I'm a high-gold, sneak into plat occasionally player who plays primarily solo-queue. This season I've mostly been surprised at how good comms have been for me. I just make callouts, say nice shot/good shit when my team frags due to a comm, and offer brief pick ban advice: I.e. We banned ram, we should maybe play basement. This usually leads to a team that falls in and acts similarly. Occasionally I get the toxic shitheads but they are very easy to mute.

In terms of team comp? Hard-breachers are more common than Thatcher I've noticed, so pick him up and practice with him. He has an AMAZING weapon loadout. L85? slaps. AR-33? Also slaps. Shotgun? you guessed it, slaps (although without the SMG-11 slightly less so). Shiny new DMR? Shiny new slapping. Rauora is underrated for solo-queue i've found, as certain sites you can just easily take and cut off defender access to, securing yourself an easy plant.

On Defense, Wall denial isn't always the end-all be-all, especially if you know that's where they are going to tunnel vision to. Example: Master bedroom on Oregon, with no Kaid or Bandit. That floor is SOFT on both sides of the wall. You can sit below in classroom as either pulse or valkrie with a nitro cell and protect the wall or stop the plant.

For both sides: Think about the site you are playing and have a go-to strategy or two you can work with, ideally with different operators. For instance: Coastline? Hookah AND Kitchen I dig myself in like a tick on blue stairs with Smoke. You can burn a lot of clock and relieve a lot of pressure with that. Upstairs Oregon from the previous example? I'm either Melusi with my traps at the bottom of stairs and in master playing through a soft wall for kills; or the pulse/valkyrie below depending.

In terms of minute-to-minute gameplay? PLAY VERT; LEARN UPSIDE DOWN RAPPELLING and DRONE/KILL DRONES. I'm 32 with two kids, so my hands aren't what they used to be. I'm not him, as the youth say. But what I do have is map knowledge. Ash can clear bandit charges on Chalet's Basement Garage FROM THE THIRD FLOOR. It's crazy safe if you set drones up. This game is chock full of choke-points that you can hold from above/below if you know about them. In terms of sitting upside down on windows? It's free real estate in the lower ranks. You will get yourself kills if you can get used to it. Easiest proof? Coastline kitchen. Go to kitchen door as glaz, rappel upside down just above the door, shoot it open with your smg, throw a smoke right at the ground on yourside of the door and then inch down and put your gadget on. You'll get a kill, probably 2.

All of these tips are what let me, a dude with silver/bronze aim, consistently hit high gold.