The group of people with l͟e͟g͟i͟t͟i͟m͟a͟t͟e͟ (received not against the rules) high-tier Service Medals that were as high as possible in the year of their distribution

Basic Information About Service Medals

The following information is provided to assist in understanding the principle of earning Service Medals, which is directly related to experience points (XP) and does not affect some related aspects (such as the weekly drop system and unlocking access to competitive game modes for new accounts).

The Service Medals were introduced in the May 26, 2015 update of CS:GO. In order to earn a Service Medal, it is necessary to increase a Profile Rank to the 40th level, which is designated as "Global General Rank 40." This can be achieved by regularly gaining XP on official servers with at least two human players present. A complete list of all Profile Ranks can be found here.

Each of the Profile Ranks requires 5,000 XP, with the exception of the first Profile Rank, "Recruit Rank 1," which is granted to the player at the outset. A player may earn up to 11,166 normal weekly XP per week, after which a reduced multiplier will apply.

Each Wednesday at 2:00 a.m. GMT (in accordance with the time zone utilized by the item servers) marks the commencement of a new week for the purpose of earning the normal weekly XP. The normal weekly XP begins with two weekly XP bonus boost multipliers: the first is x4, with an additional x2 multiplier applied immediately following the x4 multiplier. The x4 multiplier is applicable up to 4,666 XP (standard XP gained multiplied by 4), while the x2 multiplier is applicable up to 7,667 XP (standard XP gained multiplied by 2). Subsequently, the standard weekly experience points are accrued until 11,166 XP is attained in a week. Upon attaining the final normal weekly XP threshold of 11,166, the reduced multiplier begins to take effect, resulting in a 5.7-fold reduction of all received XP (received standard XP multiplied by 0.175). It is also pertinent to note that a New Player Boost is available from the first level of the Profile Rank, designated as "Recruit Rank 1," to "Private Rank 4," inclusive. However, that this benefit is only applicable upon the initial game start and is not renewable.

Furthermore, in CS2 it is permissible to earn XP after exiting any match, with the exception of competitive ones. This stipulation is contingent upon the match in question ending successfully, even in the absence of the player who has exited the match, with a minimum of two human players present on the server. However, there is a discrepancy in the XP awarded, which means that a player who has left the match will receive 4 XP less for a weekly XP bonus boost with a x4 multiplier and 2 XP less for a weekly XP bonus boost with a x2 multiplier. In the event that two multipliers of the weekly XP bonus boost were simultaneously applicable, the player would receive 3 XP less.

The following table shows the amount of standard XP earned in each of the currently available modes. In Competitive/Premier, players can earn up to 480 standard XP per match (390 for a typical won match). In Wingman, the maximum XP per match is 135. It is important to note that for all casual modes (except for Casual, because currently there is no limit which is either a bug or intentionally done), the maximum amount of XP that can be earned in a single match is 250 (although nothing is known about the Arms Race, it is obvious that it will be very hard to get even 100 standard XP per match there). However, this is not the case for Deathmatch, which has a 200 XP limit.


Upon attaining the 40th Profile Rank, the player is eligible to receive the first tier of the Service Medal (white) during the year in which this occurs. In order to obtain the aforementioned medal, the player must click on the designated button, "Get Service Medal," which can be found in the player's in-game profile. The button can be located by clicking on the player's avatar, either in the menu or during gameplay in the scoreboard. This action will result in the player's Profile Rank being reset to the "Recruit Rank 1," at which point the tier one Service Medal (white) will then appear in the player's inventory. In order to upgrade the Service Medal to the second tier (green), the player must begin at the first Profile Rank and progress to 40 once again. It is also noteworthy that Profile Ranks do not reset at the start of the next year. Consequently, players are able to save and utilise the progress made during the current year for the following year without any restrictions.



In addition to the Service Medal, players can also receive XP Overload status, which will be displayed in front of their profile name, on the scoreboard, on the death screen of the defeated opponent, during the cutscene of the start of the match, and at the end of it. To achieve this status, a player must earn all of the normal weekly experience (11,166 XP) in one week, and if they do the same in the following week, the color will change for the first 7 weeks (compared to the 6th penultimate week, the final 7th week will be only slightly different). From the 8th week (to infinity), only the Week Streak number will change when the player hovers over the XP Overload icon on the scoreboard, in-game profile, and in the game menu. Along with the Service Medals, this is intended to serve as an indicator of a player's commitment to the game, and is designed to provide additional motivation to regularly earn all of the normal weekly XP, which is very helpful in earning the high-tier Service Medals.



