By The Worlds BEST Player Sam DaZeD Marine and other top players.

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Contents
Chapter 1. The Basics
a. Configs and Settings
b. Gaming Equipment
- Mice
- Keyboard
- Headset
- Mousepad
- Monitors
c. Finding Teams
d. Finding Scrims
e. IRC Guide
Chapter 2. Sensitivity (Featuring Forver0)
a. Pros and Cons of a high sens.
b. Pros and Cons of a low sens.
c. Wrist versus Arm.
d. True Sensitivity
Chapter 3. Improving Aim (Featuring Ryan)
a. Death matching Techniques
b. Aim Mapping
c. Positioning yourself
d. Crosshair Placement
e. Knowing your reactions and abilities
Chapter 4. Knowing Your Role (Featuring Ryan)
a. Spot Rifling
b. Aggro Rifling
c. Entry Rifling
d. Covering
e. Pushing and Flanking
Chapter 5. Developing and Calling Strats (Featuring Chewbacca)
a. Finding Effective Flashes and Smokes
b. Map Control
c. Putting your players in the right spots
d. Giving people jobs
e. Developing a system
f. Analyzing the other team
g. How to adapt as CT
Chapter 6. Holding Your Spot (Featuring caseyfoster)
a. Counter-Flashing
b. Practicing your spot
c. Smokes
d. Knowing what to do
e. When to change your play-style
f. Aggro or Passive?
g. When to push
Chapter 7. Rotations (Featuring Remix)
a. When to Rotate
b. To push instead of rotating?
c. Not getting caught off guard
d. Trusting Teammates.
Chapter 8. League Participation
a. What skill division is your team ready for
b. Should the team have a single leader or a group vote
c. Managing multiple leagues with time management
d. Preparing your team for playoffs
e. Is a loss more important then a learning experience.
Chapter One The Basics
Configs and Settings
Quote:
If you are going to start playing source competitively you re going to want to hav
e the right settings and equipment. Configs and settings are pretty easy to come
by, and generally speaking you want to use a resolution that isn t completely rid
iculous, something like 800x600 or 1024x768, if you have a wide screen or an LCD
use the native resolution as you are normally limited to resolutions to use. Tr
y any top players config, dont mess around with some unknown players config as t
hey usually dont have proper settings. The whole point of the config or fps conf
ig is so most textures are on low so that you can see under trains and don t have
any disadvantages. Generally speaking you want your game to run as consistently
as possible by this i mean as little fps dips ass possible. So with the combinat
ion of an FPS config + any normal resolution like the ones listed above, you sho
uld be good.
caseyfosters updated CFG
Gaming Equipment

Mouse
Quote:
Gaming Equipment is one of the most key things you can get, and there is really
only a few mice and headphones that I would recommend. You want to get Mouse tha
t feels right, and is going to be easily replaceable, and also one you can take
to LAN s and have no trouble with. A good list of mice looks something like this.
Logitech MX 518
RAZER DeathAdder
Steelseries Xai
Headphones
Quote:
For your headphones you want to get some that hopefully aren t too pricey, and get
the job done. Here is a list of headphones that are good. And being that CSS is
only 2 channels any 2.1 headphones will do the job.
steelseries 5H V2
Anything from steelseries is good
Mouse Pad
Quote:
For your Mouse pad there is 2 main categories, cloth and plastic. I prefer cloth
but it s completely preference. Mouse pads aren t too hard to come by, and don t matt
er that much, so here is a small list of ones that most pros use.
steelseries 63003SS QCK+
steelseries 63008SS QcK heavy
Keyboards
Quote:
Keyboards are whatever, as long as you can move effectively you re good to go. Alt
hough some PS2 keyboards you can only press down 2 buttons at one time, so you w
ont be able to jump, walk and strafe at the same time. So stick to newer USB key
boards.
Steelseries 7g
ABS M1
Monitors
Quote:
Monitors are the thing that is probably of most importance. If you are using a L
CD you want your MS to have a response time of 4ms or less. If you are using a C
RT you want to get atleast 100hz. CRT s are much better then LCD s but most LAN s use
LCD s so you might want to get used to them. LCD s though, are getting better and be
tter, and now there are LCD s that run 120hz.
