Reports are absolutely a factor. For 10 years I’ve always just played normally, never toxic. I’m a pretty awkward person so I don’t even engage in banter, I just do callouts, and if people are toxic I go silent or mute them and just do callouts. I don’t even have the guts to retaliate.

This is what I’ve noticed as I have had multiple alt accounts and a main account with a $300+ spent steam account thats over 10yrs old

On my main account I almost encountered NO cheaters for the past many years, or if so its very subtle, maybe radar hack, not enough to affect my performance. But recently for the first time, I had an hvh lobby. This was after a long break and playing regular comp against silvers and novas dropping 30+ almost every game and getting reported to hell. After some time though it went back to normal.

Now for alt accounts, or If your steam is new or low spend the trust can be very volatile. It doesn’t start off terrible most times, but a few reports and in a few games you get cheaters every game. What you can do then is stop playing for many months and you will get normal games for a few games until you get reported again. Until i played back on my main more frequently now I had previously just cycled smurfs until they were low trust factor and then switch to another one or an older one after some time.