thumbop#NA1 is my tag, i peaked only a couple games into imm but i have a ton of experience from CSGO as i got to top 2% or something of their ranked mm. To give you a reason to give a shit abt what im saying.

Anyway, i see a lot of posts complaining about two duelists instalock, 3 duelist locks, or even 4 duelist locks. Ive seen a lot of talk about peekers advantage, people noticing inconsistencies and so on. I wanted to make a post to try and correct some misunderstandings about the game a lot of people have.

Team Comp- if you are below diamond (honestly even through diamond if you’re good enough) team comp means wayyy less than you think it does. You might see your reyna jett instalock and immediately enter tilt mode- ease yourself. even if they dont intend on entrying, the agent YOU pick will be much more important than what they pick. Even so, in low elo, you can get away with pretty much any comp if you rely on the fundamentals of a low ttk bomb defusal game. the general idea is to have a good balance of smoke flash and post plant, but this isnt a rule to die by until u get higher ranked. my suggestion is to learn a controller. Astra even after the nerf is one of the best solo q agents in the game (imo) as she has global reach and precision with her utility. the nerfs to her really only impact really high level gameplay like imm and the pro scene. i hopped on her post nerf and saw a ton of success myself (i understand this is anecdotal, but your mm games are never played to perfection.)

Peekers advantage- This is something ive heard thrown around a lot and people like to give this way more credit than it deserves. peekers advantage is not the reason you lose games. if you truly understand how angles work, you will be able to use this to your advantage to win more gunfights against opponents who don’t understand how angles work. i suggest looking up a video on angles but the gist is that the closer you are to the angle between you and your enemy, the easier you are to kill. the easiest way to demonstrate this is to have a buddy go up close to corner and have his body stick out from the side. if you are far away from this angle, you will see him sticking out and he will not be able to see you. this is not bullshit, its geometry, there are proofs of this.

Inconsistency- you will be inconsistent. this game will feel inconsistent. especially if you are coming from csgo, this game will feel oddly foreign and inconsistent. the reality is that movement in this game is different. there is an acceleration and deceleration to movement whereas in csgo, your inputs are nearly instantaneous. the accuracy frames will feel weird because at times where u are moving, you are still quite accurate. there is a skill ceiling to aiming, you are not losing because “this game is so easy you can just run and gun and be accurate.” you are losing because you dont know how to play a low ttk bomb defusal game as well as you think you do. theres some rule you can go by i think its called 30/40/30 or something like that, where 30% of your games are unwinnable, 40% you can impact and the last 30% are wins no matter what. This is a fine baseline for your sanity.

LAST COUPLE CRUCIAL TIPS- please stop looking at your rank/scoreboard as a means of gauging skill. kills mean literally absolutely nothing as a number. your rank means absolutely nothing as a marker. all that matters is WHAT you gain vs lose from getting that kill. it also only matters HOW YOU PLAY THAT GAME, not what your rank is vs their rank. stop thinking kills are everything, stop getting down on yourself when you frag low. I have games in my match history where i pick a controller and go 8/8/10 and know that my impact on that game may have been the largest out my team, even when paired up against the jett who has 30 kills. I know this because while my frags were few, they had massive impact. they may have been the entrying pick that gives us a site, or more likely late round clutch kills. i know how smokes work so just by using my utility correctly im allowing my team to hold some space. my 8 kills could entirely have been just me in 4 separate 1v2s. this means ive won 4 rounds that theoretically i should never win. my jett may have 30 kills because he buys a judge against a team that is full saving and aces every anti-eco round. you were already very likely to win the round, and so these 5 kills are much less impactful than an ace on a buy round, or even when securing a 1v2+ clutch.

That is all, sorry if the format was shit i typed this on my phone. best of luck guys