I started playing this game maybe after a month after the beta with two of my irl freinds. I had very little experiance with csgo and frankly was pretty terrible at it to begin with. We all ended up placing around silver 3 and, although I understood the objective of the game pretty well I had some very poor fundamentals, I was running and gunning all the time, my sensitivity was just too high for the game and I cared too much about my kd. As a result I quickly fell to bronze 3 in episode 1 act 1 and at that point I realised just playing the game was not enough. I decided to watch some youtube vids on how to improve at the game and came across a youtuber by the name of eggwick. I credit alot of his vidoes for me being able to improve as a player. I learned about some really important concepts like crosshair placement, counter strafing, positioning etc and that proppled me to hit gold 3 in episode 1 act 2. At this point in time I started watching alot more twitch streamers such as subroza and shahzam and I belive that watching them helped me learn even more about crosshair placement like how far to hold on angle and how they react and play to some situations and by episode 1 act 3, I was able to climb all the way to Plat 2, but after reaching that peek I went on a massive loosing streak all the way back down to gold 3. After episode 1 act 3 progress in terms of rank was completly halted, I floated between gold 2 and plat 2 all the way till episode 3 act 3 where I finally broke so many barriers in terms of rank and hit d2. Although I was always imporving as a player actually ranking up felt really good. Since one of my freinds who I was quing with hit d3 this is the end of our three stacking adventure. I just wanted to share some things I learned after all this and if you have any question feel free to post them and if any one has any advice for me I would love for you to share.

Gold elo really is hell

Man when you are an actual gold player being in this rank is truly hell. You are playing with players who are still learning the fundamentals of the game, players who were formally plat or diamond who are just down bad and lets not forget the abudence of smurfs. This is rank where Ive probably played against the most smurfs and at first it was so frustrating and I kept blaming my lack of progress because of the amount of smurfs but eventually after playing against so many of them you do end up learning alot and how to play against someone who is better than you mechanincally. Things like double swiniging, not just ferarri peeking angles and I also learned how to fight against players who hold off angles and like to take early fights very well. So yes playing against smurfs game after game is frustrating and annoying but if you have the right mentality you might learn something even if just a little bit from that slapping you get.

Aimlabs has its use but the range and dm are better

So when it comes to aimlabs it has its uses for sure. I think its great for players who are trying to really get comfortable with their sensititivity but other than that it has not helped me that much. Going to the range and shooting at those bots who are strafing or standing still were what really helped me imporve my mechanics. Even doing those defusal and spike planting excersies in the range helped me to learn things like jiggle peeking angles and prefiring corners.

Learn to play off angles

This is obviously geared towards duelist players like jett and reyna but also a good thing for everyone to learn when you want to maybe swtich up your defense to play more aggresive. The amount players who still get caught out by players playing off angles is crazy and is free picks on defense depending on who you play against.

Master at least 3 agents

I started off this game by being an omen main because he seemed like a cool agent lol. Little did I know how valuable he was as an agent to learn however. Smokes is probably the most important role in this game mainly because of how many angles it lets you just ignore and also how it can pretty much stop any site hit or at least makes a retake easier. Omen is the agent that I have the highest win percentage on although I dont play him as often because I find it a bit boring but I can still play him at a very high level. Skye is the second agent I mastered and Ive been playing her since she came out pretty much and there are games where I take over not becaue of my aim but because of how well i use my util. The last agent I have mastered is reyna she is the most fun agent for me. Since I like to consider myself an entry fragger and a very aggresive player her heal and dismiss are great for a player like me. Being just a one trick pony might work for some people but being able to flex will make you look at the game from a different presperctive.

STOP PLAYING ON SMURF ACCOUNTS

The amount of people who are scaerd to loose their rank in the game or play on alt accounts with freinds is just really sad and makes you a worse player overall. What does a plat player get from playing against silver players? What do you learn? Absolutely nothing. In fact you actually become a worse player overall by playing people who are worse than you because you get accustomed to their playstyle and their level of aim. Those people who say its to play with freinds know damn well they can play unrated on their main accounts or make a 5 stack and play ranked with them. Cut the crap its for the ego boost you get. I used to be one of those said players who smurfed to play with freinds but after playing on my smurf account I noticed that I never actually got better at playing those in my actual rank.

TLDR;

After being hardstuck for almost a full year hovering between gold 2 and plat 2 I finally broke the barrier this rank and flew to to diamond 2. The improvements I was making as a player finally paid off in the form of ranking up. If you focus on improving eventually the rank will follow, hopefully not after a year like me though LOL. Below I will link my tracker for anyone intrested and feel free to ask questions under this post

https://tracker.gg/valorant/profile/riot/mblackout%232670/overview?playlist=competitive