First lets get started with bans in this new season. Here are some useful bans against a 5 stack, you can be matched against one:
* Capitao (Prevents bandit trick)
* Montagne (prevents flanks and rotations)
* Lion (prevents 1v1's when being rushed against him in a 5 stack)
* Thatcher (render's your gadget useless in a coordinated push)
* Maverick (cuts off rotations and stops bandit tricking)
* Jackal (forces you back to obj, coordinated teams make sure you can't flank anyone while pinged)
* Dokkeaibi (Makes it harder to hold close against a coordinated push)
* Echo (heavy plant denial, makes it impossible to plant as a solo)
* Mira (area lockdown, cannot rush a mira without getting traded in a coordinated 5 stack)
* Maestro (Heavy plant denial. cannot plant as a solo)

These ops are weak alone but cause serious disadvantages when used in a coordinated attempt against you, when trying to defend a bombsite. Or attacking against a team with this much utility will make it almost impossible to win 1v5. You won't miss these ops since your team won't even communicate with you properly in most games.

The youtube star TheGodlynoob made a very educational video about solo queue in 3 simple steps.
1. Never solo queue if you don't have to
2. Play nomad on attack or rush site with nokk
3. Bait using yourself or your teammates to earn free kills

Why play only nomad, wouldn't a hardbreacher be more important?
Wrong. In solo queue, anything goes including: spawn trapping, spawnpeeks, runouts etc. This means if your thatcher/thermite dies at the start of the round, your pick is immediately gone to waste. Plus you are talking about a team who may never uses their mics unless they are angry at you. 0 mic means 0 coordination. The chances of you getting that wall open are small. Nomad has 3 broken claymores which can mean 3 teammates don't have to hold angles for you. Since no one is going to do what you tell them to do, you have to handle it all by yourself. Use her every round to her full potential, you will frag hard with her when used correctly. If you died using her, its usually because you made a mistake or the enemy 5 stack made no mistakes.

Why is nokk an option then?
Nokk makes no sound when her gadget is on, this makes her a great rush operator and can walk into site without anyone noticing. If you hold alt while tapping W every 2 seconds, you can wade silently through barbed wire as well without the gadget. She outclasses blitz, lion and finka because she has no weaknesses (the EE1D is now too weak to use alone, finka guns are crap and blitz can't win a 1v2 nor deal with traps properly). Echo drones can see her but that doesn't mean anything when you are rushing the bombsite, he'll be more busy trying to aim at you than going afk on his drone. Do this strat if you cannot bait your teammates (for dying early in the round or getting picked off for peaking tight angles), where you know a 1v5 will occur trying to play normally. You could also play ash but all you really have is a stronger gun in terms of damage. Her hitbox is roughly the same, your secondary gadget is the same and she gets countered easily at high elo for the amount of noise she makes in the process. Besides, you'll be crouch walking with her anyway so why not just use nokk instead?

How do I bait enemy players then:
* Grenade bait - pulling the pin makes a prominent noise which can bait defenders into rushing you, thinking you put your gun away. Simply swap back to your gun midway and prefire the door/window

Here is an example on my Youtube Channel:

* Trading - When roam clearing or pushing site, follow up your teammate with a prefire in the direction the enemy shot him/her from. If your aim is true, you will kill him before he can kill both of you at the same time. Just follow your teammate and wait until he feels like pushing.

* Rappel Bait - Hang from a door/window upside down or underneath to tempt the player into jumping out or hugging the window to peek you. In this position, he cannot kill you without fully vaulting or running out completely to aim at you. This is enough time to aim and shoot as long as you keep moving while baiting so you don't get prefired either. If he hugs the window, get him to prone on the floor and you can shoot his torso without him able to shoot you. Pengu does this on coastline penthouse all the time and it works.

*Jumpout Bait - This only works when you know there is a player waiting to jump out. If for some reason, you have no more airjabs, shoot down a window/door to obj and hold an angle in anticipation of a jumpout. Drone or listen for the sound queue before trying this. When pengu is on coastline window, he listens for the barricade breaking in lobby/delivery after plant to bait a jumpout.

After 2-3 defenders die outside of obj out of purely baiting, you can rush with your random teammates to trade your way to victory or plant defuser easily with the right positioning.

Okay, so what do I do on defence?
Only play offsite or anchor. Deep roaming will make retake next to impossible if the defuser is down in a 1vX scenario, you will get traded against a 5 stack. Offsite/Anchor however make it easier to bait your teammates and deny plant. I would recommend using ACOG or heavy plant denial (e.g GIGN, Smoke, Warden, C4). Playing deep roamer only works to counter a rush, you can position yourself more freely to hold a powerful angle if you know where that ash is going to ram her breaching round before running in. Playing anchor/offisite also makes it impossible for enemies to sneak into site too without killing you first; by holding connectors and keeping watch over both sites (even if you can't hold it, you can at least bleed the timer before you run out of utility). Play offsite if there are too many anchorers.

Some tips to keep your winning mentality in the solo queue meta:
* Don't waste time debating with or flaming teammates, they are wild animals and won't acknowledge your reasoning. A comment of feedback is all you should say to deliver anything important and nothing more.
* Leave the game as soon as the final round is lost (avoiding the defeat screen and the sound of losing your rank on the scoreboard will help you accept your loss without the game nagging how poorly you failed)
* Take a 30 min break as soon as you start tilting, give yourself time to remind yourself your rank is in no correlation to your personal performance, its a team game. Your aim could be godlike but you'll still lose. If you are still tiled after that, you need to work on your anger management.
* Play to learn and improve and not tunnelling to win, spend rounds trying out new angles and mechanics relative to your use of operator gadget (e.g impact tricking, peeking down 2 floors, roam clearing from locations to start with like T3 in oregon etc). This keeps you from repeating a small set of strats and takes you out of your comfort zone. You will gain better map knowledge and gamesense this way and in turn, rank up faster.
* Follow tips from IRL athletes: Searching on google sports and esports psychology will give new coping methods for your anger

Final note:
There will be some rounds or even games which can never be won without 5 mics used in motion. You will lose a lot and find it tilting to climb. You have to learn to forgive yourself and ignore others for anything you cannot account for, outside your own control. Even the best players in the world cannot solo queue to diamond without a 5 stack to keep them company (Especially in EU), its how the game is meant to be played at its highest level.

In the meantime, work on yourself and try to find friends to play with on reddit, discord, gamerlink and other social media to rank up faster. Join a team if you have the time for a schedule, you will learn and improve exponentially faster that way into platinum. Trust your training, focus on yourself and be humble in the face of the devil.

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