If you're a new player, go invest time in Valorant. This game is in a bad place right now and I'm not sure it will dig its way out.

This game is easy to understand, hard to master but has good skill curve to climb... Typically.

These days, everyone that plays this game is on some level competent to good. From where I play, I constantly get matched against players MUCH lower skilled and typically much lower ranked than me. Most of my games are against silvers or novas if I'm lucky. This feels terrible on both sides.

I feel like I waste 30-45 minutes of my time in a match that is about as interesting as gunning down easy bots in Call of Duty and they feel like they're getting cheated. This isn't just me, everyone I came up with in this game posts screenshots of the awful match ups on the games community games. This is especially true if you're in the Legendary Eagle to Global rank. Yes as the top ranks, you still get matched with silvers if you have good trust factor. It's terrible.

If you do pick up this game, try and get over to a third party match making service (preferably Faceit.com, ESEA PUGs are a whole other rant where people play for this dumb stat called RWS and you have grindy EXP ranks that guarantee you rank up if you play consistently...) it's the best place to improve and you have people actually inline with your rank to help you grow. It's really sad that you have to rely on a 3rd party match making service to enjoy the competitive side of this game.

If you do reach a level of competency, jump into ESEA leagues. They are the truest way CS:GO was meant to be played and has been played for the last 21+ years. You seriously won't regret it if you make it there past all the other jank.

Finally, I believe Valve has the talent to bring this game back. Here is my list they would have to check off to turn this rating around ->

- Update or remake the Matchmaking system. This includes things like incentives, new player experience, and anti-cheat. This will only work if the anti-cheat improves.
- Introduce a team league/tournament system. This is where peak CS:GO exists.
- Take a hands on approach with your esports scene. Give advertisers a brand safe place to exist, remove terms like Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist. Make rulings in RMR and Major events (coach exploit, match fixing, online RMR qualifer issues like NIP vs Anonymo). Support the tier 3/4 scene more. Having a grass roots approach to esports is what CS was built on... But it needs more love and support from Valve.
- Update the casual experience, take a page out of Valorant's book. Do a battle pass, or at least rolling "Operations"
- Fix the physics between 64 and 128 tick servers for grenades at minimum. Alternatively upgrade servers to 128 tick. PCs have gotten MUCH better since 2013 I would imagine.
- Re-imagine the new player experience. This game is hard, but the on-boarding could be way easier.

Finally, go play Valorant. It's supported, plays very similarly, and has HUGE crossover on skills. It's the game all CS:GO players have been waiting for to rival CS:GO mechanics and more importantly, to make Valve make a decision if they want to compete with it.