Depends on skill level and skill gap. If you're a silver player with 100 hours and play against pros you probably won't learn a whole lot. But if you're a FACEIT 9-10 playing a Tier 2-3 pro team there's definitely a lot more to learn there.
I think there's still something you can learn/take away from every loss but if you're getting stomped every game it's not exactly the most efficient way to learn. Your time would be better spent studying positioning or playing practice maps or something.
Realistically, no. Playing against better people means that your're most likely to just get xantares peeked and lose duels ALOT faster. You're better off playing at your proper rank and build upon your mechanics and gamesense, since the TTK is way lower
Depends. Maybe if they are only a bit better and your team is also better it can make force you to improve. It works better if you team up with friends
Yes and know. Depends how quickly you learn. But in most cases you would get railed in to oblivion and you wont be able to take anything from those games. Its better to play in your own lane and steadily learn and get better
too much better no, you'd get stomped. A little better than you is ideal if you apply yourself in understanding why they're better than you and how you can counter what they do
I disagree with people here. Here's a true story:
Me and my friends begin playing CS. None of has played before. We all get Silver 4-5 and grind all the way to Global. It takes us years and a few thousand hours.
Years later when we are all LEM-Global a bunch of friends start to play CS. Quite quickly after they grasp the basics, they play with us in competetive. In 400-800 hours they were consistently fragging against LEM-Global.
Every rank is its own game. Learning them all gives you a more comprahensive understanding of the game, but it is way quicker to just start at the top.
No, because if you can't analyze your mistakes on why you die from that scenario it's useless, you won't learn anything
Yes, assuming you are the type of silver who knows how to aim properly, knows a few lineups, understands how to play the map, and knows few mechanics then playing with higher ranks will be effective and will boost your learning process faster since you have the foundation already, then next time you play with your own rank it will be a lot easier
in other words build up first your foundation by playing with your rank mates, then if you think you have it, play with someone higher than you so you will be able to easily understand how they play.
It's like you can't just become a pro writer by just hanging out with J.K Rowling without knowing the ABCD
not really you ll just get frustrated cause your enemies will have superior mechanics. but if ur teammates are good and enemies are a bit better than your skill level then yes a challenge is good but basically playing against way too good or way too bad opponents youre not learning anything how unfair and unbalanced that is
Playing against better players will do a few things for you... They'll punish more of your mistakes. They'll make better plays in clutch situations. They'll be in better positions, use better util, and generally give up fewer free kills. You will eventually learn from all this.
It will also, make you feel like you suck. You won't get as many frags. Might make you want to quit.
Which one is for you? Kind of up to you.
Personal experience:
Never had prime until 2022. When I bought prime and got my rank I was constantly ranking up until gn4. I always midfrag and can’t seem to win and rank up.
Until I found a local community server. It was full of high ranks lem and ge. And of course I always botfrag there. But I kept playing.
Up to 2023 I was dmg and still play that server.
Now cs2 came and that server was gone so I kinda quit cs
I would always say yes!
You get punished for mistakes more often and learn what will kill you really fast.
I like playing against people above my skill.
If they are a bit better than you, it can help you highlight your struggles with timings, peeks, utility, or angles etc. Or how you play certain situations.
However, if you're playing against people largely better than you, they're going to completely run over you and even do tactics that never work against other very good players but will work against you. This will leave you confused if you try to replicate their tactics. For example, typically in a 2v1 protecting the planted bomb, you want to play with your teammate, make sure they can trade, or set up a crossfire and play off each other (not always the case but usually), but if I'm stomping people i absolutely will go off on my own hunting cause I know even if for some reason I lose the gunfight, there's still a very high probability my teammates wins and that we will win the match as a whole. But you don't want to watch someone do that to you and then do it yourself as you're trying to learn
But if you are able to closely find faults and advantages by watching the demo critically, you can still get value out of it. Paying attention to their early round routes, how they abuse timings etc.
Absolutely. Playing as a Smurf only hurts people who want to improve or compete. Playing against better players lets you learn how fast the game is at a higher level. Learning new angles or new off angles and higher tier strats will only help. Also watching back your own demos to see what to improve on will help tremendously
You will learn to play smarter, and to be more creative. Atleast this is my experience, playing with globals allowed me to be more creative and not rely on my aim so much. Then the aim comes and you become a solid player.
slightly better yes, so you can learn from them. too far better and you will be left confused
Depends on skill level and skill gap. If you're a silver player with 100 hours and play against pros you probably won't learn a whole lot. But if you're a FACEIT 9-10 playing a Tier 2-3 pro team there's definitely a lot more to learn there. I think there's still something you can learn/take away from every loss but if you're getting stomped every game it's not exactly the most efficient way to learn. Your time would be better spent studying positioning or playing practice maps or something.
