If you’re new to CS:GO, you may need to set aside some time to earn your stripes.

The leveling system ranges from one to 40 and rewards you with cosmetic skin drops and service medals for your time invested in the game. Once you’ve played enough, those medals change color for every 40 times you rank up over the course of the year—like prestiging in Call of Duty.

To unlock competitive matchmaking, you must reach level two by playing any of the game modes, including Casual, Arms Race, Demolition, Danger Zone, and Deathmatch. Attaining level two will grant you access to matchmaking, where some of CS:GO’s finest can be found.
Your rank won’t show until you’ve won 10 competitive matches. You’ll be placed in mixed games with players from various ranks, but generally, players are initiated in the lower tiers until at least halfway into their placement progress.

Since you’re playing on a new account, you’ll be restricted to two competitive wins per day until you reach your 10th. Valve added this system to combat the use of smurfing by higher-ranked players. Assuming that you’re able to reach two wins per day, your rank should be given to you on the fifth day of playing in matchmaking. When you’ve won 10 competitive matches, your skill group will finally appear.

Once you’ve earned your stripes, your rank will be displayed under your username at the start-up screen and to the right of your username on match scoreboards. You can only see your teammates’ ranks if you’re in a party with them.

Valve’s player hierarchy consists of 18 ranks, with each rank more skilled than the last. The ranks are in the following order from top to bottom.

This was the ranks distribution about 3 months ago:

Players classify the ranks into tiers. Generally, players exhibit the same behaviors as other players in their ranks, with some exceptions. For instance, “MGs” are typically familiar with the economy system for the first four rounds, meaning minimal team communication is required.

“Silvers” are at the bottom of the food chain. It’s the rank where players are total beginners and there’s little to no strategy involved in gameplay. This range of ranks is where smurfs (higher-ranked players on alternate accounts) are commonly found. Escaping the Silver division is particularly challenging for newer players because of this.

“Novas” sit in the middle of the bell curve as they’re beginning to learn more and more about the game, such as economy, spray patterns, smokes, and pop-flashes. The upper Nova ranks act as the true checkpoint for being above average. Players who are “all aim and no brain” are most commonly found in Nova, meaning that they can aim their gun and kill enemies but lack the game sense to improve.

Players with “Master Guardian” in their rank are generally more advanced. They already have knowledge of sprays, economic buy trends, site execution with utility, and retake coordination. Moving up anywhere past the MG ranks requires perfecting your skills, learning from your mistakes, and making incremental changes to your playstyle for improvement.

Anything above DMG (LE through GE) is where the elite of Counter-Strike reside. These guys are really, really good at finding ways to kill you.

Improving your rank is pretty rudimentary: If you win enough games, you rank up. Losing games will de-rank you.

CS:GO follows a modified Glicko-2 ranking system, according to Valve. This algorithm evaluates a player’s skill pool based on their round influence and whether their team wins the round. Factors such as kills, deaths, MVPs, assists, damage given, and bomb plants all affect a hidden numerical value that determines your place within a rank. A general in-game model to follow would be to play for the round win and not for kills. The amount of kills you have doesn’t matter as much if your team is consistently losing. Those kills only play a long-term role in preventing you from de-ranking.

The best way to rank up in a short period of time is to play with players who share the same goal. Players who queue with other serious players are more likely to win more rounds and even the match than five players who are solo-queued. The best way to find other serious players is to befriend other passionate people in community servers or on third-party sites.

If you’re serious about your rank, try avoiding solo queue. You run the risk of encountering griefers (players who intentionally lose the match) or players who don’t care if you win. Solo queuing is associated with de-ranking due to the variable competitiveness of players.

Your rank isn’t everything. It’s just an arbitrary name that defines how other players perceive you. If you focus on becoming better at CS:GO rather than winning, ranking up will eventually become seamless.