You know when I first got into CS:GO I was coming from TF2 with limited exposure to CS. After a couple months of gameplay I was able to reach eagle in competitive and it didn't take much longer for me to realize that the entire game is plagued with cheaters. Not much longer after I saw posts about pros getting VAC banned and decided theres pretty much no way to take the game seriously. The alternative is ESEA and unless you're super serious about the game it's a bit of an investment and you're STILL not guaranteed to play against legit players. Extremely bad experience taking that game seriously, but insanely fun to mess around in competitive if you can stop caring about your rank.