If you came from CS:GO, ranks in CS2 look half familiar. The old badges are still there, but the main ranked mode now uses a number. This guide covers both systems, the exact color bands, and what Valve has and has not said about decay.
Two ranking systems
- Premier ranks you with a CS Rating, a single number that goes up when you win and down when you lose. It is shown on global and regional leaderboards and resets in seasons.
- Competitive ranks you with Skill Groups, the 18 badges from CS:GO. You get a separate one on each map you play.
- Wingman also uses Skill Groups, kept separately from Competitive.
Premier CS Rating colors
Your CS Rating is shown in a color that tells you its band. These are the seven bands:
| Color | CS Rating |
|---|---|
| Grey | 0 to 4,999 |
| Light blue | 5,000 to 9,999 |
| Blue | 10,000 to 14,999 |
| Purple | 15,000 to 19,999 |
| Pink | 20,000 to 24,999 |
| Red | 25,000 to 29,999 |
| Gold (yellow) | 30,000 and up |
The color is only a label for a range of the number. A 9,900 player and a 10,100 player are 200 points apart even though one shows light blue and the other blue. At the end of each season, your medal takes the color of the highest rating you reached.
We do not quote rank distribution numbers here. Valve does not publish them, and the third-party figures that circulate come from samples of tracked players, not the whole player base.
The 18 Skill Groups
Competitive and Wingman use the same 18 badges, from lowest to highest:
| Tier | Skill Groups (low to high) |
|---|---|
| Silver | Silver I, Silver II, Silver III, Silver IV, Silver Elite, Silver Elite Master |
| Gold Nova | Gold Nova I, Gold Nova II, Gold Nova III, Gold Nova Master |
| Master Guardian | Master Guardian I, Master Guardian II, Master Guardian Elite, Distinguished Master Guardian |
| Eagle and above | Legendary Eagle, Legendary Eagle Master, Supreme Master First Class, The Global Elite |
In Competitive, each map has its own Skill Group. You can be Gold Nova on Nuke and Master Guardian on Mirage at the same time, which matches how most players actually perform.
Wingman ranks
Wingman, the 2v2 mode, uses the same 18 Skill Group badges. Your Wingman rank is tracked separately, so a high Competitive rank does not carry over. Our Wingman guide covers the format and maps.
How to get ranked
- Get Prime Status. Since 2021, accounts without Prime do not earn ranks, Skill Groups or XP.
- For Competitive: win two matches on a map and your Skill Group for that map appears.
- For Premier: reach profile level 10, then win 10 Premier matches. Only wins count toward the ten. Valve uses the same ten-win rule at the start of every season.
The full Premier path, including how map selection works since the September 2026 update, is in our Premier unlock guide.
Rank decay and resets
Valve has never published an exact decay rule for CS2. What players report is consistent in outline: if you stop playing for a while, your Skill Group or CS Rating is hidden, and one win shows it again, sometimes lower than before. Any exact number of days you see online is an estimate, not a Valve rule.
Resets that Valve has documented:
- Premier seasons. Each new season recalibrates your rating based on the last one, and you need ten wins to see it again. Season Five started on July 8, 2026.
- The January 2026 Competitive reset. Valve adjusted the underlying per-map rank values and expired every per-map Skill Group. Each one comes back after you win enough matches on that map.
Profile rank is not skill
The number from 1 to 40 on your profile is your profile rank. It goes up with XP from any official mode, win or lose. Reaching rank 40 lets you reset it and earn or upgrade that year's Service Medal. It measures time played, not skill. The only ranked use it has is the level 10 requirement for Premier.
If your frame rate is holding you back more than your aim, our CS2 CPU and GPU guide shows how to find the bottleneck.