Hello valorant players of reddit. I must say that I'm by no means a good player, I'm just platinum 1, mostly by my poor aim and mechanics. If you find that your pure raw skill is not getting you the rank you feel like you deserve, here are some useful tips I learned on my alt account when playing with lower elo players.

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Pick up a microphone!

the biggest issue i saw in low elo was lack of communication. If you pick up a microphone, it is so much easier to call out information and ideas. If you are too scared to talk to random people you might find the communication wheel useful (found in controls) which can make call-outs such as "going a!" or "fall back" or "rotate" etc. But please don't do any hard backseat gaming, it only frustrates the players alive and is often counterintuitive.

If nobody is initiating the push, or it feels as if nobody is taking role as leader, do it yourself.

When on attack, often many players will sit outside of the chokepoint, waiting for something to happen, or just to bait out a teammate and not trading out their death. If you find that you are often suck not pushing, pick up a duelist or initiator and try to start the crossing into site. For example, you can smoke off site lines as jett, and dash into site. Or, you could flash with any flash character, and tell your teammates to push with you. I had to learn the hard way from a solo-based game over to a team game, that you cannot win by yourself but rather through teamwork.

Don't blame teammates for holding you back.

Your selected teammates are NOT the reason you are being held back. Sure, you may have a game where you have an AFK'er and/or a thrower, but there might be another where you get carried and do little. You need to understand that you are the difference maker between a win and a loss. scolding your teammates for their mistakes often makes them perform even worse and hurts the team moral.

Listen to callouts if given!

Recently, I had played a game where all 4 of my teammates were sitting in garage, not doing anything, because they were being spammed by utility. I noticed that 4 of the 5 players on the enemy team had rotated over, and the 5th had been caught off from flanking. I had called for a rotate, but they proceeded to push in and died one by one. You need to play as a team, rather than trying to do your own thing. However solo-based plays, such as lurking, can be fine as you can communicate with your team that you are distracting enemies from potentially rotating or cutting off the flank.

Instantly mute any disruptive audio or toxicity~

Toxicity is a huge problem in the low ranks, even iron, surprisingly, and toxic players will bring you down and ruin the team moral. You are stuck with these players for the whole game and instant mutes will keep you from not getting distracted.

Learn from your mistakes.

You may often find that you are doing something every round that may end up in you dying or in a bad position. The best way to fix this is to watch your own gameplay and understand why you died. Maybe you pushing into site lines while your team was unprepared, maybe you fed into another player, or maybe you had bad positioning. All these mistakes can be corrected by learning from them.

There are games that are just out of your control.

Sometimes you may find, no matter how many kills, clutches, or plays you make, the score will not be in your favor. Sometimes teammates will not listen and do their own thing, or throw and leave the game. These are just games out of your control, and they aren't setting you back. However there will be games were it is up to you to be the difference maker of a win or a loss. These are the games that determine where you belong, not games that you lose no matter how much you do, or win for how little you do.

Play together and play for trades when in numbers!

I have seen countless throws in lower elo when players feel as if they have already secured the round, and end up feeding into a 1v4, resulting in the enemy clutching. Just because you outnumber the opponents does not mean you have won the round. Instead, play for trades, as peeking/fighting together may result in 1 teammate dying but securing the kill on the enemy.

Call for saves and buys accordingly.

If you notice that some teammates cannot buy, call for a half buy, and make sure that everyone can afford to buy in the proceeding round. a full save can be called if nobody can buy (obviously) to make sure that you can all afford next round. You need to make sure you are on the same page as your teammates and you can all buy on a following round.

Find out what caused you to lose a previous round!

You might find that the enemy is abusing a flaw in your team's executes, such as spraying down the whole team with an odin, or flushing out and killing everyone with killjoy's utility. If you find that you are constantly losing to the same stuff, find out a way to counter it. Maybe play close range or flash out an enemy odin user, or headshot them before they have time to spray you down with a rifle. Maybe if you're dying to killjoy utility, try to find where she places the utility and break it before it has a chance to damage your whole team. Or, a player could flank from a site every round, and you can catch onto that and hold his/her flank. The same goes for your side, if you find that the enemy has no control over an area, take control of it and get behind the enemy lines.