New player transitioning from CS to Valorant

Hey guys, I'm a new Valorant player.

I've played csgo for the last 2 years and some change sort of casually, just pugged with friends and just floated around level 5 faceit and nova/low mg MM in terms of skill. After seeing Ethan (A player I really admire) make the switch, it inspired me to start playing more and I'm looking to make this my main game moving forward. I'd like to really grind this game harder than I grinded csgo since I'm attracted to the wide variety of utility and how creative you can be with it.

Just some questions I've built up after some time trying the game over the last few days DMing and playing around in the range

What agents do you guys suggest for newer players? The agents that attracted me the most (in order) are Omen, Skye, and Breach. I also have mild interest in Phoenix and Sage, a little for the new agent Astra as well. How many agents should I learn to start? I was thinking of keeping it to just omen and skye for now, just to not overwhelm myself learning too many lineups and stuff. Also, any good videos you guys have? particularly on skye or breach? I found 2 youtube channels for omen (flexinja and moepork) so I should be good there. Also, I'll be mostly in soloQ if that means anything.

Can someone give me the current tldr version of the economy meta? I think know how the money works in VAL in terms of loss bonus and stuff, but why do i see pro teams half defuse and then let a teammate defuse? Is that a money thing or just for fun?

What is the current gun meta? I see a lot of different stuff in pistol round buy in pro play and I'm not sure what I should be doing really. Is it agent dependent or what? From my understanding, the vandal/phantom seems to be entirely what you prefer. I was thinking to run phantom on CT for multikill potential via spraying and to shoot through smokes & cages when T's exec. Then, I'd use vandal on T side for refragging for my duelists with the one tap HS's. Is this a good idea? What about 2nd round buys? Are stingers still good and should they be the go-to 2nd round buy? I was thinking to just buy bulldog. Lastly, using the operator feels so much different than in CSGO to me. Does anyone else feel like awping is a little stiff (except for jett i guess)? Or do I just need to adjust to valorant movement first?

How do you guys usually warm up? I'm not a fan of the current dming structure. I heard changes are coming that will add an update to the current dm that will make them similar to CSGO community server DMs, which is awesome though. Did riot say when that will be released?

I do not fully understand how ranking/climbing the leaderboard works in valorant. Can someone explain or link me something that would help explain it?

Not directly Valorant related, but I have been thinking of trying out some aim trainers and some other things to elevate my mechanics. What are some things you guys have used and how much have they helped you?

Looking forward to learning the game, but seems like I got to catch up on the meta quite a bit.

Playing Omen, Breach or Skye is pretty good for a new player. They are pretty straight forward and not that hard to play because you don’t have to know many fix points etc. . But I highly recommend to find some mates to play with Agents like Omen, Breach or Skye are normally used to set up other players the problem is most of the people are choosing duelist the entry fragger but are not pushing and just play for themselves so it’s hard to set up your mates. Can only speak for EU but we have some community’s here helping to find some mates on discord etc.

If you want to learn an Agent I can recommend the Blitz.gg App they have a relative new feature showing some tricks for all agents on all maps, like one way smokes good Walls, Nades or other things.

People just defuse to half because you get an ult point for defuse ( and plant, death, kill or ult orb) and sometimes people already have their ult so it’s smarter to let the teammate defuse or your mate has a way better Ult. The omen ult for example is not that good Sage or Raze for example have great ults so it’s better to let them defuse.

Vandal and Phantom is not that easy if you play Jett which is a quite hectic agent I would recommend the phantom. I like the approach of using Phantom in defense and Vandal in Offense but if you play a more long range position a bit more offensive on Defense like peeling b long on bin or showers the Vandal is great too. It‘s important to play with something that feels right in your hands the Vandal spray is not easy to handle.

I would recommend to have around 3 agents you can play
Omen/ Brim or Skye/Sova/Breach or Sage or Raze/Jett/Reyna/Phoenix or Killjoy/Cypher you only need to know one of these groups and you should be good. Viper made a comeback since icebox is out its almost a must pick on icebox and is great on Bind too. Most people will choose Duellists so I personally choose playing more support Agents like Omen, Sage or Sova but if only one is choosing a Duellist and the other 3 have Great Support picks I can play Rate too.

For warmup you could play deathmatch i personally don’t like it because there are to many people you have to fight but some people like it very much.

People like Aim Lab for Aim Training I like it too made some great progress in short time and it‘s for free. If you like to train your Spray you can even use the shooting range it‘s great too.

Personally i think everyone should have one "fighter" and one "support" agent recommended raze and omen for sure.. When it comes to eco you can always see the other teams money and how much they will have the round you're gonna play so aslong as your team decideds together to what to do it all good.. When its comes to meta it really depends on alot, but keeping it short.. Phantom for shortrange Vandal for longrange,, Spectre/Bulldog forcerounds or balancing out money.. Pistol's depening what utility you need for ex: omen wants his flash every round while raze already have her nades so a Ghost could work with a boombot or a satchel.. 2 rounds is most often a save round but some people buy so make sure to decided it togher like i said prior.. Awping is most of the times not worth it.. expensive and a vandal could do the samething depending on your aim ofcs..
Warmups DM without sounds just rushing everything and jumping in to practice killing bots with strafe on..
Valorants ranking 100 RR = Rankup, Lose/Win can get you 10-50 RR lose or gain min/max... Leaderboard only couts for top 500 for Radiant or immortals but nobody really cares about immortal's..
Only way to get better mechanics in any games is just playing more and notice when your doing stupid thing or unnecessary things and adjusting to make it better.. Crosshairplacement, Calling, Bursting and always trying your best and not giving up until the last round.. Many maps is very much ct sided or t sided so just because your losing 10 - 2 or something doesn't mean the match is over...

About agents: If you're interessted in Omen it's a good first agent to play, he can do everything, play for team play for yourself AND most important in rankeds no one want to play smoker, it's insane, so playing with Omen as first agent isnt a bad idea, if you had to chose between breach and skye I suggest you breach, because playing Skye require to be often with your spell in hands and so, not very dynamic. If you come from CS pheonix is for sure a good agent but the problem is most of ppl already insta lock duelist so, it might be a problem and Sage, like Omen, can do everything so might be a very good first agent, special mention to Reyna who's probably the funniest agent in the game if you like to play duels

About meta: For pistols it's rly up to you, I personnaly like to play with ghost no armor, but some ppl play with frenzy or with classic + armor, it also depend of your agent, sometimes you can't afford to play with frenzy or ghost because your spells are needed for pistol round (for example Sage has a strong kit for pistol round with wall slow etc). For Vandal/Phantom as you said it's rly up to you, I personnaly play almost only Vandal, but on CT side I play phantom sometimes, depend of my feeling. Second round I mostly play specter on CT, some ppl prefer stinger or bucky (which is probably gonna be nerf soon) but bulldog is rly a thing if you aim properly, it might be a bit expensive but it's worth imo, this weapon is rly underrated. And about Operator ye it's alot different than AWP in CS, the operator doesnt allow you to do crazy thing like some ppl do in CS, except with Jett, but for example no scope in Valorant is way more innacurate than no scope AWP in CS, the weapon is rly made to be a sniper, in CS you can almost do everything with an AWP.

Well, sry if my english is a bit broken but you know, being french and if you want to hear more about changes, nerf etc Valorant are making really great patchnotes where they explain every decision they make when it has a huge importance on playvalorant.com