Solo Queue. For some, just hearing those two words is enough to send them running for the hills. We’ve all experienced the duality of the solo grind in Counter-Strike. As Charles Dickens didn’t say, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the queue of hard carries, it was the queue of toxic, potato-mic bottom fraggers.” Solo queuing is, by nature, a gamble. Whenever you load up a lobby on your lonesome, there is just as much chance of getting four absolute demons as there is four people who apparently don’t understand a thing about the game, yet queue in your Elo. Trust us, we feel your pain.
Today, we will look at a few top tips for making your solo queue experience a little less painful. Of course, we can’t promise endless lobbies full of nice, intelligent CS players, but we can offer you ways to cope efficiently with the solo queue experience. Let’s jump in.
Sharpen your aim
This one might seem obvious, but hear us out. Counter-Strike is a game of subtleties. Efficient utility, instinctive timings, precise movements, and fast communications. But we all know that if you’re bottom-fragging in a solo queue lobby, the rest of your ‘team’ is ignoring you. Look, we know it’s unfair, but we don’t make the rules. If you’re taking the solo plunge, your first priority needs to be hitting those headshots.
There are multiple ways to sharpen your aim. From dedicated aim trainers to deathmatching, different people rely on different methods to grind that headshot percentage. However, biased though we may be, we have a few specific modes which will really make a difference to your aim and, by extension, improve your solo queue experience.
- Pop
- Sometimes, you just want a pure aim trainer to refresh your hand-eye coordination and get warmed up ready for the solo grind. Refrag’s Pop mode is our own aim training mode, designed with simplicity and effectiveness in mind. It is an easy, quick, and impactful way to quickly get your aim feeling warm.
- Angle Trainer
- Angle Trainer is the best way to consistently practice your angle clearing. It is the best training tool for methodically, carefully, and precisely understanding which angles to clear, how to clear them, and commonly overlooked spots and approaches.
- Xfire
- Xfire is the perfect mode for putting your aim training into practice. It is essentially a mix of prefire and crossfire. Bots will stand in common angles, as well as swing you. You will be able to train your angle clearing in higher-pressure situations, whilst dealing with swinging bots and avoiding getting traded. In this interview, Refrag’s CTO, Stefan, even said that “I honestly believe that if you play [Xfire] on .smart, you can go from being a complete noob to reaching Faceit level 10 much faster than with any other tool”. If that doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will!
Learn utility
Relying on randoms to throw good utility is probably the easiest way to get yourself killed in a solo queue lobby. Think about it; how many times has a random teammate actually thrown a good Window smoke on Mirage? Or an Outside smoke wall on Nuke without gaps? It might sound a bit tedious, but learning as many impactful nades as possible will genuinely help you in your solo queue adventures.
That’s where NADR comes in. It is probably the best single tool for learning all the utility you could ever need, on every map. It makes finding, practicing, and learning nades so simple it almost feels like cheating. If you can throw the perfect smokes for an execute, or flashes for a rush, your teammates will be grateful and your rounds will be a whole lot easier.
If you already use NADR, you’ll understand the huge impact it has on the process of learning and training Counter-Strike utility. If you don’t, and it feels a bit overwhelming, you can check out this handy, easy-to-understand guide to NADR here.
Track your progress & identify weaknesses
Of course, the key to success in any field is consistently finding ways to improve. Whilst there’s a lot to be said for grinding game after game and getting your training reps in when you can, there is a tool which – when used correctly – can utterly transform your Counter-Strike performance.
Refrag Coach is your best friend when it comes to efficiently improving at Counter-Strike. Whether you’re a Silver II in solo queue hell or a Faceit demon without a stack, Coach is about to give you the mother of all boosts in terms of your self-improvement.
Harnessing the power of data-driven analysis, Refrag Coach reviews your real, in-game performances over the past 30 days, identifying key trends and areas for improvement. It then goes a step further, generating a fully bespoke training routine tailored specifically to your real-world gameplay.
For the first time, your weaknesses in actual in-game scenarios are pinpointed with AWP-like precision. Using this, Coach builds a customised training routine within Refrag’s existing training modes, targeting your most pressing areas for growth. With Refrag Coach, you will actually see yourself improving and will be able to immediately identify actual areas of weakness in your games.
At the end of the day, solo queue will never be a walk in the park. It’s a crucible of chaos that tests not just your mechanics, but your patience and mental resilience. But with sharp aim, solid utility knowledge, and the ability to track and refine your weaknesses, you’ll find yourself better equipped to handle the chaos. Whilst you can’t control who fills your lobby, you can control how prepared you are to carry – or at least survive – the madness. So grind that training (use code soloq15 for 15% off your Refrag subscription), dive into a solo queue lobby, and remember: every tilt-worthy lobby is just another step on the path to glory.