ASUS 24" 2ms
Finding A Team
Quote:
To find a team you really want to find a team that has the same goals as you do.
If you want to put in the time to become one of the best players and get into t
he best leagues, then find a team that has the same goals in mind. If all five p
layers don t have the same goals in mind then you will all feel resentment towards
each other. Once you find a group of players who have an alike mindset, if you
stick together and develop as a team and let each player blossom into whatever r
ole they feel most comfortable in, then you are going to go far.
Finding Scrims
Quote:
When looking for a scrim, try and find one that is at your skill level, and agai
nst teams that you can actually practice against. If you try to play against the
top teams and you aren t a top team yet Well your team stands no chance, and you w
on t learn anything from it, and neither will they. So when finding a scrim just t
ry to remember that you are scrimming to better your team. Also remember when sc
rimming that you should try not to say other people are cheating, and just try t
o focus on your game and improving on your own. If you think people are cheating
and that s the reason why you died, you re never going to improve.
IRC Guide
For a good IRC guide you re going to want to go to this link, it was done by Stryk
er.
Strykers IRC Guide for Newbs
Chapter Two Sensitivity (Featuring Forever0)
Austin Forever0 Kulig-Kort
DISCLAIMER: This is how I play source and my thoughts and views may be different
than others. This is what I did in order to get to the top, just because It wor
ked for me does not mean it will work for you. All I m trying to do is implement t
he thought process of a professional and getting you to create your own play sty
le.
Sensitivity
Quote:
I have gone through many sensitivities while playing. I went from being someone
that used his whole arm to just using his wrist. As you play you re always going t
o adjust your settings because as a player you will always be changing.
First find out what you prefer to use, your wrist or your arm and what works bes
t with your choice of gun. If you tend to depend on your wrist more to move and
aim I would use a higher sensitivity. I say a higher sensitivity because if you
were to start using your arm to move with a high sensitivity and have a mix of w
rist it will be very inconsistent. When using a higher sensitivity you need to p
ractice just using your wrist and only your wrist, so that means the sensitivity
has to be high enough to completely eliminate your arm. I went up to 10 sens in
league play and played extremely consistent with it.
If you prefer to use a lower sens I use a mixture of arm and wrist. I use more a
rm than wrist when it comes to lower sensitivities. With low sensitivities it ha
s to have a good median. What I mean by that is that it can t be slow enough to no
t able to use your wrist and it can t fast enough to not be able to use your arm.
I tend to use my arm much more with a lower sensitivity.. I find using a mixture
with a slower sensitivity tends to give the best results. I would saying using
a lower sensitivity works both ways with rifling and awping. It is probably the
best choice if you want to be a versatile player. Using a lower sensitivity tend
s to make your arm much more active making flick shots for myself much easier.
My comparison would be a two plane golf swing and one plane golf swing. a Two pl
ane swing uses more of the smaller muscles and requires more timing with the wri
sts in order to square the club at impact. This would be a comparison to a High
sensitivity since you are using a smaller muscle, which is your wrist. You are p
utting a lot of pressure on your wrist to consistently produce results with ever
ything. You are using your wrist to aim, turn, dodge flashes, and pre aim.
Now the one plane swing would be the lower sensitivity in this case. In a one pl
ane swing your using more of your bigger muscles to square the club at impact. I
n this case with a lower sensitivity your using your arm more than your wrist. I
n my case when I use a lower sensitivity I tend to rely on my arm to be active a
nd move quickly. I rely on my wrist as well but not as much. This method in Coun
terstrike and in Golf of course requires practice but its not something that has
to be constantly conditioned. This way will be more consistent in the long run,
yet it will still require practice in order to play at your fullest potential.
My thoughts on sensitivity are purely preference. It s whichever you prefer the mo
st and whichever gives you the best results. Never be afraid to experiment. If y
ou are testing sensitivities I tend to lower mine and/or raise mine by .25 each
time I m trying to find the best sensitivity for myself at the time. I prefer abso
lutely no mouse accel and a laser mouse. I believe optical mice tend to give a l
ittle bit of positive accel.

