CS:GO’s Rank System Explained

Rank in CS: GO is a badge to prove yourself. Some gamers agonize over their level in the ranking system, desperate to get out of the “Silver” quagmire and try their best to reach the top of Global Elite. But no matter how hard you try, the information about how the system works is still quite vague. Here is the most helpful information to help you understand how Rank works and the factors that affect it.

How does Rank in CSGO work?

When you start participating in Competitive mode to know your CSGO rank, your first task is to win 10 ranked matches, limited to 2 wins per day. This will give the ranking system more time to evaluate your skills. Remember that a player with no rank cannot play in the same room with any player ranked above Master Guardian, unless partying with 4 other friends (i.e. a 5-person full lobby).

After winning 10 matches, you will be placed in 1 of 18 ranks based on your skills but can only play with people 5 ranks above or below you (except for partying with 5 people).

Depending on how you handle during the game, your rank will be updated at the end of each game, you will rank up or down rank, or no change at all. The workings behind this have not been explained, but the surest way to improve is still to win.

If you don’t play competitive for 1 month, your rank will be lost. You need to win 1 match or draw to get rank. And like above, you can’t play with people with a rank above Master Guardian 1 until you have a rank.

Rank distribution

CSGOSquad is a separate website that analyzes and provides information about the rank distribution system, showing the percentage of players in the game at each rank level by day, week, or month. This information is taken from a random number of matches, so a month-by-month look is a good way to see how the ranks are divided.

Based on the February data above, we can see that the Rank with the highest percentage of players is Gold Nova 2, with about 35% of the total number of players in Nova rank. If you’re at the Legendary Eagle rank, congratulations on making it to the top 10% of competitive players. Maybe your level is higher than you think. This method of taking random matches means that higher ranked players will usually play more, which means more of their numbers will be taken. But what does each rank mean, and how can CS:GO rank yours?

Elo and Glicko-2

It’s not surprising that Valve has always kept information about the inner workings of the game secret, with the fear that some gamers will take advantage of the system, prioritizing their own parameters over the success of the game. whole team. But in 2015 a Valve employee revealed that CS:GO’s ranking system is based on Glicko-2’s ranking system, although it has been updated and improved including some major tweaks.

The more games you play, the harder it will be to change the Rank.

You’ve probably heard of Elo ratings. Designed for two players to play against each other, such as chess, each person will receive a number representing their rank. The number of points difference between two opponents will help predict the outcome of the match with the winner taking away points from the loser. If the higher ranked person wins, he will take less points than if the lower ranked person wins, and vice versa.

Since using Elo, a lot of changes have been made to fix the vulnerabilities of this system. Glicko-2 is one of those options, it will set a difference (Rating Deviation – RD) around a base number. MMR (Player’s Rank) is not a number (1500) anymore but a ‘range’ (1000-2000). This improves the accuracy of the system, it can be said that the player’s rank will be in this range with an accuracy of 95%. Glicko-2 will also take into account players’ erratic form, and predict how much the rating might fluctuate over time (increasing ‘range’ if performance is erratic and falling if stable determined)

Although Glicko-2 is a popular system, obvious limitations limit its direct application to CS:GO. Elo and Glicko-2 are both designed for 1v1 exclusively. In the 5v5 mode, the game is team-based, there are many other factors that play a decisive role. It is quite difficult to assess the influence of an individual on the game. A player can get four lives in a round, but that can only happen if the teammate has done a bomb-plant, or a perfect flash. From Kill/Death to MVPs, the stats vary widely, and Valve has yet to reveal how these numbers determine rank. As a result, some players have come up with their own theories about how Rank works.

Player’s hypothesis

Back in 2014, player RetriButioN shared a lengthy report on the progress of various accounts. Since then he has written a guide, but it is based only on the evidence he has gathered, nevertheless it is still worth reading. He believes that Rank is decided “round by round”, adjusting the parameters of each individual in the match to redefine the expected winning team. This method can explain how some players rank up despite losing that match, by a tight margin – see Infamous_Blue’s comment as an example. The chances of that happening are extremely low, with players responding to sudden changes in rank. However, this is still not conclusive evidence for an individual “round-by-round” system, as other factors (e.g. a match disallowed for fraud/cheat detection) can affect Your rank in the match. These factors seem like a good reason to drop Rank despite winning 16-0.

RetriButioN also said that in addition to winning and losing a round, MVPs are an important factor affecting rank points. This theory and the tutorial are explained from using the Console command (command in CS:GO), ‘developer 1’. This command shows the number of Ranks changed by rounds and MVPs. However, Valve has rejected this theory, and confirmed that files stored in the Player Console no longer affect rank. However, if MVPs previously played a role in determining rank, it is now likely that MVPs still have an impact. Reddit-user dob_bobbs shares his thoughts, including how the Glicko-2 system works, and assumes that “erratic performance” can limit the loss or increase of rank points. The reasoning behind this is that a player may be ‘choking’ or ‘bullying’, not being able to determine their true level, which means more time is needed to determine exactly. .

What we can be sure of

With so many fan theories that keep us guessing as to how rank works, there are still a few things we can learn from.

There are many factors that affect rank and they are not disclosed by Valve.

“All the math is done inside the matchmaking system and from multiple parameters to represent a player’s swing and hence rank” was posted by vitaly_valve in response. back to RetriButioN’s tutorial. No matter how much information someone gathers, they still cannot fully understand the details of how the ranking system works. With so many factors affecting rank, it’s better to focus on winning the match than arguing about things like who won the bomb, even if someone tells you to.

The more games you play, the harder it will be to change your rank.

The nature of the ‘Rating Deviation’ in Glicko-2 explains that the longer a player stays at a rank, the more the system will believe that your true rank is there. With the smaller the ‘gap’, it becomes more difficult to rank up in MMR. If you’ve ever watched famous Youtubers or Streamers plowing an account from Silver 1 to Global, then you will find that it takes quite a while to rank up at Silver level. This happens when this account intentionally loses many consecutive matches to drop the rank. During that time, the rating system will think it has a good grasp of the ‘true’ level of the player, and therefore react less (i.e. increase less MMR) to subsequent wins. However, this does not mean that you will never rank up. Train hard and compete against people above your rank, your ‘gap’ will widen and allow for big strides.

When you stop playing CS:GO for a while, your rank will definitely decrease, but it often leads to a drop in rank on its own.

When you take a month off from CS:GO, you may find that your rank is gone, and need a draw or win to get it back. When you take a break from playing for longer, there is a big chance that when you come back to play, your rank won’t be the same as your old rank before. It has been suggested that MMR slowly decreases over time when you stop playing for a while. However, there is very little evidence to support this. The main possible reason for the gradual decrease in Rank comes from the ‘rating deviation’ that has been increased.

Your rank range will become less certain after a period of inactivity, which increases the ‘range difference’ (RD). Each drop on the map shown above represents a match that has taken place, helping the system believe that the system will determine your true skill.

The longer you stop playing competitively, the harder it will be for the system to determine your rank, meaning you’re more likely to be placed against players whose skills are distinct from yours (instead of typically facing Nova 3 if Rank I’m Nova 3, now I can touch both MGE or Silver 3) because the number of players has increased. However, when you play again and realize that your Rank has dropped, don’t worry too much. Since your ‘gap’ also increases, that should result in faster rank recovery (provided your true level doesn’t drop).