How to Rank up in CS:GO
(Rank Improvement)
| Chapter 1 | Understanding the Ranks |
| Chapter 2 | Before Ranking up in CS:GO |
| Chapter 3 | Ingame Behaviour to Rank up |
| Chapter 4 | Pro Tips & Strategies |
In this book you learn what really matters to make the next step and to increase your rank in CS:GO. Manage to get a better player with these precise tips and tricks.
About the CS:GO Ranks & Elo:
On our CS:GO ranks table which you can find here, each one of the 18 ranks is selectable to view the statistics, recommendations and characteristics.
View all CS:GO Ranks in Detail
In this table you can find the direct connection to the Elo number. The ranks and the Elo are not the same in CS:GO but have a serious connection:
Detailled Analysis how the Elo is calculated:
The Elo calculates a player’s performance in the back and deals with mathematical odds to reduce the implausability over time the more data CS:GO has.
A profile with only a few games could be somehow miss-ranked, an account with tons of games will most likely have the correct and suitable rank.
CS:GO Elo Ranking Analysis
Why does Every CS:GO Player wants to Have a Higher Rank?:
- To achieve a higher rank is first of all natural, you want to play as good as you can to get better and if you get better you need a better rank so that the others players can compete with you.
- It’s an ego thing to reach and maintain a high CS:GO rank to show the world how great someone is. A CS:GO rank is like the ultimate classification that will affect their whole CS:GO life and the acceptance & respect in front of others.
- A higher rank (high is just an interpretation, high can be just more than your existent average score) feels better. It will give you a good feeling about the nice performance in the last matches.
How to Prepare Well to Win CS:GO Matches?
Winning CS:GO matches is not just about in-game behavior like tactical understanding and aiming. In my opinion other circumstances decide if you rank up at all and how fast you climb. By choosing the right person with which you play and the perfect time of the day a lot can be changed.
Choose the right persons to play with, a familiar environment is the biggest factor that is affecting the CS:GO rank of a player. If you are stuck ask yourself with whom you should play, if no one has the same skill, and thrill to rank up, play alone, it helps. Playing alone gives you the chance to focus more on your aim and game mechanic improvements. You will learn things like weapon spray and recoil control much faster.- Play undisturbed: When playing a ranked CS:GO match try to catch up a time in which you can play without any interruptions, put your phone away, close the door, and convince all people with which you live together that you need 100% focus for what you do.
Avoid playing with a high ping: The most vital thing does not start unless your internet is not working perfectly. The ping has a crucial role in Dota 2. Check out my ping/connection guide and learn more about FPS in CS:GO.- Have enough time: Do not start a game if you are in a hurry because CS:GO is a dynamic game. A ranked match takes time, only start a game when you think you can completely concentrate on the game only.
- Play active-minded: If you are fresh, recovered, and ready for the maximum output that is possible, then you can play 10 times as good as if you are tired and it’s the last game before you go to sleep. Think about other time tables, would it be possible to play in the morning or right after work/school instead of waiting for the late evening?
Extra Tip: Skip the last match, before leaving or sleeping:
The last match, especially with a limited time frame is sentenced to death, chances of losing this match are much higher, therefore skip it and play an unranked game or do something else. - Never stop learning: Try to get better every time you play a CS:GO match. Improve your weapon play, accuracy, try out new weapons, get more out of what you are doing. On top of that when it’s time for consuming web content, it’s a great way to learn CS:GO and to get better by watching streams on twitch, on this page I have listed the top 10 CS:GO twitch streams.
Play CS:GO with Optimal Settings to Win More Games:
It’s crucial to setup a great foundation, so that you got the potential to make big plays.
In my best settings guide you can find all of the custom settings that help in improving your game configurations. But to break it down these are the most important settings to play well:
Choose a crosshair that fits for you, in the pro section, you can download any pro player crosshair for CS:GO that you want.- Adjust the HUD and the CS:GO radar so that you can communicate and orientate yourself well on maps.
- Use the commands and launch commands that improve your game management, such as useful buyscripts.
Use the Best Gaming Gear for CS:GO to Play Well:
In fact, a high-skilled player is able to use any mouse or keyboard to hit headshots and beat noobs. 😀 But if two high-skilled players match against each other, and the one has great gaming gear (a great gaming mouse, keyboard, headset and monitor) and the other one got a 1$ mouse with bad configurations, the one with the good gear will always win.
It’s not a coincidence that every pro player has only the best gaming gear, it is clear that those hardware devices look better on the one hand, but also have much more technical quality in terms of precise control.
Here are the pro player game gear recommandations for the gaming gear:
To make it short I display the top five for each category.