Sam "DaZeD" Marine

Quote:
So here we have a player who has changed his sensitivity numerous times and desp
ite that has consistently played and fragged at a top level. I wouldn t recommend
changing your sensitivity too much, but I would recommend using a sensitivity th
at feels right and suites you. In order to give you some insight about how sensi
tivity plays a part in your game, I m going to go over which sensitivities are bet
ter for which situations, and which type of player you are. But before I do that
, you have to understand the basics of what makes up your sensitivity, and what
is considered a higher and lower sensitivity. To do this I m going to explain to y
ou what your True Sensitivity is. And this is a simple formula.
DPI x In-game Sensitivity x Windows Sensitivity.
DPI is the DPI on your mouse, a MX518 goes from 400,800,1200,1600.
A Death Adder goes from 450,900,1350,1800.
In-game sensitivity is simply your in-game sensitivity.
Windows sensitivity depends on what bar your windows bar is set to.
1. 0.03125
2. 0.0625
3. 0.25
4. 0.5
5. 0.75
6. 1.
7. 1.5
8. 2.
9. 2.5
10. 3.
11. 3.5
So basically, if your windows sensitivity bar is in the middle, then you multipl
y by 1, if it s 5 then you multiply by .75. and so on and so on.
For example, if you use a MX518 at 400DPI with 2 in-game and 6/11 windows, you f
ormula would look like this. 400 x 2 x 1 = 800.
Let s look at the benefits of using a high or a low sensitivity.
Quote:
With a high sensitivity you usually have your riflers who are good entry fragger
s, and great up close riflers. This is pretty simply explained by the simple fac
t that they can aim to their enemies heads faster with a higher sens. Generally
speaking, the higher your sensitivity the worse you re going to be in the mid-long
range game.
Now let s look at a low sensitivity. Someone with a low sensitivity Is often times
an awper, this is because you have a much smaller margin of error. If you have
a high sensitivity and you flick to someone, you might have a millimeter margin
of error, but with a lower sensitivity that millimeter might turn into 2 or 3 mi
llimeters. Riflers with this low sensitivity usually play the game a bit differe
ntly, a bit more controlled, since if they get in a bad spot, it s going to be a l
ot more difficult for them to whip around and 180 someone in a matter of millise
conds.
A person with a low sensitivity is usually someone who has around 900 or less tr
ue sense. About 900-1200 or so is a medium sensitivity and anything higher than
1200 is pretty high.

Chapter Three Aim (Featuring Ryan)

Ryan "Ryan" Romba
Aiming
Quote:
1. Deathmatching Techniques
When I go into a deathmatch, I do a few things. First, I usually put my sound at
.02, then I open up Pandora.com and find some good music to listen too. I mysel
f am not all into the whole "using sound" while deathmatching. Sometimes, you ju
st gotta let it ride and have a good time deathmatching. It can be boring to jus
t sit in there getting kill after kill and hearing the same old sounds. Enjoy yo
urself while you DM, have a good time !
Next the way I deathmatch differs from a lot of people. Some people will say "on
ly deathmatch with the AK, after all it is just pointing and clicking blah blah
blah". Basically when I go into a DM server, I will do a set number of frags per
weapon. Even more interesting was a theory someone else brought up to me and th
at was deathmatching to a certain death number. I think the latter is very effec
tive because in reality it can show you improvement in a way of kills per death.
You can obviously do that with just a normal set kill rate with weapons, but if
you do it per death it is just interesting too. Afterall, one of the hardest th
ings for players to do in this game overall is minimize the amount of times they
die especially in a match. In a deathmatch server it can be kind of random beca
use chances are you are going to spawn right into an enemy.
