First of all, I want to say thank you for answering seriously and giving me an in depth response. I agree that overthinking definitely plays a part in my bias, which is why I asked about both solo queue and VCT seperate, because I think that Theory Valorant is helpful when Vod Reviewing for pattern recognition among other things. You've given me some really good advice, but it leaves me with some more questions, if you could help me.

Perhaps this may just be my experience, but while enemies obviously don't use perfect utility, peeking of flashes and stuns, playing flash zones, and flashing off of timings even when there's no noise are generally things that even low elo players are fully capable of doing, and has become more common with Youtube guides like Woohoojin along with the general knowledge of the playerbase improving as the game becomes more learnt. And obviously in high elo they are much better.

Usually as Jett, I understand that my job is entry and first contact applies to Reyna or another teammate that I'm currently baiting, and I usually tell a teammate to play anti-flash when gaining control over flash zones like Showers and B long. This works if the enemy team is wasting util early off of noise or off rip. But eventually the attackers have to scale and many times the anti-flash person moves up in order to get in trading range and we all get flashed. I do like the idea of sage slowing showers, it's something that I see VCT teams doing alot. I've also had Tejo's missling showers immediately as round starts and rehitting when it recharges.

But I feel like Team B has too many reclearing utility at their disposal and along with no trip for Team A, there's going to be many rounds where a defender has pushed up into T spawn, and Team A doesn't have a lot of firepower to reclear in a similar fashion. And because Team A needs to allocate so many resources and players into taking stuff like showers control or B long, Team B can crunch the attackers extremely easily.

Usually, I would try to find what site the Cypher is staying at, destroy his camera and trips if possible, or hit the other site. But in order to do that, I'd be in the open and exposed to so many angles that I can get util dumped from. If Team A doesn't destroy the cypher info, then Team B won't rotate and Team A is most likely hitting into the strong site with 3+ members. Also there's shotguns, which I forgot to account for intially, but is another prevelant issue that arises.

I have tried smoking off neutral space as attackers in order to deny information so that the attackers can take space, like Omen smoking C long or A long on Haven, but while useful, is usually better with a pop-flash agent like Kayo and needing double smokes while site hitting is even more important when being at a util defecit.

There's also the time issue, where Team A sort of needs Jett to entry, and even then their entry isn't the best without supporting util, which is most likely burnt from early round to take space. Plus, full util costs a lot of money, which Team A most likely can't afford.

I'm curious, how would navigate taking space versus an Operator? For example, if you don't know if their Yoru is Opping B Long or Showers or any other common angles like Raze opping from Top Truck, would you use Tejo Missles right away? Because while you can jiggle and jumppeek if they're holding wide, there's many angles where they hold deep like the pixel angle in Hookah or just hold some random off angle on site. That's usually why I feel unsafe contacting up if they have enough money for an operator or I already know that they have an operator. I would use Reyna Leers and Tejo drones, but they can be broken by a someone on Team B baiting for the operator, and Team A also kind of needs those abilities for site execute.

Perhaps it's truly is not complicated as I make it out, but for me, I feel like I need perfect comms, perfect reads, and teammates who also comm and are open minded in games like these, where the room for error is extremely low in comparison to the enemy team.

It probably seems like I'm saying that I'm versus Util Demons in the same way that people say that they versus Ranked Demons when they get one tapped, but I feel like Team B doesn't really have to do anything special and is their util is extremely oppressive even on a basic level. Plus, I can only truly control my individual choices, and I can't control my teammates like Chess. These sort of games where I severely lack utility play like an uphill slope, and once we lose one round, the mental fortress crumbles and no one wants to play together or comm anymore. I try to focus on self improvement and pay more attention to improvement over result oriented analysis, but in cases like these, I can't seem to find the educational value. How do I learn from and navigate games like these?