/D ratios to MVPs, performance statistics are varied, and Valve has said nothing about how they’re taken into account with regards to rank. In response to this silence, some players have their own theories on how CS:GO ranks work.

Player theories

Back in 2014, Steam user RetriButioN posted a lengthy record of his experience ranking up multiple accounts. He’s since updated the guide, acknowledging that all claims are based purely off his own anecdotal evidence, but it makes for an interesting read regardless. He proposes that ranking is determined on a round-by-round basis, adjusting all players involved to redetermine the expected winner. This method could explain why players sometimes rank up on a lost game, given a close scoreline.

The chances of this occurring are extremely low, but multiple players have reported unexpected changes in rank—see Infamous_Blue’s comment here as an example. However, these cannot act as hard evidence for a round-by-round system, as external factors (e.g. previous games being removed due to a detected cheater) can also influence your ranking during a match. These outside events are more likely to explain especially bizarre claims like deranking after a 16-0 win.

RetriButioN also goes on to claim that, aside from winning and losing the round, MVPs are the only factor to affect your ranking score. The logic behind this and the guide came from the use of console command, ‘developer 1,’ which revealed a ranking number that changed based on rounds and MVPs. However, Valve has dispelled this claim, confirming that files stored on the user-end no longer affect CS:GO ranks. However, if MVPs previously played a role, there’s chance that they still do.

Recently, reddit user dob_bobbs shared his own thoughts, covering the workings of the Glicko-2 system and suggesting that a high volatility may limit the loss or gain of points. The logic behind this is that a player may have an unusual bad patch or lucky streak, not indicative of their true skill, meaning that time to establish the trend is needed.

What we know for certain

With many fan theories floating around, it can be easy to get lost down a rabbithole of guesswork, but there are some key takeaways from what’s been learned.

A wide number of factors affect your ranking, and it’s all stored by Valve.
“All computations are performed on our matchmaking backend and multiple matchmaking parameters describing scientific set of rating variables of a player are represented to players as [their rank],” posted vitaliy_valve in response to RetriButioN’s guide. No matter how much data mining someone claims to have done, they cannot know the details of the matchmaking system. With a number of variables in effect, it’s better to focus on winning the game than arguing over factors like who gets to defuse the bomb, even if someone tells you otherwise.

The more games you’ve played, the harder it will be to change your rank.
The nature of Glicko-2’s Rating Deviation means that the longer you play at a particular level, the more precisely the game will believe it has determined your appropriate rank. With a smaller RD, larger jumps in your MMR become improbable. If you’ve ever seen a popular streamer or Youtuber attempt to rank an account from Silver 1 to Global, you’ll notice that it usually takes a long time to progress during the Silver stages. This happens because the account has been intentionally deranked by a player losing repeated games on purpose. During this time, the rating system will believe it has obtained a good idea of the player’s true rank, and therefore responds slowly to subsequent victories. This isn’t to say you’ll never be able to climb the levels again. Given consistent hard work and competition with those above your level, your RD will widen again, allowing greater steps up.

A hiatus will reduce your rank’s certainty, but often leads to degradation.
Quit playing CS:GO for a month, and you’ll find your skill group has vanished, requiring a draw or win to earn it back. If you stop playing for longer, there’s a good chance you’ll return at a different rank than before. It has often been suggested that MMR decays over time when inactive, but again it’s tough to find evidence to back this up. The most probable cause for degradation comes from increases in Rating Deviation.

Your ranking range becomes less certain over time between games, increasing in RD. Each sudden drop represents a match played, letting the system believe it can more precisely identify your true rank.

The longer it has been since your last match, the less certain the game can be of your level, which means you could be matched against players of a wider skill range than you would normally. If you’re in the upper half of the skill groups, you’re more likely to be matched against those lower than you due to the larger pool of players. However, if you find your rank has dropped then it’s best not to worry, as your increased RD should allow faster recovery.

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