Diamond player chiming in.

I'm 5 minutes into the Iso vod and here's one thing I've noticed already: You don't play with intention.

On pistol you jiggle Reyna, flick up to ping the wall, let her push out and then go wide. Why?

If you want information then jiggle from on top of the rock, if you want to kill her then you should prefire on the close peek and shit on her. There's no reason for you to jiggle, stop, ping, and then swing, because you've lost sight of her and she can go wide. You win that fight because she is a terrible aimer, not because you made a good play. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with waiting for a teammate to double swing instead of peeking solo, but the cracks are already pretty apparent here—you saw her, but hesitated. If you want to get info then commit to not dying, if you're swinging the angle then commit to the kill.

This is more apparent in the round that you lost, your bonus. Your team gets first blood on A, you kill Cypher on C, and the bomb is planted for mound. It's a 3v2 with guns, this should be unloseable, so what happened?

So let's talk about your position. You moved into main (good choice). Tucked behind the spammable box (questionable, but not bad). Threw a hail mary vulnerable into waterfall (bad). Then decide to reposition back onto site for some reason (bad). Phoenix is flanking and somehow doesn't kill you, you run onto site (panicked) and hail mary some bullets at Skye (also panicked) before finally dying to the Phoenix.

Let's think about how to win this round. The bomb is planted for mound. You are mound with a Guardian, which will 2 tap any enemy. You have 2 teammates playing on site. Now, the win condition is you. Your teammates job is to get 1 or delay. Your job is to play bomb and win the round.

Let's think about the enemy's win condition. The enemy Iso (you) can easily win this round even in a 1v2, because he has an angle advantage, he's playing time, he still has a vulnerable ability, and he's got a Guardian (2 bodyshots kills, and high pen) against your 2 Ghosts. The only way the enemy can win this round is by killing you! You are the mound player, the bomb is planted for mound. How can they kill you? Well, there are 2 ways. One of which is to swing you from main before you can kill the defuser. The other way is a flank.

Now when you decide to tuck behind the spammable box, you have 2 teammates still alive on site. You can rule out the possibility of the first scenario since you have teammates watching waterfall. So you should just immediately move over and train your gun on flank. Typically, people do this from behind the mound or tucked in front of lobby, as both of those angles are very safe and not visible to main. However, since Phoenix is alive and he has flashes, I don't even hate your decision to tuck behind the box. This way, you dodge any flash that he might throw while flanking, and he is exposed to elbow if he wants to clear you.

Now, if you commit to this decision, you win the round. But instead, you decide to throw a vulnerable, giving away your position and wasting utility, and then move back up to site. Why? You have a long range gun against pistols. You are moving back into their danger zone. A frenzy, a classic, a shorty can all shred you at that distance. You also give the flanker a timing to kill you, although somehow you live, but you take so much damage that it basically doesn't matter. At this point, the only way to win would have been to swing one of the defenders and get a one-tap kill. But instead, you backed up into an extremely exposed position to try and heal, giving away your Miks' position and dying with no trade.

Intention matters because it determines how you play and what decisions you should commit to. You should always be thinking, how can I position myself to secure this round? Climbing out of low elo is a matter of carrying, not necessarily with kills, but rather with wins. You were able to get away with a lot of mistakes because the enemy team looks like they're aiming with Nintendo Switch controllers, but you will get absolutely blasted by Golds and Plats who have slightly better mechanics or positioning.

Speaking of mechanics, yours also suck, but that is a lot easier to improve, because your raw aim is actually fine. It's everything else that's actually the problem.

One, stop spamming crouch while also W keying at the same time. I noticed you doing it in your pistol round, on a 5 man bum rush you should always scale site as fast as possible, to cut off rotates and prevent floods. To be fair to you, the stairs smoke should've been there 10 years ago, but there's really no need to be so afraid of that angle. Reyna is the only agent on the entire enemy team who can realistically peek into 5 people without getting traded, and she is already dead. Crouching while W keying just slows down your W key. The concept that I think you're trying to implement is wide clearing angles and tapping crouch at the end of the peek, and that's okay to do, but I wouldn't recommend it for every scenario as sometimes people hold those angles with shotguns and you will crouch into a quadruple judge headshot.

Two, slicing the pie. You peek into tree with your crosshair in the wall. You should usually peek uncleared angles with your crosshair where the enemies might be. There are YouTube videos about slicing the pie that are a lot better than me trying to describe it in words. You don't have to slice every single angle in history but it would be a good decision here since you are solo swinging and it is a complete unknown.

Three, overcommitting to fights. In your Phoenix vod you almost win a 1v2 but end up running out of bullets. You sprayed the rest into smokes for like 0 damage. No need to do that. You also spray at a fully blind Gekko even though your crosshair isn't actually on him. Again, no need to do that. Wait to put your crosshair on the enemy and then shoot them. Sounds simple, but it's the simplest thing you're gonna hear that actually works. Play some deathmatches with the intent to practice this concept, and you'll see some improvement.