Best Gaming Mouse Recommendation:
| . |  | Razer Deathadder | • Most Used • Very Precise & Reliable • No Fancy Stuff | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Logitech G502 Hero | • High DPI • Very Mechanical • 11 Extra Keys | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | SteelSeries Rival 3 | • Best Price • Precise • 6 Extra Keys | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | SteelSeries Rival 600 | • Fancy & Colorful • Precise • High DPI | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | BenQ Zowie EC2 | • Multigaming • Precise • No Fancy Stuff | Check Price on Amazon |
Best Gaming Keyboard Recommendation:
| . |  | Steelseries Apex 7 | • No 1 Gaming Keyboard • Awesome Colors • Fast Reaction Time | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Razer Blackwidow Elite | • Well Known • Great Colors • Fast Reaction Time | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Corsair K63 | • Cherry Red Color • Fair Price | Check Price on Amazon |
Best Gaming Headset Recommendation:
| . |  | Steelseries Arctis Pro | • Bestseller • No 1 Headset for Gamers • Clear Sound | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Logitech G935 Gaming Headset | • Top Quality • Great Sound • Maximum Compatibility | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Razer Kraken X | • Different Colors • Great Sound • Fair Price | Check Price on Amazon |
Top Gaming Monitor for CS:GO:
| . |  | BenQ XL2546 | • 24.5 Zoll • Most Used, Best Monitor • Superfast Reaction Time | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Samsung U28E590D | • 28 Zoll • Top Performance • Great View | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | BenQ XL2411P | • 24 Zoll • Fair Price • Top Performance | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | ASUS ROG PG248Q | • 27 Zoll • Great Colors • Fast Reaction Time | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Alienware AW2518H | • 24.5 Zoll • Superfast Reaction Time • Prime | Check Price on Amazon |
Top Gaming Chair for CS:GO:
A chair won’t let you play better? Are you serious? Having comfort over a long time, will increase your sustainability, mouse control and precise seat justification.
| . |  | DX Racer 1 | • Top Bestseller #1 • Most Used Chair, High Quality • Great Comfort, Cool Look | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | GT Player Blue | • Bestseller #2 • Cool Look • Ergonmic | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | UMI Gaming Chair | • Great Comfort • Fair Price | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | KLIM E-Sports Chair | • Premium Material • Ergonomic | Check Price on Amazon | |
| . |  | Sharkoon Skiller | • Many Different Colors • XXL Comfort • Ergonomic | Check Price on Amazon |
Join an Aim Map or Public Server and Check your Daily Performance:
Here is another life-changing tip that will decide if you rank up in CS:GO or not: Instead of jumping into the next ranked match, join some aim servers. I recommend public community servers with real “aim_” maps because these allow fast-paced skirmish focused fights to improve the aiming.
Increasing the headshot rate will improve your mouse control in ranked matches as well. 😉 So, when joining an aim map, try to evaluate how well you play today.
If you somehow suck and your daily performance is not at your maximum, skip playing, do something else, go out and feed ducks in the park. 😀 It’s normal, no one can play consistently every day, accept that.
What are the Things you Need to Focus on to Rank Up Fast?
In CS:GO endless factors count together which lead to a good or bad performance in the end, but the factors that lead to an uprank are the most important ones for us.
As pointed out in the Elo ranking post, the matchmaking system is calculating odds that define your probability of winning or losing.
To make it clear:
That means, ranked matches can have a completely different amount of points that you can achieve to rank up. If you play against a completely fair same-skilled opponent, chances are 50/50 – while versus a better team your chances decrease (for example 30/70) – but if you win such a game, you have higher chances to rank up! That’s a basic factor that you can’t influence, and it also means that it’s not important to only count wins on your profile. More important is to win the matches in which your opponents have been much better – this allows big jumps.
Key Factors to Rank up in CS:GO:
Based on my CS:GO Elo analysis post, these factors have the most impact on ranking up:
- Increase your round impact, having impact is key in CS:GO. The ADR which stands for “average damage per round” (find all CS:GO abbreviations in my lexicon), entry-fragging, planting and defusing are essential factors, that increase the impact of a single player. Simply be a player with an insane impact.
- Win the most relevant matches in which you are queued against better players, so that the odds are high – show the calculation Elo system, that you are better then your actual rank. Unfortunately you won’t know when that will happen, but be ready for the hard matches.
- Win games with a high amount of won rounds (Example: 16-0 is GOOD, 16-14 is BAD)
- MVP-Ratio (defuse bombs, Get the most kills, get more stars)
- Learn! The worst thing you can do is, to stay on your level.
Learn through our CS:GO guides and use the best CS:GO crosshair configs!
Not so important Ranking Factors – but it can help:
- KDA-Ratio (Example: 30-4-4 is GOOD, 10-25-0 is BAD)
- Placement (Beeing on position 1 is not too important, but this brings a better KDA, MVP and Win-Rate anyway so this should be your goal)
Improve these CS:GO Techniques to Increase the Round Impact:
Okay – as you know now, that your impact is the main factor to rank up, let’s check how to improve it! Here are some game mechanics that help in improving to have an impact on a won round.
Positioning:
The positioning on maps can change everything: On a bomb map with spot A and B, two players should be able to hold the map, by just defending the two bomb spots. Of course, each entry should be covered separately, but as a high impact player, close the most important gaps in a team and position yourself well.
