Every CS2 player has gone through the challenging experience of solo queueing at least once. While the game is definitely more enjoyable when playing with your friends, finding yourself matched with four strangers is inevitable, especially when you’re trying to get better and develop your own playstyle.
As someone with over 6,000 hours in CS:GO/CS2 and a large portion of that time spent solo queueing, I’ve been able to identify the key issues in my approach and significantly step up my game. In this article, we’ll explore what makes solo queue difficult in CS2, how to increase your team’s chances of winning, and why it often feels like you’re stuck in ELO hell. Let’s dive right in.
Start Talking
The most important aspect that’s probably affecting your solo queue experience is communication. In a fast-paced game like Counter-Strike, getting clear information about where enemies are located and what other players on your team are planning to do could make the difference between winning or losing a round.
Your teammates could use pings or team chat to indicate the enemy’s position and this might be helpful to some extent, but it forces you to divert your attention at critical moments. That’s why receiving information directly through voice chat is essential as it allows you to stay focused on your crosshair while also being aware of what’s coming.
“But my teammates never talk, they don’t even have mics!” – This is a known fact. Not all players are using the in-game voice chat, but most of the time it’s not because they don’t have a microphone.
A lot of people avoid talking when no one else does simply because they don’t see the point, but if you’re the one breaking the ice and taking them out of that silent environment, things might change. You could start the game by saying something funny before the first round and see their reaction. Or if you’re more of an introvert, a simple “hi guys” should be enough, followed by an idea of what you should do in the pistol round. Think of your teammates like a reflection in the mirror - more often than not, they’ll replicate your friendly behavior and start communicating as well.
Even if you’ve tried everything and your team is still not making callouts, becoming toxic or going silent yourself is not an option. Maybe they are living with someone and they want to enjoy a game of Counter-Strike without disturbing them. Or maybe it’s one of those times when you get matched with a four-stack and they’re all on Discord or TeamSpeak, sharing information with each other but not with you. There’s no point in tilting - it will just make their game worse as well as yours.
I had this problem myself and used to flame my teammates for not using their mics, which eventually led me to stop communicating altogether. This happened until I realized something really important: I can’t control how many callouts I receive from my team – that’s up to them. What I can control is making sure the four other players on my team have all the information they need to perform at a high level and make the best decisions in-game. Whether they use it or not is out of my hands, but making sure it’s available is my responsibility.
Once I understood this, I instantly became more useful to my team by constantly letting them know what I’m about to do and where I saw or heard the enemy. After dying in a round, I would spectate the players on my team that were not talking and make sure the information on their screen was also available to others. This apparently small change in my approach made my teammates more aware of what’s happening on the map and significantly increased their performance, so I strongly recommend doing the same.
Play to Your Own Strengths
Figuring out your strengths as a player and using them to gain an edge over the enemy team is just as big of a deal in solo queue as it is when playing with a five stack. Whether you’re good at shooting heads or at assisting with utility, you need to find ways to leverage those skills.
If you’re consistently out-aiming opponents at your current rank, you should actively look for duels on the T side and play positions on CT that allow for quick rotations. Good positioning keeps you close to the action and could give your team a man advantage early, before the round snowballs into an impossible clutch situation.
As a support player, you can still have a huge impact. Learn safe flashes that won’t blind your teammates and use them to support pushes, always communicating your timing beforehand. Defensive flashes and molotovs are just as valuable when your team is under pressure, as they slow the enemy down and help you regain control. During an execute, ask your teammates to drop their smokes so you can throw them, enabling the team to group up and take control of the site as a pack. Even without utility, you can still be useful. If a teammate is in a good position to flank or about to make a play, draw the enemy’s attention away from him by firing a few shots from a safe position.
Lurking is another effective way to win rounds. Being able to consistently find good timings and understanding enemy’s team tendencies allows you to find space on the map that they overlook. By analyzing the first few rounds on each side, you can spot which areas the enemy usually ignores and try taking that space, opening up some interesting flanks.
Every single playstyle can bring a lot of value. Identifying what you do best and making your decisions around it is the only way to maximize your impact on the server.
Learn Every Map
To perform better in a CS2 match, you also need to understand the map you play. This includes knowing which spots are common on that map, how to clear angles properly, the timings of rotations and pushes, and which smokes or flashes are needed to support your teammates or execute into bombsites. These are all skills that don’t transfer perfectly between maps, so each one requires its own practice.
When queueing alone with four randoms, playing your favorite map isn’t guaranteed. While you can and should vote for the maps you prefer at the start of the match, the final pick depends on everyone in the lobby and often ends up being random.
This becomes a serious issue if you’re only confident on two or three maps. Since you won’t see them often enough, your rank will eventually be dictated by your worst maps. That’s why becoming comfortable on all seven maps in the active pool is the key to progress in rank.
Learning a new map isn’t as complicated as it might seem. You can start by loading it locally and exploring it in a non-competitive environment. While doing this, look up the key smokes and practice them. Prefire maps from the Steam Workshop are another great option, as they help you learn common enemy positions and improve your angle clearing speed.
After covering the basics, the next step is to play a few competitive matches to better understand the actual timings on that map. Two or three games are usually enough before you’re ready to move on to Premier or FACEIT.
Once you become comfortable on every map in the pool, the specific map you play matters much less. During the pick phase, you can focus on analyzing which maps the enemy team plays most often and ban accordingly, or just go with the ones your teammates prefer. While you’ll always have your own strengths and weaknesses in terms of map pool, knowing the basics on each map is a major step forward and will greatly improve your consistency between games.
Stop Blaming the Game
“So why am I stuck in my current rank? Am I in ELO hell?” - To answer this clearly: no, you’re not in ELO hell, and there’s no such thing in Counter-Strike. Many CS2 players, especially those who solo queue frequently, often feel that their actual skill level is higher than their rank. This can only be true when you haven’t played enough matches and the sample size is too small for the system to accurately reflect your true skill.
Ranking up is ultimately a numbers game. If you play enough matches and truly perform above your current rank, your ELO will improve over time. In every match, both teams are created to be close in overall skill level. If your impact is consistently above the average in those games, you naturally give your team a better chance to win, resulting in more wins than losses and a rank increase. You will inevitably have games where you did better than average and still lose, and that’s completely normal. However, over a large enough sample size, those matches even out, and the numbers start working in your favor.
In the end, if your rank doesn’t improve, it likely means this is where your skill level currently sits. The topics covered in this article should give you a good starting point and help you get better, but they’re only part of the bigger picture. Instead of complaining about your ELO not accurately reflecting your skill, put that energy into improving your game, and the results will follow.