630+ Wins, Almost 2000 Hours... But Still Stuck in Silver.

[techno]

[WARNING - LONG POST]

You've read the title.

I've been debating asking for help, as people online are always unpredictable, and well, it's quite embarrassing to admit this. But I have no other choice; and I don't know what to do anymore.

Here's my situation:

When I was young, my father introduced me to CS1.6 and CSS. I loved playing those games a lot, so when the CS:GO trailer came out, I was ecstatic.

I got the game when it came out. By 2014, I reached MG2 simply by solo-queuing. At this point I was in love with the game. I remember watching a lot of Ninjas in Pyjamas, back then when CS:GO eSports will very young: when players like GeT_RiGhT, f0rest, Pasha, and JW were known as the best. At this point, I had about 800 hours on the game.

After 2014 however, I stopped playing. I don't exactly remember why, but at this time, High School started driving my attention to other things, other video games and such.

I would continue to leave this game more or less untouched until 2018, when my friends invited me to play CS:GO with them.

I fell in love with the game again. I caught up with almost all of the eSport scene. A big example was watching Cloud9 win the ELEAGUE Boston Major, otherwise remembered as the "greatest CS:GO finals in history": it made me want to play again.

However, this was when I soon found out CS:GO completely changed the ranking system. I was now in silver... but surely, I thought. Surely, I could just work hard, rework my game sense, my aim, and work my way back to where I once was.

Little did I know, that wasn't just "harder than you'd think": it's outright bloody impossible.

Yes, I know it actually isn't. But that's exactly how I feel now right now. Bloody, and impossible.

To quickly get back into the CS flow, I watched a LOT of pro games (which was easy since I'm obsessed with the CS:GO eSport scene anyway, and have always been).

I've spent about 80-100 hours on Aim Botz (the Ulletical map). My average time for the 90 degree 100 kill challenge (HS only, AK) is 1:05.

I've racked up another 1100 hours since the beginning of 2019, mainly playing MM with my friends, who have also sort of started to get serious about their rank too.

But it still isn't enough. I'm still stuck in silver, despite being able to top-frag about 85% of my games, had a 15 win streak that got me to the edge of SEM, but only to start losing games uncontrollably again.

My friends, people in MM chat, and even my brother (who also plays) have mocked me for being a silver with 2000 hours, despite practising seriously for the last year or so.

Even while I know they're joking, I know they're right. They're so damn right, and it hurts like hell. I've invested so much time into this video game, it hurts to think if all this passion has gone to nothing.

Back then in 2014, silvers were known for placing their crosshair on the ground, not knowing how to walk, spraying AKs while running forward, and not buying any utility at all.

Now, it feels like silver is the new MG2. My opponents always seem to have the consistency of Astralis and the aim of freaking Twistzz.

I don't like admitting this to my friends, but I've gotten serious into my CSGO practice. I've fully memorised the spray pattern of the main rifles (M4A4, AK, AUG, Krieg (when it was op--rip tho).

I've learned how to use utility effectively, line-ups, flashes, etc (also for helping teammates push areas - I find that in almost all of my games I have the most EF flashes, and by a decent amount) mainly by watching YT tutorials and pro matches.

I'd say AWP is my best weapon, as in most games when I main AWP I generally get multi-kills every successful round that my team has. I also practice it a lot; but it's not by "best" by a large margin. Nowadays I spend more time practising rifles.

What I'm trying to say, is, well... I'm not sure what to do anymore.

For example, it feels like the opponent always knows where I am, and I swear to HELL they always peek when I stop watching/pull out a nade. This has become so much of a problem recently that I've become demotivated towards the end of matches. And I swear to heck it isn't bad luck either: when I re-watch the demos my opponents push places at the most illogical, random timings, and for no reason. It's ridiculous.

I'm not one of those silvers that accuses the enemy of hacking whenever they dominate me: I got past that stage back in 2014. But nowadays, when I review my demos, often the player I suspect is cheating (which I wish wasn't as often as it is now) is blatantly doing so. But the VAC system right now (or really, ever) cannot handle the ever-growing load of cheaters, and blatant ones go on without being banned for months.

While this is a problem, I'm not blaming cheaters for me being stuck in silver.

This game confuses me. I'm literally mimicking what pro players do. I use their positions, their nades, their timings, etc. While my aim is obviously nowhere close to theirs, I still play safe by holding angles, peaking with flashes, using smokes wherever and whenever appropriate.

I learn their play style. I adopt it. I try to understand their reasoning for it. I tell my friends to do the same.

Yet, here I am: stuck at the bottom of a video game that I've been playing for years, and for once in any video game, not knowing what major mistake I'm making.

