This guide seeks to teach you about deranking; what deranking is, why you might want to derank, how to derank without breaking the rules and deranking tactics to avoid.

While you may not agree with the idea of deranking, please take the time to read everything I wrote, as I'm always open to discussion. If you want to change someone's mind, first you have to understand them!

Deranking is deliberately playing to a lower standard than usual so that your rank decreases, down to a point where it does not reflect your true skill.

There are many reasons why you might want to derank, some of them noble, some of them not so noble.

Here are some:

• You have friends of a lower rank than you, and you want to play with them.
  
• You want a less difficult challenge when playing competitive.
  
• You want to do the Silver 1 to Global Elite challenge, and need to get to the starting rank.
  
• You want to see what rank you'd get if you limit yourself to harder weapons.
  
• You've been playing a long time and the game is becoming stale, so you want something to spice it up a little (case in point; I've been playing since beta 3, which is 23.5 years at the time of writing this, so you can imagine I'm always looking for a new way of wringing some more fun out of this game)
  
• You want to straight up pwn some n00bs! (not very noble...)

So the first thing to discuss is the rules regarding deranking, which can be found here. The specific paragraph we want to look at says the following;

Obviously it’s fine to try new things and experiment with new strats and skills, but players should not enter a match with the intention of losing or disrupting their teammates.

Let's take a look at this, starting with the second part; players should not enter a match with the intention of losing or disrupting their teammates.

This means you must try to achieve the objective of either planting the bomb, rescuing the hostage or defending the bomsite/hostage. So, doesn't this mean it's impossible to derank without breaking the rules? Well, no. You can want to lose, but still try to win. The key point is how hard you try to win.

For example, if you run off and hide for the whole map, this is breaking the rules. But if you hold back initially, and always try to win in the last 30 seconds, this is not breaking the rules. If you deliberately make things more difficult for your team by flashing/smoking them, you're guilty of griefing. However, if you ignore all their communications (by muting all but friends) and play as a lone wolf, you're not breaking the rules. Actually try to lose, and you'll be guilty of griefing and will incur increasingly longer cooldowns.

OK, now that is understood, let's look at the first part; Obviously it’s fine to try new things and experiment with new strats and skills.

This is the key part that allows you to derank ethically. If you want to take on a tactic that will make your task way more difficult, you can (the most extreme example would be trying to plant/defuse the bomb without attacking anyone at all). As long as you try to achieve the objective without getting in your team's way, pretty much anything you want to do is technically allowed.

Well, all of the above discusses how to derank without breaking the rules, but is it ethical?

To answer this, we must turn to one of our culture's wisest philosophers:


If the video doesn't load, here's the quote written out:

Originally posted by Spock:

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

Think of it like this; when you enter a game, there are 5 people who want you to lose and 4 people who want you to win. So with more people wanting you to lose than win, isn't the most ethical action to lose? (I'll leave you all to debate that in the comments).

So, we've discussed the ethics of deranking, and what might happen if you do it badly, so now let's discuss how you can increase your chances of losing without actually trying to lose.

Firstly, you can set yourself challenges that make the game harder, and as a result, decrease your chances of winning. These can include, but are not restricted to:

• Weapon limitations. This can mean not using any rifles or snipers, instead using only shotguns or pistols. I am currently playing CZ-75 only, as I believe it to be the worst gun in the game (only 24 bullets, and trying to fire less than 2 at a time is damned near impossible).
  
• Aiming at a particular point of the body rather than any & everywhere. For example, you could limit yourself to arm/leg shots, or my person favorite, crotch shots only.
  
• Clutch only. This means holding back and letting your team take all the glory, only stepping in when they are all dead, then saving the day.
  
• No armor. Armor will drastically reduce damage from pistol / smg bullets, so taking no armor or helmet will make it much harder to stay alive.
  
