Is Ranked Anxiety Real Or A Myth?

When it comes to improving your performance on the server, there’s pretty much nothing gamers won’t try.

From peripherals to aim trainers to loungewear to unregulated “cognitive enhancer” drugs, you’ll run out of money before you run out of options to step up your game.

But while you can spend hours seeking the latest and greatest in gamer tech, there’s still an unfortunate, unavoidable reality you must confront: eventually, you have to play the game.

Because, cheaters, feeders and kids without their monitors turned on aside, for some people, sitting down at their computer and queuing ranked isn’t as easy as clicking a button. For some, the very idea of playing ranked makes them, well… anxious.

So today we’re taking a look at ranked anxiety – that feeling of dread when deciding whether to queue up, or that rush of emotion in the middle of the game. Why does this happen? And are there steps you can take to mitigate or eliminate this feeling?

Production Assistance by: Nicolas Buck

Music used under license from Associated Production Music LLC (”APM”).

[SilenceCS]

As a person that has played hockey since I was 3 and competitively since 6, performance anxiety is always there. Like the professor said, some people use it as a driving force, and that is what I learned as well. my motto since I was 14 is, "The day I don't feel anxious before a game is the day I no longer should play." I've stuck to that and the feeling of butterflies excites me. Because the day I lose those butterflies is the day I lose true passion for that sport/esport. Embrace it, make it yours. I believe in all of you.
Great video.

[tesserthelost]

I realized a long time ago that ranked games are just better quality on average. People actually try and you can learn faster. I learned that ranked is more fun over all from a gameplay experience and ranked doesn't matter to me, other than its usefulness as a metric to see if I am getting better or not.

[fabricetarak]

This video just made me realize ladder anxiety is a real thing and not just a dumbbutt me thing.

[EsportsStoryteller]

The best way to overcome ladder anxiety is just focus on the process. After all, it's just a game and you SHOULD have fun while playing it. Even if you perfomr poorly, you're still gaining experience and get better each day :)

[IBradFrazer]

This video is 100% for me. I suffer from anxiety in my life, but even more so when it comes to performance anxiety in CS:GO. I have a rather expensive inventory of about $8k, so people automatically expect me to succeed 100% of the time, which creates even more anxiety. I often unequipped my expensive skins before searching to avoid that problem. It also doesn't help when my teammates demand a knife from me, or else they threaten to throw the game. When people see my inventory and rank (MG1), they start roasting me no matter how well I play. I am trying to adopt the "it is what it is" attitude, but it takes time.

[aidand]

I've never been able to put into words the way that queuing a faceit pug makes me feel and all of my friends and teammates are always like "dude just pug it doesn't even matter" and I never could really give them an answer as to why I wouldn't want to. I feel like this helped me open my understanding of my issues. I can literally feel my heartrate increase at the thought of pugging and I still don't fully get why.

[bananaboyval]

I've been experiencing ranked/ladder anxiety for maybe 5 years or so. my hands get so sweaty that my fingers are pruned after a ranked game and my hands tingle the entire time. my heartbeat drowns out all of the game audio. but over time i realize that ranked doesn't actually matter. it's just a way to improve and to lose is to improve. pushing past the anxiety is honestly tough but having a friend to play with or having a talkative and nice team is what truly helps me. I've been solo queueing more recently to try to grapple and conquer this anxiety i have with ranked. if you're struggling with ranked/ladder anxiety just remember; you are not your rank, your rank doesn't even really matter, competitive games are meant for you to improve yourself and that losing is more than ok. take breaks and take care of your mental state (and your wrists).

[hlix]

This video is now added to my favorites. I have a problem with regaining my self-efficacy after a tough loss so then my gameplay the rest of the night goes downhill because I start expecting too much while not believing I can get back in the groove. Thanks for this video and helping me identify an issue I couldn’t identify wholly.

[Airwreckgaming]

after competing in some esports (simracing), i can agree with basically everything said in this video
We have to prepare for sometimes weeks for just 1 race and that race can be over after 2 mins, just because someone else crashes you out
that obviously dampers alot of the mentality but we found alot of ways to deal with it
on the other side, if you finish well, you get alot of positiv feedback from teammates etc.
its just how you cope with everything and dont let it get to you too much
so, good video, keep it up!

[thebluecollarkid]

The only answer to the title/question is:-
1. Just play.
2. Don't think about it much.
Well.... A guy named @Chava Mora in the comment section said it more accurate than me not gonna lie!

[kuvjason]

For me, it's when a match can take anywhere from 30-45mins.

That's nearly half an hour of you wasting your life on what seems most of the time....a negative experience and the mental stakes are higher than a normal game. Now imagine losing 4 games straight with a few mistakes on you and a few on your teammates. That's like 3 hrs of a negative experience.

With normal games ... nothing is on the line so I'm more than happy to let go and not dwell on mistakes.

[itszaque]

The most interesting aspect of all of this is that ranked typically means you’re about to play against a whole group of people that are theoretically about as good as you. That’s not common in other sport’s because often you’re limited to how good or bad your team is comparative to a smaller body of other athletes. As a result it can feel exhausting and nerve-wracking to queue simply because you can never expect an easy match. It’s certainly an interesting phenomenon.

[scarletvan]

i felt this a couple of months ago in Naraka:Bladepoint. At that time, i was constantly whooped by other players all day long and that made me feel like i was truly a bad player and couldn't improve anymore as i just didn't see any progress. It was to the extent that i didn't even want to click the "Play" button on that game in steam client. I took a break, watched some games here and there, played other games, came back to the game to practice again, and finally felt much more calmer and confident as i finally felt that i can actually compete and have fun against players better than me, even though my win rate is not that good against them.

[piggyRF]

As a known competitive player in my community I get anxious because people expect highly of me (myself included) this effects my scrims + tournaments also make me quite nervous which tanks my performance. I dont think in 7 years that I have once played at my best in a tournament.

[irl_furyhorn]

haven't heard of anyone struggle with this outside of myself, and seeing one of my fav channels cover such a topic really made me feel seen and understood. love the content guys!

[themispao]

I like to think of the Ranked System as something that exists only to help the platform make games more competitive, and subsequently fun. It may be fun to play with noobs and own them or with people way better than you because the overall game quality is higher, but in the end you will be out of place. Winning vs noobs isn't rewarding and getting owned becomes frustrating pretty quickly. However, I have insane ladder anxiety(mostly because of negativity and toxicity) and still really care about what elo I am eventhough its just a number to match you with equally skilled players. I fell from level 4-5 to level 2 and I feel like garbage. Maybe I believed I was better than I acutally am, maybe its just tilt, but there is also this fear that if I lose, it will mean I am a noob on a game I enjoy and that kills me. Thank god I got friends to play with and can focus on having fun, which makes the above stuff fade away in the back of my mind(till we lose and then its back to frustration). We have forgotten that games are just games and you play them for fun and people decide their value by what rank they are and become fixated on this. Just play and whatever happens happens. Focus on getting better and results will come in time, and if they don't...well they didn't and it's fine. Keep grinding <3

[kungfukenny]

I really feel this. As I don't think twice playing unrated. And I do well. But with competitive. There's this lingering thought of what ifs.. but I learned that it's a momentum type process ( like going to the gym) you gotta JUST DO IT

[deHExi]

Wow...I dead ass thought I was the only one terrified to queue up. I didn't know this was a whole thing.

[urfinalgoodbye]

thank you guys so much for this video ive had rlly bad ranked anxiety recently to the point my hands start shaking mid game

[burk]

The only reason I'm scared of solo queueing rankeds is because if I get demoted I won't be able to play with my friends because of rank difference cause we don't have a full squad