CS2 Ranks Explained: Premier Rating & All 18 Skill Groups

CS2 Has Three Ranking Systems

When CS:GO became CS2 in September 2023, Valve kept the old skill groups but added a second, number-based rating on top. Today, every Prime account can hold three separate official ranks at once:

FACEIT, the biggest third-party platform, runs its own levels 1 to 10 and Elo. It is independent of Valve; see our FACEIT guide for its level table.

Premier: the CS Rating

Premier is CS2's main ranked mode: 5v5, 24-round matches (first to 13), on the current Active Duty map pool, with a pick-and-ban veto before every match. Instead of a badge, you get a CS Rating, a number that goes up when you win and down when you lose. How much it moves depends on the rating of the players you face.

The number is shown in a colour that changes every 5,000 points:

The 5,000-point steps come from the game; the colour names are the ones players use. There is no hard cap above 30,000. Players at the very top are ranked by position on the global and regional leaderboards, which you can open from the Premier tab in the game.

All 18 Competitive Skill Groups in Order

Competitive is the classic CS:GO-style mode: you pick a single map and get a skill group for that map only. You can be Gold Nova on Nuke and Legendary Eagle on Mirage at the same time. From lowest to highest:

Skill groups use the same match format as Premier (first to 13) but without a veto. Valve has never published how many players sit in each group; rank-distribution charts online come from third-party trackers, which only see their own users.

Wingman Ranks

Wingman is the 2v2 mode played on small maps with a single bombsite. It has its own skill group with the same 18 names as Competitive, earned and lost separately. A Wingman rank says nothing about your Competitive or Premier rank, and wins in one mode do not count toward the others.

How to Get Your First Rank

1. Get Prime Status. Skill groups and the CS Rating are only issued to accounts with Prime Status. Free accounts can play Competitive and Wingman but never see a rank, and cannot queue Premier at all.
2. Unlock the mode. New accounts need to earn some XP first. Our guide to unlocking Premier and Competitive walks through it.
3. Win your placement matches. Premier shows your CS Rating after 10 wins (losses do not count). In Competitive, since Valve's update of 25 June 2024, a map's skill group is revealed after two wins on that map.

CS:GO Ranks vs CS2 Premier Rating

A common question is what CS Rating equals Global Elite, or what an old CS:GO rank is "worth" in Premier. The honest answer: there is no official conversion. The two numbers measure different things:

• A skill group is earned on one map, in a mode where you choose the map.
• The CS Rating is earned across the whole map pool, after a veto, and it is the only one with public leaderboards.

Conversion charts on other sites are community estimates, and they disagree with each other. If you want to compare yourself across systems, the most reliable reference is a platform that sees both: many players also play on FACEIT, whose levels are a third, independent scale.

How to Rank Up Faster

• Fix your setup first. A crosshair you can see on every map matters more than a fancy one. Start from a pro code in our crosshair guide, then tune it in the Crosshair Generator. Set up your gun position with the Viewmodel Generator.
• Learn movement and peeking. Counter-strafing and holding angles win more duels than raw aim. Our shooting, peeking and movement guide covers the mechanics.
• Play fewer maps well. In Premier you can ban your weakest maps in the veto. In Competitive, a narrow map pool means faster placements and better map knowledge.
• Queue with a team. Communication is worth more than any setting. Premier lets you queue with up to four friends.
• Watch your stats. Your CS2 stats show which weapons and maps are holding you back.

Frequently Asked Questions