Household with your Equipment:
Be prepared to bring down 5 opponents every round. If you have positioned well, be always prepared to get overrun by 5 enemy players. Now think about how you would bring down all 5: Your magazine must be used well, don’t spread it all over the map, make precise shots, hit the head, and aim down multiple enemies in seconds. Use grenades smartly, use your sound, and finish off the survivors with your pistol.
This sounds self-evident, but by really improving this scenario, you will increase the overall impact.Decision Making:
Making the right decisions in CS:GO needs experience and patience. Should you peek? Should you move to A or B, at what time does the grenade will most likely have the biggest effect? Learning more about timings and reaching the heaven of fast decision making is a masterful skill set that helps to improve the gameplay.
Tactical Behaviour:
This is a basic game mechanic, but if you haven’t reached a high rank yet, improve your tactical behavior: Play 100% for the team win and stop doing your solo thing. At that time, when you decide to act as a teammate instead of reaching the first place in the team, you are ready to rank up. Example: Beginner players play for points and won’t share the bomb, they would rather die with it and ruin the round, than sharing it to teammates. 😉
Communicational Behaviour:
![CSGO Communication]()
The higher a CS:GO player climbs the better the communication gets. While in silver the 12-year-olds meet with the singing trolls, in the upper ranks, people are willing to help each other via voice over ip.
To use the voice channel as a weapon for yourself, try to lead the game and give as much information as you can without disturbing anyone.
Always stay positive, this can create a positive atmosphere and release the power to win the game. Stick to English as the language that everyone can understand, and otherwise meet on CS:GO Discord servers to speak in your own language.Improve your Aiming Massively:
Improve your aiming over time, play aim maps and use different weapons and learn the super important spray behavior . Don’t stay on a level for a long time or the rank won’t go up as well. The aiming is your hard skill base, which is absolutely essential to make any step forward. To improve the aiming, you need to know the maps well, for being able to pre aim onto important spots.
Grenade Perfection:
There is that one day, in which you need to consume the grenade throws of your favorite maps. Placing smoke grenades perfectly will give you gamechanging advantages and strategical options.For each map browse the youtube library for CS:GO grenade tutorials and train the most important ones. For Dust 2 I have collected a tips list and a grenade video for you here.
The higher a CS:GO player climbs the better the communication gets. While in silver the 12-year-olds meet with the singing trolls, in the upper ranks, people are willing to help each other via voice over ip.
Read Your Enemies
and Don’t Be Readable:
Like in every e-sport title, in the higher brackets, the psychological part increases. It’s not just about skill it’s about mind games, making bets on risks and trying to read the opponent’s plans.
Some things are simple if the terrorist team rushed B with 5 men and they hardly failed, they will come somewhere else, correct? It’s clear that they will rush A long, A short, mid or go slow. But wait, what if they do it again, because no one will expect it? This is one simple mind game, but harder mind games with solo player movements happen in every single game. 
Try to see things before they happen, and expect your opponent in specific areas. Just by guessing you can reduce the chances of your opponents and make them mad!
Same applies for yourself: Don’t be readable, be flexible in your actions. Whenever something is not working, change it. In CS:GO the timing can change a lot: If you rush, if you go slow, or camp for a minute, often totally changes the outcome of a round.
Be Super Confident
with your Shots:
As I told before, householding with your shots is a good way for beeing ready for a tripple, quad or ace kill.
To get better at this train a lot of aim maps and hit single salves (1-3 bullets) into the headshot area of a player in the direction of where he moves to. By playing hundreds of aim maps, it goes into the blood how to feel that you have hit the enemy head – even before the game is showing it visually in the score in the upper right corner. But what you do is, to hit the next shots onto the next enemies, because you already know that you made that kill! 😉 These shots are called confident shots and increase your speed a lot.
It’s all about Min-Maxing:
And what if you already got a Legendary Eagle Master rank, Supreme Master First Class or Global Elite? Even if you belong to the top players in the world or got a high rank, you can always improve.
Try to focus on min-maxing: get more out of simple situations. Improve the little timings and use pre-aim, place shots through guessing, and be confident when shooting through walls and doors. Hit the head even faster, instead of making body hits. Find the perfect grenade timings that can win even more time. And the most important rule is to be patient and to not be greedy.
By moving back when the enemy is pushing you can win a lot of time. Reposition and play defensive and don’t give your opponents any peek kills.
Train your Reflexes:
Beside aim maps, there are tons of websites that help improving the reflexes. For example on csgo-tutorial.com you can play tons of predefined lessons to get faster and smarter in decision making of the order of hitting targets. Try it out! 😉
Conclusion:
That’s it! I hope you enjoyed the article and you learned something today! 😉
Think about what is really holding you back if you can’t rank up. Often it’s the environment of friends or how you play. By following the advice and rules of this article, everyone can reach an upper rank!
What is your CS:GO rank – and do you think I missed some tips? Let me know in the comments. 🙂