Back to the matter at hand, essentially I try to work on something while I death
match. Sometimes I just do 100 m4 frags / 100 ak frags. I usually have a handy d
eagle equipped too because it is always nice to run around with that a bit and w
ork on your eco round handy dandy weapon. But I try to focus on "out gunning" pe
ople. When you're in a deathmatch server, chances are the vast majority of your
kills are going to be shooting people in the back or when they are spawning or s
ome unfair advantage to you. What you have to focus on is the select few oppurtu
nities you have when you actually go face to face with an enemy and he has the s
ame oppurtunity to kill you as you have to kill him. If you kill him, great! Wha
t went right? Did you control your burst or spray perfectly? Did you strafe perf
ectly and make him miss his shots while you hit yours correctly? If you didn't k
ill him try to think what you can do better next time you go toe to toe with an
enemy and chances are you'll have the chance to try it very soon since it is a d
eathmatch server!
Along with this there are plenty of other things you can try in deathmatches. A
few things are not crouching by unbinding your crouch key. You can also try to w
ork in strafeing drills where you unbind W and S and your Crouch key so you can
only move side to side. It is pretty difficult. If you are an awper one thing yo
u should focus primarily on is accuracy opposed to speed. Yeah it is great to be
some super fast awper, but remember death matches can sometimes translate bad h
abits into in game such as trying to shoot too fast or if you are a rifler const
antly moving while you try to shoot.
Don't be afraid to work on different aspects of your game in a DM server. Just b
ecause you don't have the best K ratio doesn't mean you can't be improving somet
hing in your game such as your pistols, or your strafeing, or your general aimin
g or ability to outshoot someone.
2. Aim Mapping
Aim mapping is very similar to deathmatching and many of the things you put into
deathmatching can be applied to aim mapping. The best part about aim mapping is
the fact you don' t have the stupid random spawns and most of the time you are
toe to toe with the enemy. You won't get shot in the back, and you won't shoot 1
00 enemies in the back. You get to accurately replicate an in game / match shoot
out that can help you improve positioning.
Pretty simply you can do the strafeing/no crouch drills in aim map servers too,
but what you can really work on his crosshair positioning and movement. If you s
tart knowing where to place your crosshair and different spots the enemy won't e
xpect you in, it can translate to ingame when you do the same thing. You aren't
going to repeek over the same box in aim_map, so why would you repeek the same s
pot on de_train? Little things you can take any apply to your real scrims and ma
tches that will help you out aim your opponents. Remember, aiming is pretty much
muscle memory and natural reaction/reflex, where you place your crosshair and y
our preparation is what is very difficult about aiming.
3. Positioning yourself / Crosshair placement
Where you position yourself and how you place your crosshair ultimately decides
whether you will get the frag or the enemy will. Knowing where your enemy will p
eek from and where to place your crosshair in regards to that will give you an i
nstant advantage. As a CT especially, knowing where the terrorists will be movin
g through gives you a huge advantage.
Example one, dust2 .
If you are a CT and are going to try to pick the terrorist awper, there is one w
ay that is nearly fool proof and I rarely get picked doing it and I am not even
an awper. In the upper leagues, most awpers don't pick from the right corner of
T spawn anymore because of this.
Another spot to play is in the back of B in the back of the site with a rifler.
B can be difficult to hold with a rifle when a team is working a one way smoke a
nd heavily flashing the site. If you are playing a conventional spot like car or
bricks on platform chances are you will probably get a trade kill at best. By p
laying this spot you almost assure your self a kill when a team tries to take th
e site and it allows you to easily help your team pick up the round.
Left Eye Peeks / Right Eye Peeks
Ever try to hold turn pike as a CT on de_nuke at ramp room? Ever constantly get
shot in your head and wonder how the hell that happened? This is why.

As you can see the terrorist peeking from their side has a clear and distinct ad
vantage. Not only does he see the entire CT, but he will have the notorious peek
ers advantage as well. Figuring out how to use left eye peeks is a very importan
t way to improving your overall movement and crosshair placement. If you know yo
u are in a position that is capable of being left eye peeked, you should probabl
y position yourself better or at least keep constantly moving so you don't get c
aught off guard. I invite you guys to go into a server with a friend or teammate
and just play around with different spots where you can find left eye peek adva
ntages. There are tons of different variations on each map that will allow you t
o give yourself an advantage before the enemy even has a chance to shoot at you.
