In act 2 I was gold 3 with gold 2 act rank. I've never been good mechanically at fps games (CS:GO rank was also Gold 2) but I'd like to believe I have decent game sense so gold 2 was a very respectable rank for me; I was proud that I earned that.

Come Act 3 and I place Gold 1 and quickly make my way back to gold 2. Then by some god forsaken luck, whether it be 3 DC's in one game, off days, school stress, Icebox, or a combination of those, I deranked game after game.

I am now sitting at silver 2, where I encounter the occasional gold 1 but primarily play with other silvers (as opposed to silver 3 where I'd get about half my games being 3/5 or 4/5 gold on each team).

**Let me tell you a very noticeable secret**

Gold is a terrible elo to be in. Everyone thinks they're better than you so everyone is toxic to you, it's not fun.

Silver on the other hand, it's the place where people play casually. It's where nobody really cares about their rank all that much but they still have enough game knowledge so that games aren't excruciatingly hard to endure. Everyone's just chill, I can play comp without thinking "I gotta warm up, I gotta tryhard, I gotta be in the zone and focused"

Silver is great.