Can concur that using trash guides is the way to go. Never had any issues.

Don’t use invites to gain access to a private tracker. If the person who invited you gets banned you will get banned. Go through official interview process for MAM, OPS, or RED. That will get you in and you can jump to other trackers from there.

Yeah it appears they are cracking down heavily on piracy. I would not be surprised if more subreddits go down.