As for a general tip on crosshair placement, it is extremely simple. Move with y
our crosshair and place it where you think the enemy is going to be. If you can
move your crosshair so the enemy basically moves into your crosshair (sort of li
ke a sweeping motion), you should rarely miss a shot.
4. Knowing your abilities
Always trust your instincts. I can't hit that crack shot on dust2....ridic can.
I know I can push certain spots like ramp room on nuke and get the frag because
I know where the enemy is going to be and I trust my rifle. I won't push other c
ertain spots like B tunnels on dust2(unless it is late in the round / or we're d
oing a coordinated push) becuase I know the guy in tunnels has a huge peeking ad
vantage over me. Know your spots, know your aim. If you think you know where the
 enemy team is and you can make that shot, go for it. Learn the limits of your a
bilities and apply them in a match. Establish and develop your aiming abilities
in a deathmatch and aim map server. If you get a new mouse maybe use muscle memo
ry to help get adjusted. I may not be the best aimer or one of the best fraggers
on a team, but I am usually one of the most consistent players on a given team
because of solid positioning and crosshair placement.
Chapter Four Knowing Your Role (Featuring Ryan)
Ryan ryan Romba
Knowing your role
Quote:
When I was first told about writing this article it was initially entitled "Supp
ort Rifling/Aggro Rifling etc... Upon further review by me I have decided that w
e are all actually support players in one way or another. That term gets thrown
around way too loosely and is associated with riflers who typically don't put up
the frags that the "Warmach1nes" and the "Mustangs" put up as riflers. Some of
the most important players amongst any team are the spot riflers.
Spot Rifling
Quote:
What makes you a spot rifler? A spot rifler typically is accustomed to play many
different spots on every map. Typically it doesn't matter if the rifler is pair
ed with anyone, because they are usually able to hold it alone for a good portio
n of the round. A spot rifler is dependable and not greedy. They won't push for
frags and they won't bait you just to get that extra FPR or DAR. A good example
of where a spot rifler plays is in the B bombsite on dust2. His whole job is to
hold off a rush and make good accurate calls for his middle awper in case he nee
ds assistance holding the site. In essence, he controls all of the rotates for h
is team because if the spot rifler in B calls that he needs assistance, the mid
awper is forced to rotate and a player from A must then cover mid. It is typical
ly his communication that is the MOST vital to any teams success in a given defe
nse.
Another comparable position would be ramp room on de_nuke. The last time I check
ed, the terrorists cannot win the round by taking control of ramp room. Teams an
d players tend to get frag hungry and insist on holding ramp room. Why?! While I
admit it is sometimes extremely beneficial to catch the opposing team off guard
by holding ramp room when they expect you to give it up, most of the time why b
other? When playing ramp room as a spot rifler your entire goal is simply to mak
e the terrorists waste as many resources(flashes/smokes/frag grenades) as possib
le. Even if you are an awper it makes sense to eventually drop to lower and awp
from the vents so you can quickly rotate to upper and just shut down the terrori
sts as they try to come lower. Along with this it is your goal as a spot rifler
to not die while doing so. Along with this you need to be constantly communicati
ng to your team how many people are towards ramp and what you are doing. For exa
mple, say you have rid yourself of grenades and are rotating to lower, you MUST
let your team know that the terrorists have control of ramp room and can access
under heaven! Not doing this will result in miscommunications that lead to the t
errorists probably taking control of heaven and you losing the round. Similarly,
if the terrorists proceed to try to take the lower bombsite that you are occupy
ing(whether it be from barrel doors or control side), you need to be CONTROLLING
THE ROTATES within your team. If the terrorists are applying pressure to lower
with you there, call a teammate to the vents to assist you! Your communication a
s a spot rifler is by far the most critical.
Another point of view to look at within ramp room is the fact that if you are fr
ag hungry and try to hold it alone, unless you do better than trade with the ene
my team, you are putting your team at an INSTANT disadvantage. Play RESPONSIBLE.
