is latency difference really that much of a factor in winning gun fights? or am i just bad.

okay hello everyone, i’m back with another question and i’m new so i apologize if this is a recurring discussion.

recently i downloaded MW3 and WZ on my PC. these games are the first time i’ve played call of duty since black ops 2 and i only ever really played black ops with split screen with my cousins so online play was never really something i did. i’ve been playing a lot of both MW3 multiplayer and WZ battle royale.

now i understand that i’m not going to be amazing playing on keyboard and mouse because it’s something completely new to me and that skill curve is going to cause me to be a bit worse right off the bat. but i think i’ve picked things up rather quickly and there have been times where i get into a gunfight (particularly more in WZ but this is the MW3 subreddit so i’ll talk more about MP) and it looks as though i start shooting first and then all of a sudden i’m dead. this has cost me rounds in search and destroy, and it’s also annoying to be pushing in certain game modes like domination and hardpoint and then i’m the one losing when i approached first. is this just a skill issue or is latency really that much of a game changer?