So, I played a lot during act 3. I finished with 300 comp wins. At a 50% win rate that's ~600 games during the act, or 6.6 games per day (I finished the battle pass in about 3-4 weeks). I peaked at D3, and usually hovered at D1. Roughly 60-70% of my games were solo 20% were 2-4 stacked and 10-20% were 5 stack. Here are my tips, observations and thoughts:

• There are a lot of smurfs. I never smurfed, but out of the high plat/low diamond players I play with often, roughly 70% of them had smurfs that they played on this act. None of them created smurfs for the intent of having easy games and stomping noobs, nor for the purpose of specifically boosting a lower ranked player. Generally, the main incentive for smurfing was playing with a friend who was a lower rank. Its really frustrating when you are in a group that regularly plays together and one teammate hovers between p2 - d2, and another is p1 - d1, but if there's ever a time when the first is on a peak of d2 and the second is on a loss streak down to p1, you just can't play together, even among players that are normally close in rank and inarguably close in skill level. The 3 rank matchmaking policy has ultimately greatly exacerbated the smurfing problem. I'm confident in saying that every player below IMM probably had their rank affected by smurfs to some degree.

• Cheating. There are definitely cheaters. It seemed worse in the last half of the act. To me, the prevalence of cheaters in the first half of the act was low enough to be what I'd call "acceptable" but the latter started becoming really frustrating. I had two games with players who were blatantly cheating without trying to hide it (on my own team so I could clearly see their aimbot in the death cam) and probably 20-30+ games with players I was suspicious enough of that I reported them.

• I had many games with players that were obviously chat banned, and many of those I was invited to a party with the chat banned player. Personally, I always accepted those invites when I was solo, but roughly 50% of the time they said something report-worthy in the party chat so be prepared for that possibility if you do this.

Solo Queue tips: I haven't played many games below plat, but I'd guess that all of these apply from Iron all the way up to diamond. Can't say if the same is true at IMM+ but at that point you probably know everything anyway.

• Always buy with your team. I know there are varying opinions on whether your full buy after winning pistol, but I strongly suggest that no matter which option you choose, everyone should do it. You don't want to have most of the team buy and then end up dying, losing a gun and ending up in a 1v1 or 2v2 where the opponents have picked up guns and have equal or even better guns than you, all because one guy wanted to save his money and just buy a ghost. If you are in a stack, there are a lot of other strategies regarding buys and playstyle that become viable, but in solo you should always do the same thing as your team, and** play together when you have gun advantage** so you can protect any of your guns that drop. In addition to this, always think about your whole teams econ why buying, and communicate so you can all be on the same page. Nothing is more frustrating than one person forcing light armor + rifle when everyone else is saved and no one realising it until 2 seconds before the round starts.

• If you are going to try anything unexpected or overly aggressive, let your team know.

• "Don't AFK" is an obvious tip, but one thing I think players misunderstand the impact of is being away for only 60s of a round. It may not feel like a big a deal, but that 60s is enough for the round to already be lost or unrecoverable. I've had so many games go to 12-12 where we lost one round due to a short-term afk, and its really frustrating for everyone to when the game could have been won with better time-management.

• Don't bait or lurk with duelists! Usually, you have a critical tool that your team needs to get into a site, so you need to be in the front! A good rule of thumb is that if your utility only works at close-medium range, you should always be with the majority of your team when pushing into a site. Agents with longer range utility that can help your team from far away are better lurkers

• Don't play agents you don't know! Sometimes you end up in a spot during agent select where you are being asked to play something you can't play. Its always better for everyone if you just dodge. Ideally, everyone eventually learns an agent from every archetype well enough to play in comp, but we don't live in an ideal world and realistically sometimes your smokes or duelist or whatever just isn't up to par.

• Ping your minimap. Its often a quicker way to convey a lot of information if you accompany it with comms explaining what you are pinging. It can also be useful for lining up omen flashes, sova ult, bomb during post plant, etc.

• Solo comp games aren't the place for risky knife plays and other shenanigans . If you're in a 5 stack go for it, but in most scenarios your teammates who are trying their hardest will be irritated to see you messing around.

• If a teammate calls a play, do the play as called unless you are able to clearly voice an alternative play. Don't try to do anything fancy or improvise unnecessarily without clearly communicating.

• Limit the amount you request gun skins from other players. It can be cool to show off skins to each other, but do it quickly at the very start of the round, and don't let it delay your readiness.

• If you are going to default, then default. If you are going to stack a site on attack, then if at all possible you need to commit. Usually your odds are better to say, commit to a well defended site and end up in a 3v4 post-plant than to have 5 players all grouped up for the first 30s of the round and then decide to leave and have to clear every single corner on the way to the other site (or don't check them all and die)

• 4 stacks aren't great. Avoid them if you can. Comms and team cohesion are almost always affected unfortunately.

• Treat all players with respect. The world is sometimes smaller than you think. I routinely see players I've played with before when solo queuing on US Central past midnight.