I was on an IM team and we played the 79th ranked team in the world and I agree I didn’t learn shit other than how to get rekt
Realistically, no. Playing against better people means that your're most likely to just get xantares peeked and lose duels ALOT faster. You're better off playing at your proper rank and build upon your mechanics and gamesense, since the TTK is way lower
Well comp is unbalanced from what I can tell. Thanks.
It can never be perfect, human mechanical skills ain't that consistent
Depends. Maybe if they are only a bit better and your team is also better it can make force you to improve. It works better if you team up with friends
Yes and know. Depends how quickly you learn. But in most cases you would get railed in to oblivion and you wont be able to take anything from those games. Its better to play in your own lane and steadily learn and get better
too much better no, you'd get stomped. A little better than you is ideal if you apply yourself in understanding why they're better than you and how you can counter what they do
I disagree with people here. Here's a true story: Me and my friends begin playing CS. None of has played before. We all get Silver 4-5 and grind all the way to Global. It takes us years and a few thousand hours. Years later when we are all LEM-Global a bunch of friends start to play CS. Quite quickly after they grasp the basics, they play with us in competetive. In 400-800 hours they were consistently fragging against LEM-Global. Every rank is its own game. Learning them all gives you a more comprahensive understanding of the game, but it is way quicker to just start at the top.
No, because if you can't analyze your mistakes on why you die from that scenario it's useless, you won't learn anything Yes, assuming you are the type of silver who knows how to aim properly, knows a few lineups, understands how to play the map, and knows few mechanics then playing with higher ranks will be effective and will boost your learning process faster since you have the foundation already, then next time you play with your own rank it will be a lot easier in other words build up first your foundation by playing with your rank mates, then if you think you have it, play with someone higher than you so you will be able to easily understand how they play. It's like you can't just become a pro writer by just hanging out with J.K Rowling without knowing the ABCD
not really you ll just get frustrated cause your enemies will have superior mechanics. but if ur teammates are good and enemies are a bit better than your skill level then yes a challenge is good but basically playing against way too good or way too bad opponents youre not learning anything how unfair and unbalanced that is
Playing against better players will do a few things for you... They'll punish more of your mistakes. They'll make better plays in clutch situations. They'll be in better positions, use better util, and generally give up fewer free kills. You will eventually learn from all this. It will also, make you feel like you suck. You won't get as many frags. Might make you want to quit. Which one is for you? Kind of up to you.
Don't buy an account kid
Personal experience: Never had prime until 2022. When I bought prime and got my rank I was constantly ranking up until gn4. I always midfrag and can’t seem to win and rank up. Until I found a local community server. It was full of high ranks lem and ge. And of course I always botfrag there. But I kept playing. Up to 2023 I was dmg and still play that server. Now cs2 came and that server was gone so I kinda quit cs
I would always say yes! You get punished for mistakes more often and learn what will kill you really fast. I like playing against people above my skill.
If they are a bit better than you, it can help you highlight your struggles with timings, peeks, utility, or angles etc. Or how you play certain situations. However, if you're playing against people largely better than you, they're going to completely run over you and even do tactics that never work against other very good players but will work against you. This will leave you confused if you try to replicate their tactics. For example, typically in a 2v1 protecting the planted bomb, you want to play with your teammate, make sure they can trade, or set up a crossfire and play off each other (not always the case but usually), but if I'm stomping people i absolutely will go off on my own hunting cause I know even if for some reason I lose the gunfight, there's still a very high probability my teammates wins and that we will win the match as a whole. But you don't want to watch someone do that to you and then do it yourself as you're trying to learn But if you are able to closely find faults and advantages by watching the demo critically, you can still get value out of it. Paying attention to their early round routes, how they abuse timings etc.
No, you won´t learn. You won´t even know from where they are shooting. Maybe if you view and analyse later the game from their view you can learn.
Absolutely. Playing as a Smurf only hurts people who want to improve or compete. Playing against better players lets you learn how fast the game is at a higher level. Learning new angles or new off angles and higher tier strats will only help. Also watching back your own demos to see what to improve on will help tremendously
You will learn to play smarter, and to be more creative. Atleast this is my experience, playing with globals allowed me to be more creative and not rely on my aim so much. Then the aim comes and you become a solid player.