If you make it a 4v4 you are still HURTING your team. If you make it a 4v3 in y
our favor that is OKAY, but the chances of that happening every time you try to
hold ramp, especially against good teams is extremely small. While it is BENEFIC
IAL to OCCASIONALLY push ramp room or try to hold it, it is something you CANNOT
rely on. While it is true that "fortune favors the bold", you must remember to
take calculated chances that you expect to pay off. If you do try to hold ramp r
oom, have a teammate(typically the person who primarily rotates to help you) ass
ist you in holding it. Play smart, play responsible. It is what spot riflers do.
Not convinced? Juan, Sunman, Storm, tr1p, Dominator, and Griff are just a few e
xamples of what I define as "Spot Riflers" whose names you may recognize, and we
re all VITAL to the success of their teams in their each individual ways.
Aggressive Rifling CT Side
Quote:
When is the right time to get aggressive though? Sometimes you have to get aggre
ssive to even the numbers. If one of your teammates is picked off sometimes it i
s beneficial for you to simply push up into ramp room really quick and grab a qu
ick frag and then fall back into a passive setup. It is also even okay to do it
at the start of the round. Maybe quickly pushing into hut to give your team a 5v
4 advantage, or to play aggressive in Inferno halls and catch the first terroris
t coming into the window room off guard! These are all great ways to give your t
eam an advantaged as long as you take a smart calculated risk in doing so. Do th
is by having a teammate with you to at least get a trade frag if you don't succe
ed in getting the kill. An example would be pushing an awper up to the gate in I
nferno Halls awping down the stairs and having a rifler stand at the corner of t
he stairs, when the awper shoots the rifle peeks!
How do you decide that you should push or flank in the middle of the round? One
example I'll give you is to reveal enemy positions. Looking back to ramp room, i
magine if you are playing ramp room and the enemy team rushes upper and takes it
. You have a ton of options on how to rotate! You can go heaven, lower to vents,
or flank ramp! I highly advise against going Heaven as it seems to be a deathtr
ap, however lower to vents and flanking ramp are easily the most popular. Benefi
ts of flanking ramp are you can catch them off guard and stop the plant potentia
lly. The benefits of going lower to the vents are you can again catch them off g
uard and usually multi frag with a well placed flash retake. Along with this you
can potentially catch them trying to go lower which is HUGE. Sometimes calls ge
t messed up, and if the enemy team is going lower and you're flanking hut you ju
st wasted the most valuable positioning possible. Along with that if they are go
ing lower chances are they have someone coming ramp room late. That goes back to
the importance of communication. Just remember, if you flank ramp once and succ
eed, don't try to go to the well too many times. It isn't worth the risk always
because chances are they have then designated someone or have multiple people wh
o are possibly confused looking at the flank.
Another tactic that spot riflers use is locating the opposing team mid round and
disrupting their strat. For example, you're playing Banana Site on DE_Inferno,
and the terrorists have flashed you and your teammate back into the site and as
far as you know, they have full control of banana. A well placed flash push and
QUICK peek to see if there are terrorists can pay off huge dividends for your te
am.
First if you see that there is only one terrorist holding for the push, it is sa
fe to assume that the terrorists plan on executing on the OTHER site. The only t
hing that would stop this is if you and your teammate who are doing the mid roun
d flash push are killed and the terrorists instantly change their plans. If it i
s the case that you peek and see one or even no terrorists there, you should mak
e two decisions based on past rounds or basically gut instincts. A.) Push throug
h banana and flank the A bombsite right away or B.) instantly fall back and rota
tes to the A bombsite(1.6 site names of course).
The second case would be that if you flash over and peek out you actually SEE th
at all the terrorists are there it again allows for an EARLY rotate from your ar
ch side player. Even if you and your teammate who flash push are to die, you sho
uld have your team rotating at least still giving them a chance at the round. Do
ing random flash pushes to check for the opposing team is fine as long as you ca
refully do it and work in a team. If you and your teammate push out and both die
it is a 5v3 at best (assuming none of the rest of your team has died). That doe
sn't help your team AT ALL.
Pushing / Flanking
Quote:
You also have to be smart when deciding to push. If you are getting calls that t
he terrorists are working apartments and middle, it is probably safe to do a qui
ck peek and clear of banana. If there are no calls from the other site and your
teammates are still pushed up or reporting that there is no action whatsoever, c
hances are the other team is posted up for pushes and it may not be wise to peek
. If you think the other team is throwing a weak fake at the other site, it isn'
t a bad idea to take a quick peek at your site and see if they are just waiting
to hit your bombsite. If they aren't there and they are committing to the other
site it is a prime opportunity to flank!