• No sound - either turn all your game sounds off (sound effects & music), or turn them down and put on loud music
  
• Don't stop moving - bind a key to forward (instead of +forward), so that once you press it, you can't stop running forwards (note - you'd need to keep +forward on a key so that if you end up as the last CT with the bomb planted, you can defuse it. To not do so would count as griefing)

Next, you can employ other tactics that will result in a greater loss of rank should your team fail to win. Some of these are;

• Play in the early afternoon, and you'll more likely end up against people of your rank or lower (compared to late at night, where you'll be put in wherever there is a game).
  
• If you do go pistol only, carry a good primary weapon like an AK, aug or awp that the enemy that kills you can pick up, hence making it harder on you the next round.
  
• If you don't want to go that far, take a scout and use it as a backup, but no-scope only!
  
• If you spawn with the bomb, give it to the worst player on your team.
  
• Stick to dust2, inferno and mirage. Maps like office are used by 5 man teams to get high ranks they don't deserve, which is why you might find yourself facing enemy teams that have high ranks but are not actually that skilled (which would cause your rank to shoot up in the event of a win).
  
• Carry flashes and smokes so you can practice good throws. However, be careful as in a balanced game, a good smoke at the start can give your team the win.
  
• Avoid getting MVP, this will boost your rank up faster.
  
• Play short matches (best of 16) rather than long ones (best of 30). By changing your teammates frequently, you're decreasing the chance that you will upset anyone.

What if, like me, you want to derank but you don't want to decrease your teammates pleasure from playing with you? Here are some things to consider:

• Praise your teammates when they do something good, everyone likes to be complimented! I've received commendations from teammates, even though they knew I wasn't playing at my fullest, because I made them feel good when we played.
  
• Once you get down to a significantly lower rank, use your experience to help teach your teammates to be better players. I use my 20+ years of CS experience to teach new players how to be better (advice about positioning, spray control, grenade throws etc), so in the long run they benefit from being on my team.
  
• Encourage your teammates to communicate! At silver levels, so few people actually try to play as a team, so get them to call strats at the start of the round
  
• If you meet a friendly group of players, consider "taking one for the team" and winning the game to reward their friendliness. After all, it's the community that has kept this game going for over two decades.

As we covered how to decrease your chances of winning, no doubt you've had a couple of ideas pop into your head of how to achieve the same goal but more easily. However, the easiest way is often the worst way, so let's cover some tactics you SHOULDN'T use, even if they are more efficient.

• Avoiding completing the objective. This means not planting the bomb, not rescuing the hostages, or on the flip side allowing the other team to plant the bomb or to take the hostages. This goes directly against the rules of the game.
  
• Obstructing your teammates. This can mean blocking their retreat so they get shot, throwing smokes or flashes in front of them to obscure their vision, or hanging onto the bomb / hostage without doing anything with it. All of these are classified as griefing, and can result in you (rightly) getting a cooldown.
  
• Camping / going afk. While it is sometimes acceptable to let the time run down while you keep a good weapon for the next round, if you do this every round it's griefing. Equally, just going afk in spawn, while moving just enough to avoid the auto-kick, is classified as griefing and will earn you a cooldown.
  
• Trolling teammates. I consider this the worst possible way to derank, as it directly affects the enjoyment of other people. This can include spamming your mic, winding up teammates until they lose their cool, or getting them kicked by continually jumping into their line of fire, causing them to injure you. If you use this tactic to derank, I hope you get banned.

There are many reasons why you would want to play at a lower rank, and many of them are perfectly reasonable. But if you want to derank and yet remain an ethical player with no cooldowns, you're going to have to put in as much work into deranking as you might into ranking up (trust me, going from Silver 2 down to Silver 1 can be as challenging as going from Supreme Master First Class up to Global Elite).

Above all, you must always try to win, even if you're deliberately putting obstacles in your way. The people playing with you deserve to have a good time, so if you're reducing their chances of winning, you should also be increasing the amount of fun they have while playing.

After all, having fun is why everyone plays computer games, who are you to deny them this?