Ranking up is not an easy task for many people, even those who often top frag. When I played in matchmaking at around Master Guardian - Master Guardian Elite I often found myself top fragging in games and while I was playing very well, I still couldn’t get the win. If you find yourself in a position like this, then I can help you. This article is meant to improve your gameplay and help you rank up, if you are willing to set aside your ego to follow this guide you will see improvement and more wins put towards a rank up.

Difference between carrying and top fragging is: Top fragging is when you sit on the top of your team’s leaderboards with a lot of kills, points, and maybe even MVP stars. Carrying is when you use your skills to make impact frags and create opportunities for your team to capitalize on in order to win the round. Now do not get me wrong you can carry AND top frag, often times you will find yourself doing so, however to carry you do not need to top frag and to top frag does not mean you are carrying. So let’s go over three ways to help yourself carry.

1. Learn to play for the win, not for the frags.

I do a lot of demo reviews for people who top frag, lose, and they have no idea why. The reason why is that they often play positions and play styles that will get them kills, but do not largely impact the result of the round. A lot of this is due to; ineffective lurking, passive objective play, and getting unimportant kills.

As an example, on Dust II I see a lot of people lurking near tunnels while their team goes A and they do so very ineffectively. A proper lurk should be cutting off rotates to relieve pressure off of the teammates that are getting site control. However I often see people holding mid doors corner and simply waiting for a Counter Terrorist to pass by while their team takes A site. THIS IS PLAYING FOR FRAGS, THIS IS BAD. This is because if you were to get that kill on someone rotating it doesn’t mean anything if your team can’t get on site. So in theory if you play this way, you are letting your team push into site without you while you hide in a corner. How you should be playing a lurk position like this, is using the attention drawn towards your team to your advantage. Let’s say your team is at long, you should be sneaking to A site through catwalk after the Counter Terrorists catch sight of your teammates. Then you are creating pressure and a crossfire and after your team has control of the site you can cut off rotates from mid doors or CT;

In summary, the kills you are getting should help your team take control of the objective. Killing a CT on the actual site is a million times more important than waiting to kill one walking through double doors. Make sure that your frags largely impact the round. The amount of kills does not matter at the end of the game, the kills that win you the rounds are the kills that really matter.

2. Communicate and coordinate with your team.

Communication when ranking up can be absolutely crucial. Whether you are in Matchmaking by yourself or with a team, you should be letting your team know what you want to do and what you know. I normally either queue up by myself or with 2 or more friends with me. And the most frustrating thing to experience in a high pressure game is when your teammates don’t give you any information. You should set an example and make precise and ideal callouts. Warning, this does not mean saying “Mid mid mid mid mid”, this just spams your mic and only makes it harder for the player to focus, make a call once or twice and that’s it. The callouts need to be about the location of enemies dead or alive and made clear if this is call is based off of sound, sight, or process of elimination (getting knowledge of everywhere else on the map). You should also be letting your team know what parts of the map you are watching and what parts you are not. Any piece of knowledge that your teammates would want to know to secure the round should be called out.
Some examples:

“I saw two people cross to B”
“I hear somebody on catwalk”
“Long doors is clear, could be cat or B”
“I’m watching window, I can’t cover tunnels”
“Bomb is down cat”

Now along with communication as far as callouts you should be coordinating tactics with your team. This includes grenade usage, site executions, boosts, and economic plans. Examples:

“I’ll flash into site for you, don’t go until it pops”
“I’ll smoke off CT”
“Rush B with Tec9 Armor”
“I can boost you mid”
“Does anyone need a drop?”

This video is a short clip from a month ago where my team and I have good, not perfect, communication.
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3. Put aside your ego and step up.

The most important role when it comes to playing a terrorist side is the entry fragger. This is a fact in my head and no great team has ever won a tournament without solid entry fraggers. If you aren’t aware of what an entry fragger is then I would define it as the player who is willing and able to push into the site first to establish presence and control. The entry fragger will, more often than not, die doing their job. If your team is lacking someone who is willing to make that first move to try and get site control, then you need to do it. Sometimes you will get a great teammate willing to entry frag then you should take full advantage of that. If not, you are going to have to be willing to say to your team “I’m going to smoke this and push this, if I die, trade the kill and plant the bomb”. If you don’t push in and try to make a play onto a site, most likely your team will sit behind you and wait for a good 5-20 seconds doing nothing useful. Be objective about your gameplay and take the site. Your stats will probably suffer from this, but if it gets your team onto the site with a bomb plant, then you are the unspoken MVP. Do not buy into the laymen idea that entry frag pro players are bad because they don’t get crazy numbers, the entry fraggers are just as important as any other position, if not than more important.

So always remember in order to carry your team to a victory you are going to need to work with them. This isn’t a lone wolf type of game, teamwork is required to win against any competent players. Don’t play for yourself and bait your team into dying, don’t turn on your music and sit there quietly, and don’t expect your team to be perfect. You need to step up and be a leader and a team player. If you aren’t willing to talk with your team and help them figure out how to win these rounds, then you aren’t willing to win the game.

Good luck, have fun, and keeping ranking up!

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