The tier indicates the progression of a player's Service Medal. The color of the main star on the medal changes with each tier. Throughout the existence of Service Medals in the game, tiers have ranged from two to seven. There are three types of color sequences for the tiers, which are covered below.

The first Service Medal with only two tiers. Their colors range from navy blue (also known as Rare, Mil-Spec, and High Grade in the game files) to purple (Mythical, Restricted, and Remarkable), corresponding to the color scheme of the skin grade. Due to the fact that the first Service Medal was added with Operation Bloodhound in the middle of the year, the first tier of this medal is immediately navy blue, which has never happened again (it was always white at the beginning). The tiers of this type of Service Medal can be seen here.

The second and third Service Medals contain up to seven tiers. All of them, except for the seventh (black, which is more of a placeholder than an actual intended tier, since the 3D model of this tier's 2016 Service Medal is not even in the game files, and 2017 looks unfinished), as well as in the case of the 2015 Service Medal corresponded to the color scheme of the skin grade, namely: white (Common, Consumer Grade, and Base Grade), baby blue (Uncommon and Industrial Grade), navy blue (Rare, Mil-Spec, and High Grade), purple (Mythical, Restricted, and Remarkable), hot pink (Legendary, Classified, and Exotic), and red (Ancient, Covert, and Extraordinary). The tiers of this type of Service Medal can be seen here.

The last tier range, still in use today, is the most stable of the three. Changes here include removing the seventh tier (black) and the replacement of the baby blue color in the second tier with green. Otherwise, the color scheme is identical to the 2016 and 2017 Service Medals. The tiers of this type of Service Medal can be seen here.



The Bonus Rank ("Bonus Rank XP" prior to the CS2 release) pass was added on November 18, 2019 along with Operation Shattered Web. It is a reward for completing Operation missions and grants one bonus Rank (5,000 XP) when used. It does not consume a player's weekly XP bonus boost. This means that players can keep it in their inventory as long as they want and use it whenever they want.

In addition to Operation Shattered Web, there were two other operations where the player could obtain this item: Broken Fang and Riptide. In Shattered Web and Broken Fang, up to 20 pieces of this item were available. In Riptide, only 19 pieces were available due to the lack of Co-op Strike missions in that operation. In total, the player could previously receive up to 59 Bonus Ranks.

The appearance of this item varied with the release of each operation. All Bonus Ranks were updated with each update, regardless of when they were obtained. Here is what they used to look like: appearance during Operation Shattered Web, Broken Fang, and Riptide. This is what they look like now (redesigned after CS2 release).

This item is very useful for players who want to get a high-tier medal, but they need to save up similar items. To get the maximum Service Medal (sixth tier, red) with its help without having to play much above the weekly norm (just get only the weekly normal XP without spending a lot of time on getting the reduced one) players need to collect Bonus Ranks from at least four operations. This means using 78 Bonus Ranks.

This number is due to the fact that the maximum possible Service Medal based on all of the above for the year is the fourth tier (purple), which is possible if the player has a 40th Profile Rank, "Global General Rank 40," on January 1st of the year in which the player will receive the high-tier medal, and then does not miss a single week during the year in order to regularly receive all of the normal weekly XP (as well as having XP Overload status with a large streak of weeks). It should be noted, however, that even under these conditions, the player may need either an additional 79th Bonus Rank or 4,368 reduced XP (equivalent to 24,960 standard XP if the reduced multiplier is abstracted, which is equivalent to four weeks of normal weekly XP), since the amount of normal weekly XP per year is slightly less than necessary for the purple Service Medal. Nevertheless, players can easily avoid this problem if the new year does not start on a Wednesday (in the year in which they will receive a high-tier medal), as it is quite possible for them to receive all of the previous week's normal weekly XP (from the previous year) before the first Wednesday of the new year, which will not only allow them to easily receive a fourth tier Service Medal, but will also give them an additional 6,798 XP while saving them one Bonus Rank.