Even in 2022, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s ranks and matchmaking system is an absolute mess for a variety of reasons. But with a little work, it’s possible to break it down and understand how it works and how ranks in CSGO are distributed.
Hackers remain omnipresent in CSGO, with recent numbers suggesting that players came across a hacker in every two to three games. Even worse, CSGO’s ranking system is downright broken in some regions, leaving players of wildly different skill levels lumped together at the same rank.
This has led to a great deal of discontent within the CSGO fandom as many question whether Valve will muster up the energy to fix things. Here’s everything there is to know about CSGO ranks in 2022.
CSGO’s ranks are set in the following order:
The complete list of CSGO ranks can largely be broken up into three chunks. The silver ranks are the lowest, and are followed by the gold ranks that run from Gold Nova 1 to Distinguished Master Guardian. Legendary Eagle through Global Elite make up the highest echelon.
The percentage of players that make up each rank varies wildly from region to region. While the gold ranks should theoretically make up the majority of players, that isn’t the case around the globe.
Rank distribution in CSGO was broken in some regions, with North America and Oceania being the most impacted by issues.
In 2021, Leetify crunched the numbers to show the rank distribution in CSGO within each region. Theoretically, the rank distribution should make for a bell curve, with the mid-tier gold ranks attracting the majority of players. Things were behaving normally in this regard in Asia, Europe, and South America.
However, this wasn’t the case in North America or Oceania. In these regions, players were being held back in silver ranks to a prohibitive degree. More than 50% of players are in silver ranks in these regions, compared to under 30% in the other regions.
This made for a situation where new players were immediately tossed into the deep end. It wasn’t uncommon to see high-level tactics such as one-way smokes and pop flashes in bottom-level games, which theoretically should be reserved for players who barely have a grasp on the basics of CSGO.
It’s uncertain what caused this problem. North America and Oceania might have a disproportionate number of players that have left the game, or hackers and smurfing might be a much bigger problem in these regions than elsewhere. Valve shipped a huge update to the matchmaking system in August 2022 which massively shifted the rankings.
In August 2022, Valve shipped an enormous rankings update in CSGO that recalibrated rankings for players around the world.
“Typically when we ship changes to CSGO’s matchmaking system, the adjustments are small enough that we don’t include them in our release notes. However, today’s update affects all CSGO players so it requires some explanation…Most of you will notice a change to your Skill Group, but some of you may find that you were already in the right place,” Valve stated in a blog post on the official CSGO website.
The CSGO update saw players’ ranks shift to extreme degrees, with some jumping from low silver ranks into high gold or even gold to Global Elite. Players weren’t able to avoid this but generally speaking, players were quite pleased to get a sudden boost to their ranks.
The average CSGO rank varies by region but ideally, the average rank in CSGO is Gold Nova Master.
In a ranking system like CSGO, average players should be shepherded to the medium gold ranks. Issues with CSGO’s matchmaking saw this change over time and skew towards medium silver ranks in some regions. Valve shipped a major update to CSGO matchmaking in August 2022 that likely rectified this.
The average ranking distribution in all regions should be in the range of Gold Nova 3 to Gold Nova Master. Odds are things are similar to this at this time.
Yes, Prime status is now required to play ranked matchmaking and to receive a rank in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.Â
In June 2021, Valve took action to try and curb the number of cheaters and bad actors in CSGO by implementing a paywall. Prime matchmaking now costs $15 and serves as a gateway to drops, ranked matchmaking, and other features. Valve’s reason for this move was to make it so that banned players were no longer able to simply create a new account and return to action shortly after being banned.
This resulted in a noticeable decline in CSGO’s player base, but added the potential for a better experience for the game’s remaining players moving forward.
Depending on the region, the Global Elite rank makes up between 0.4 and 1.4% of CSGO’s player base.
Global Elite is the highest rank in CSGO’s matchmaking. While there are an abundance of issues when it comes to CSGO matchmaking and ranks, Valve has done a good job of making Global Elite a rare achievement.
Even bona fide talents have fallen outside this mark. In 2019, Michael “shroud” Grzesiek returned to CSGO action by playing public matchmaking instead of FACEIT Pro League or ESEA. When he received his new rank, he was placed in Master Guardian Elite rather than Global Elite despite being a pro-caliber talent.
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