Categorizing and Explaining CS:GO Ranks (Includes Rank Calculator)

A Guide for people who are interesting in understanding the new ranking system, how it affects you, and how you can rankup!

Authors Notes

In early Janurary 2016, the ranking system was changed by the developers, this was due to an influx of players, and a substantial positive skew of the ranks, the before and after the changes can be seen here:


While many might feel this is an unfair change, I believe it was justified as It gives more meaning and distinction between ranks, creating a (albeit artificital) gap between each skill group. This guide has been updated since this update to accomodate these changes, and will hopefully add some Insight into the new ranking system and how it works.

The System (And why the new rank system isn't so bad)

CS:GO's ranking system contains 18 different ranks:

The ranking system is a hybrid of the Elo Rating System[en.wikipedia.org], developed by Arpad Elo[en.wikipedia.org]. The Elo rating system is a method of calculating relative skill levels of players in chess. Which is unfortunate, as the Elo system was intended for Player vs Player rather then Team vs Team, which poses some issues which I'll be getting into later.

The rank displayed on your player profile is a visual representation of a numerical rank, the system, upon participating In games calibrates and recalibrates your rank number depending on performance. What has been changed is not your Elo (Your actual numerical, performance points) but rather your displayed rank, e.g Master Guardian, Gold Nova, Etc. This means that you haven't infact lost your "rank", it has just been recalibrated to fit your new visual representation!

This is the table which displays the old and new rank statistics:

As you can see, each tier of ranks (Master Guardian, Nova), has essentially jumped 1 tier down, so a majority of existing MG's are now Nova's, and existing Nova's are now Silver, for example. The exeception to this rule being SMFC/GE, which has maintained its majority of members, this is probbably due to the fact that GE has HUGE spectrum of skill levels, from recently ranked to 40+ wins into the rank.

What contributes to your Elo/Rank

You're rank is solely determined, by these contributing factors:

Rounds Won/Lost:

Perhaps the biggest factor, your rank is affected by each individual round won and lost.
Upon winning a game, a multiplier is added to your rounds won. If the enemy surrenders the bonus is only applied to those rounds won.

MvPs:

Your ingame performance is solely determined by MvP's, this has been proven multiple times, there is no corralation between your KDA and rank. To recieve the MvP for the round, these are the requirements:

- Defusing the bomb
- Rescuing a Hostage
- Successfully planting AND detonating the bomb
- Eliminating the majority of enemies on a single round (This is voided if a player with atleast 1 kill defuses the bomb, or if the bomb detonates before all enemies are killed)

Elo of both teams:

Rounds won/lost won't contribute the same amount to your elo as the enemy team. When you queue for a game, the system tries to pair 5 players against 5 players with a combined elo equal to that of the other team. If the team with the lower amount of Elo wins a round, they gain more elo, and if they lose a round, they lose less, the same is applied vice versa.

if a player abandons, the combined Elo score of that team drop significantly, thereby mitigating a portion of the lost round, but also benefiting the team if they win the round. It is always advisable to surrender, as your elo will then only be affected by the rounds played.

Rank Calculator

The new ranking system has also significantly increased the difficulty to rank up, now that each tier is now recalibrated.

From my new findings, this is what I can with some level of conviction say is accurate:

In the Silver Tier, It takes approximately 3-4 decisive wins to rank up.
In the Nova Tier, It takes approximately 4-6 decisive wins to rank up.
In the Master Guardian Tier, It takes approximately 6-8 decisive wins to rank up.
In the Legendary Eagle Tier, It takes approximately 8-10 decisive wins to rank up.
To achieve Supreme Master First Class, It takes approximately 12 decisive wins to rank up.
To achieve Global Elite, It takes approximately 25 decisive wins to rank up.

These results are based off calculations I've done with my other accounts.
This is a big change compared to the previous itiration of the ranks, and so It will change significantly in the coming days!

A decisive win is considered a win with a lead equal to, or greater than 10-16, with a score of 4 MvPs or more, and have equal or less teammates then the enemy team for the majority of rounds.