What do you guys think? What's your opinion on my issue? Do you have a similar experience?

I'm open for constructive criticism of all sorts: am I thinking about this wrong? Is my thought-process false?

- a struggling Silver

[Muk]

join r/LearnCSGO, learning by yourself without someone correcting you is not that efficient,
you need someone to point out your possible mistakes + you need a GN team and top frag to easily get out of silver

https://discord.gg/LearnCSGO

[techno]

Originally posted by Aria:

join r/LearnCSGO, learning by yourself without someone correcting you is not that efficient,
you need someone to point out your possible mistakes + you need a GN team and top frag to easily get out of silver

https://discord.gg/LearnCSGO

Joined immediately. Thank you.

I'm highly convinced my biggest issue is finding a team better than me. But you know, social anxiety, lol. But I'm willing to step out of my comfort zone, if that means a solution.

[gordon]

hey dude, lets accept my invitation and try a 1vs1 with me

[koma]

there is no special anymore, ranked is succ, this game succ.
trust factor succ, server succ
so many hacker
gg boiz

[Ancient Oldie]

It's arguable, but that is not that many wins for that many hours.

* take this tip: Stop caring about rank and stop tryharding, play with the flow and if you are good enough, you rank up.

[Fanshiko]

When in Silver you must play like a Silver. Pro strats so not always work you need to always be on guard and you should only pull nades behind cover. (I am in silver but these things seem to help)

[~MachineGunJebbi]

I recently started to play on my smurf, because otherwise i couldnt play with my friends who are silver. I started on rank silver 2 and by now hes nova master after a couple of matches. I mostly carried them out by myself, tho a few good calls also made them do the most part on lots of rounds.
I dont mean to brag because it actually is rather pathetic and no achievement at all, to play and win against far lower ranks.
Just saying that it is obviously possible to get up ur rank quick and that there is no such thing as an silver hell. If you played that much and still stuck in silver you probably missed a major basic of the game in your playstyle.
I recommend you to watch some pro games, and really pay attention to what they are doing, listening to the commentators because most of the time they have a explanation on why a team does a certain thing in some situations.
Maybe having an experienced, high rank player spectate you and tell you whats wrong would also help.

[Szcześniak]

Silver gaming XD

[BEAST]

i think you should work on deeper aspects of the game,like rotates,where to position yourselves,reading your opponents better and stuff like that.

[frackingfan6969]

Silver is fun

[Arghantyl]

Originally posted by Cheese:

Silver is fun

Indeed XD

Man , just practice aim/spray/ counterstrafe on Yprac maps and play an ABC playstyle.
You can soloq easily silvers , they are trash.

Also if you start the game by being stressed , just try to relax before and practice meditation before.

[Rosinante /\ BDO Musa]

Silver=best rank, nothing to win nothing to lose. No stress just enjoy the game.I wish i could be silver.

[Hamsterpeek]

Step 0: Forget everything you know. Seriously. Also don't "mimick" pros. What pros do don't fit to the situations you're in because you don't play in a clan game and your enemies aren't playing like pros.
Step 1: Have agood environment. Playing with low fps, a lot of people behind you like family annoying you is bad.
Step 2: Get your settings straight. Resolution, weapon pov, graphics quality, sensitivity, binds, ...
Step 3: Get the knowledge how to do stuff. And do stuff right. It doesn't help when you learn things wrong because then you'll never get better. Economy, teammates, communication, movement, weapon characteristics, angles, crosshairplacement, utility usage, ... - start with the basics like movement, learning the maps and crosshairplacement.
Watch the videos from voo and lo3:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN8-LHGdFMPT4h8rHEqXakA/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/downsideCSS/videos
Both will give you the correct foundation.
Step 4: Practice, practice, practice, practice. Practice all the things you learned in the theory. Play a ton of deathmatch on the competitive maps, play on kz maps, run around on an offline server and learn the basic smokes, run around and learn any callout, do the math for the economy, run on those empty server just for the sake of movement and crosshairplacement

One of the most important videos for your understanding is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UAo2p_KpuI

[techno]

Originally posted by Ancient Oldie:

It's arguable, but that is not that many wins for that many hours.

* take this tip: Stop caring about rank and stop tryharding, play with the flow and if you are good enough, you rank up.

Fair point, however, I spent majority of my earlier days in surf servers and AWP servers, so about 500 wins equates to about 1200 hours for me.

[Daddy Shark]

Honestly it sounds like something in the MM system is malfunctioning to me. Someone like yourself should climb out of silver pretty fast. Get a group of regulars together and start stomping silver ass and you should be moving up quick.