As the title really. In the first season I climbed from Silver 1 to Platinum 3 (literally one or two games from Diamond, forever mad about that), with Valorant being my first ever PC shooter. This had positives and negatives. Clearly I was good at the game, at least to a point, but at the same time I lacked the mechanical muscle memory of those migrating from CS:GO, which left me severely mismatched against those players. It's probably part of the reason why I tanked down from Plat 3 to Gold 3 - and eventually stopped playing. I just didn't know how to AD strafe, counterstrafe, etc, etc.

That brings us to now.

I'm playing pretty much every night, with anywhere between 2-4 regular teammates. My main account, the one I peaked on, is putting me against Diamond 2 and 3 players, despite having not placed yet, (not kidding, it's brutal, you guys are mental). My first smurf is Gold 1, my second smurf is Silver 2 currently. I'm ONLY smurfing because two of my buddies are Bronze 3 and I'm out of range. I'm definitely not the Plat 3 player I once was - the side effect of taking 8 months off or whatever, so I'm not raid bossing every game or carrying.

Here's the point.

What I'm seeing down in Bronze and Silver is a BUNCH of smurfs that can seemingly wide or close peek a corner and one tap me instantly. No-one ever owns up to being a smurf, so I never know what rank they are; I'm assuming quite high. These aren't slow peeks either, I'm talking basically sprinting. I'm often dead before I can even get my reticle on target, head or otherwise. I know that stopping resets your aim but, I assume down to server latency, it appears like they're still moving on my screen when I die - that's how fast I'm getting domed.

Being of a highish rank previously, I can obviously hold my own pretty often, and usually end up doing well. But there's consistently one or two players on the opposite team who can seemingly one tap on demand, and it's hard to know what I'm doing wrong when I die in a split second to a Vandal from a peek. Four out of five players will play to their rank, and the fifth will be going 27-5 or something, with multiple aces/ four bombs. Nearly every game.

I don't regularly lose to the carries, one great player is rarely enough to consistently win a whole game, but I WILL lose every fair 1v1 with that player without fail. Doesn't matter the angle I hold, how close or far, or what weapon (aside from Operator, that shit is broke), I cannot survive a peek of any kind from these players, which is making it very hard to actively improve.

Example (we lost this game):

Defending on Bind as Phoenix, point B. Raze is their carry, at this point nearing a 20 bomb after the first half. 6 or 7 rounds in a row she deletes both me and my Cypher all on her lonesome - killing me specifically with headshots with a Vandal, on the peek. I hold a different spot every round so as to try and win the duel (hookah, CT, arches, etc) but it didn't matter. She still swung a corner and domed me effortlessly. I almost called hacks, but I'm aware that's not very easy on Valorant - she was probably just very good at the game. She finished on nearly 40 kills.

Thing is, as I'm sure other Bronze/ Silver players will know, this isn't an isolated incident. I can't recall a game recently where there hasn't been a hard carry doing this, and I don't know how to handle it. Flashes, smokes, CC, hiding, close range, long range, I still find myself losing the 1v1 9/10 times.

It probably sounds like I'm bitter or raging, but I'm not! I just want to get better and I feel like I have zero leeway to do so. I've tried aim training, I've practiced in the other modes, but I still get wrecked in these matchups! Do I just not need to worry about losing these duels? I'm often the most valuable player on my team to some extent, so I feel like I'm letting the side down getting ruined in these matchups. My aim isn't inherently bad, but I'm aware that some aim training might help.

Any advice is appreciated! Mine might be a unique problem, where my game sense and aim is okay/ good, but I'm vastly outclassed on the peek.