I was always worried about ranks, I never played on my main account when I was feeling I wasn't playing so good, only played when I was 100% confident. I thought too much about playing again after winning, or after losing, back when I was nova 4. Even tho I always carried hard my teams. I used to always blame on teammates.
I had an alt-account in which I got DMG on the md10 in which I played at a very good level, so I just knew nova 4 wasn't the rank for me.
Then suddenly I dropped to nova 2 on main, sometimes I blamed my lost on a bad team, sometimes because I rage disconnected, and I just started to don't give a shit about ranks, so mad I was.
So in a rage state of mind I played one game after another, just kicking everyone's ass, I was real mad, trash talked my teammates, sometimes I just muted everyone and did whatever I wanted. I played with no pressure at all. Got myself to MGE in like a week. And that was before the VAC-waves or whatever people called it.
MGE/DMG before the rank-mess up was the rank I felt I deserved, that was the first real goal I made to myself at the game, so after that I stopped playing on main for a while.
Instead I just played a lot on the DMG alt-account and enjoyed the DMG hell.
Months later I've heard it was easy to rank up, people saying they were ranking up with 2, 3 wins, with even some losses in-between. So I get back to my main, in like 4 days I got to SMFC. I was not a bad SMFC, I was even a very regular one, my average frags were like 15-20. I was doing ok but I felt I was being too much out-aimed and I decided to stop again.
So I had to do these competitive missions for Operation Bloodhound gold coin, and I just thought "well I have to do them, so fuck it if I derank, I bought this operation so I won't miss a gold coin for ranks, I can rank up again in the future".
So I got solo-queued with good teams every mission. Won every competitive mission match. Got gold coin. Decided to stop.
Then weeks later I play one match so my rank wouldn't disappear for inactivity. I was close to rank up and didn't even knew that because of how poorly I was playing, even with the wins. I get matched with only GEs. My team wins. I bottom-frag. I rank-up.
Bittersweet. Doesn't feel like I deserve it.
But one thing I feel, I got better each game I played at the higher ranks.
Today I feel I would be a good LE/LEM pre-VAC wave. When I play against "new" GEs I do ok, when I play against "old" GEs I get out-aimed a lot of times.
Now I'm pretty much only playing ESEA/FACEIT to practice at a higher level and I feel I'm getting better everyday.
My goal now is to be good enough to play regularly on my main and don't derank from GE. But if I do, I don't really give a damn. Everyone is GE these days. I mean, I am, so I know how much that doesn't mean NOTHING.