An MVP (read: Most Valuable Person) is an award given at the end of every round of CS:GO's Casual and Competitive Mode. The award is only given to one player from the winning team per round. As the name states, only the person who has done the most to help their team win the round gets the award. However, players may feel that the game didn't give the MVP to the person who deserved it. In this guide, I will hopefully answer all your questions about MVPs.

How do they affect your rank?

CS:GO's Competitive Mode features a ranking system, which measures your skill. This system is based on the ELO rank system, initially created for chess, which is featured in many other present-day competitive games, such as DOTA 2 or League of Legends. The ELO system featured in CS:GO tracks your wins and losses, and based on that gives or takes away points from your rank. However, here is where MVP awards come into play.

Besides tracking wins and losses, the ranking system in CS:GO also tracks your MVPs, meaning that the more you have, the more points you get on a win. If you lose, you will not lose as many points as if you had fewer MVP awards.

How are they awarded?

The game engine has a fairly complex and confusing system for awarding MVPs, but if you bear with me, by the end of this guide you'll know all about it!

Situation 0: If there is a draw, nobody gets an MVP.

Situation I: An entire team suicides/attacks each other, without the others damaging any of the players in the team. Nobody from the other team gets an MVP.

Situation II: One person from the other team inflicts as little as 1 damage to one of the players in the team. The team then suicides/attacks each other. The person who inflicted the damage gets the MVP.

Situation III: Terrorists have planted the bomb, and the round is won because of the bomb exploding. The person who planted the bomb gets the MVP.

Situation IV: Terrorists have planted the bomb, but the round is won because all Counter Terrorists are eliminated. The person who eliminated most CTs gets the MVP.

Situation V: Terrorists have planted the bomb, but the bomb has been defused. In this situations, there are two outcomes:

V.1: If the defuser hasn't killed anyone, the MVP goes to the CT who eliminated most terrorists.
V.2: If the defuser has killed at least one terrorist, the MVP goes to the bomb defuser.

Situation VI: This is the most complex situation, but even this one is fairly easy to comprehend. If the bomb does not get planted, and the round is won due to an entire team being eliminated, the player with the most points in the other team gets the MVP. How are points distributed?

You get 1 point for an assist, 2 points per kill, as per usual. However, it seems that terrorists also get 3 points for being within a short range of the bomb when the bomb is planted.

This situation brings up more confusion, however: what is valued most? A kill or two assists? What if two people have the exact same score? While not all of these questions have an answer, most of them do:

- A kill is valued more than two assists, even though they bring the same amount of points.

- If two players have the exact same score, the server determines who gets the MVP: the player who connected first gets the award. This doesn't mean that the one who has a better PC gets it, but rather the one with the best Internet connection gets it. Therefore, you can still get an MVP in this situation if your PC took a while to load up the game as long as your Internet connected to Valve's servers first.

- X and Y have the same amount of kills, and the same amount of points. However, X does a small amount of damage to the enemies Y kills (but not enough to get an assist). In this situation, it doesn't matter who connected first: X will get the MVP.

Conclusion: How to get more MVPs!

Now that I have (hopefully) answered most of the questions you have about MVP distribution, you need to keep the following things in mind if you want to always get an MVP award:

Sometimes, getting an MVP is just out of your reach. Don't kick yourself if a few rounds pass without getting an MVP; as I previously stated, sometimes MVPs are distributed to the one who had the best connection. Sometimes, you're just not in the right place at the right time. Keep playing and don't despair.

Keep in mind that the defuser is guaranteed an MVP if he had a kill that round. If you see the bomb, try to reach it before the others as long as you have at least one kill. If you don't, you should let someone else defuse it.

If you have the bomb, think twice before passing it to someone else. If the round ends because of the bomb exploding, the person who planted it will get an MVP, so you can squeeze an additional MVP or two if you keep the bomb to yourself. However, don't be selfish! If you're pinned down in a position, it would be wiser to throw the bomb to an available teammate.

Disclaimer: I based a lot of this information from 3kliksphilip's video, which you can check out here.