The calculator below will be updated once my rough results are fine tuned

Calculator:
Win with a Large Margin against higher ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 2 Wins Off Number)
Win with a Large Margin against higher ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1.5 Wins Off Number)
Win against higher ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1.5 Wins Off Number)
Win against higher ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1.25 Wins Off Number)
Win with a Large Margin against equal ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1.5 Wins Off Number)
Win with a Large Margin against equal ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1.25 Wins Off Number)
Win against equal ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1.5 Wins Off Number)
Win against equal ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1 Win Off Number)
Win with a large margin against lower ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 1 Win Off Number)
Win with a large margin against lower ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0.5 Win Off Number)
Win against lower ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0.25 Wins Off Number)
Win against lower ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0.1 Wins Off Number)
Tie against higher ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0.5 Wins Off Number)
Tie against higher ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0.25 Wins Off Number)
Tie against equal ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0.25 Wins Off Number)
Tie against equal ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0.1 Wins Off Number)
Tie against lower ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Negate 0 Wins Off Number)
Tie against lower ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Add 0.25 Wins Onto Number)
Lose against higher ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Add 0.25 Wins Onto Number)
Lose against higher ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Add 0.5 Wins Onto Number)
Lose with a large margin against higher ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Add 0.75 Wins Onto Number)
Lose with a large margin against higher ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Add 1 Wins Onto Number)
Lose against equal ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Add 0.75 Wins Onto Number)
Lose against equal ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Add 1 Wins Onto Number)
Lose with a large margin against equal ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Add 1 Wins Onto Number)
Lose with a large margin against equal ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Add 1.5 Wins Onto Number)
Lose against lower ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Add 1 Wins Onto Number)
Lose against lower ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Add 1.5 Wins Onto Number)
Lose with a large margin against lower ranks and receive more than 5 MvPs: (Add 1.5 Wins Onto Number)
Lose with a large margin against lower ranks and receive less than 5 MvPs: (Add 2 Wins Onto Number)

If you end up with a non-whole number, round it up,
Add 1 win to the final number, If you want a near guaranteed number.

Do's and Don'ts of matchmaking

DO Be respectful of team mates, arguements generally leads to losing.
DO Encourage team mates, It might help them to play better.
DO Warmup before playing a competitive match.
DO Check before reporting someone, always rewatch the match and write through reports.

DONT Solo Queue, ever. Trust me, Its always better to queue with people you know are good and can play well. Rather then run the risk of people who lag, troll or are plain bad.
DONT Despair! I've come back from 4:11's numerous times, because the enemy got cocky.
DONT Get carried away, If you lose a game, stop and come back later, same goes for winning.
DONT Queue with unknowns, if a friend says they are good, spectate them first.
DONT Hack, no body likes hackers.
DONT Form at clan at anything below MG, It's really not worth it.

Training

Aiming

A key component to ranking up is of course, training.
Training your aim prior to a match, can give you a significant advantage in the game.

Different ways to train:
- Join a Deathmatch Server and obtain a set amount of kills for a specific set of guns you want to get better at. (or a general set for warming up)
- 1v1 Arena Servers
- Headshot only DM Servers and/or FFA

Nading

Nading can be done by yourself, hop onto a offline match with no bots and set on compettive mode. Then go into console and input the following:

sv_cheats 1; sv_infinite_ammo 1; sv_grenade_trajectory 1; bind q noclip; give weapon_hegrenade; give weapon_flashbang; give weapon_molotov; give weapon_smokegrenade; mp_roundtime_defuse 60

These are the commands needed to train well, it will give nade trajectory, unliimited nades, flight and unlimited time.

Thankyou!

If you feel like supporting my work, feel free to send me skins here:
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Thankyou for reading my (hopefully) helpful, albeit short guide. This has been my first attempt at something like this, so any questions or constructive critisim is appreciated!

[master of the building]

it depends on your mvps and points, i got gold nova 3 with 60% winning ratio i think

[Eve]

If I maintain a 50% win ratio in my first 10 wins. What rank will I possibly get?

[Du ist eine Frau]

lol
i won one game in mg1 and ranked up to mg2

[Hexa]

sry 4 my bad english i hope you understand
does the win line brake if you have 7 win and you lose 1 time
are u anable to still get 8 or wat??

[I SHOOT THINGS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I've been to SMFC solo q'ing. Np

[Alk Fauf]

@Finna BUSS
@TheDinkster
@Ayy Lmao™


Admittedly, this guide is rather old and some of the information at the current doesn't necessarily reflect the elo meta. However, It is important to realise that games won are not taken for just a face value +1 -1. Much of what goes into you ranking up or not is in-game performance, winning is just only half of it. Attaining high amounts of MvPs is the sure way of ranking up faster.

In the near future I'll update the ranking scheme to reflect the new balances, thanks for your input!

[Uzi]

This isn't accurate. I've been SE since literally January, it's march now. I ranked up to SEM for three games, I lost the first one, won the second one and lost the third one and deranked. I've been on 6 game win streaks as SE, and I've been on losing streaks, it's like valve doesn't want me to rank up ever

[BigBoyDom]

then why have i won 8 straight games and still have not ranked up from silver 1?

[Grigbert]

i was wondering if you could update the stats for 2017

[durag shawn]

What would happen if I won 3 games (in silver) lost 1, and won the next? How close would I be to ranking up? Would I have to win 3 more games? Or less than 3?