Pushing can be very beneficial though, whether it be pushing lower B tunnels on
dust2 from middle if an awper isn't spotting it, or early pushing ramp room on n
uke. The risk is basically the same as the reward. When you push you obviously w
ant to kill as many enemies as you can, but don't bite off more than you can che
w. You dying doesn't help your team. If you make it a 4v4, it does not help your
team. As stated earlier, if you are going to do a push, get the advantage and U
SE IT! Fall back! Play passive after you get that pick. Don't be a frag whore. A
good example is on de_season. Typically when our passive setups aren't working
we do an aggressive rifle push up mid where we get a guy in vents or up close on
the tires in mid. If we get an early pick on a terrorist at T Stairs / in vents
/ or squeaky door we FALL BACK. We play the round 5v4 because we interrupted th
eir execution. There is no point in trying to control middle there anymore becau
se one of two things will happen. Either the terrorists will try to retake mid w
asting resources and time and potentially kill you, or they will go to a differe
nt part of the map. If you fall back they will still waste those resources most
likely and you won't be there. Along with that you will be at one of the bombsit
es most likely and won't have to worry about the terrorists bum rushing another
part of the map after your pushed somewhere early in the round.
Going back to what we discussed earlier though, how do we decide when to flank?
Let's create a scenario. You play the B bombsite on dust2. You're teammates were
killed at long and since you got an early bomb call you pushed through B tunnel
s. You have teammates in CT spawn who are working their way up into the bombsite
. This is when you can make one or two flank decisions to either go catwalk or l
ong A. The way you decide this is by using your head! If your teammates are call
ing that they are on cat and the bomb is planted poorly(not for long), you are g
oing to want to flank catwalk and keep the enemy flashed while your team gets in
to position on top of the bomb. If the bomb is planted for long you are again go
ing to want to flank LONG this time and put pressure on the awper in pit and any
player assisting him! What you do here is make or break for the round. It is so
important to play off your teammates calls and act quickly and efficiently!
Cover Rifling / Entry Fragging
Quote:
More often than not as a rifler you will be paired off with an awper whom you wi
ll work sites with on the terrorist side. Being a good rifler will be make or br
eak for your teams offense and generally goes hand in hand with the success of y
our team. To put it in perspective, basically every team in North America runs a
two AWP defense. Typically you will run into an AWP at whichever bombsite you i
ntend to attack. How do you counter AWPs? With AWPs of course. When working into
a site you can't get hung up on the thought your only goal is to "support the A
WPer". Doesn't work like that. A typical offensive for our current team usually
only has one AWP. Let's look at an example of how we take a site and what our ri
flers and AWPers are doing in their respective roles.
We're taking Banana on Inferno. A typical take of Banana on Inferno should invol
ve trying to figure out if the enemy team is AWPing or playing passive. Typicall
y this is just a game of the AWPer jump peeking and clearing out the cart and th
e sandbags etc. What the rifler should be doing is being ready to counter flash
in case the AWPer or riflers within the site try to peek. So moving on we've fou
nd out whether they are AWPing or Rifling and have pushed them back inside the s
ite with flashes and are about ready to execute on the site. What the AWPer shou
ld be doing is getting ready to peek the common pick spots (spawn, generator, sp
ools, emo, etc). What the rifler should be doing is be in a spot that he can DOD
GE FLASHES and/or COUNTER FLASH in case the enemy team does a mid round push to
find out where the terrorists are as discussed earlier. The job of the rifler ri
ght now is to make sure the AWPer is going to stay alive so he can continue to p
ick into the site. Once we start executing onto the site that is when the rifler
s role changes COMPLETELY. Until then, think about where our AWPer would be stan
ding while starting to pick into Banana Site, he would be on the sandbags most l
ikely or near that cart. If the CTs flash over he is going to most likely duck i
nto the nearest corner and be blind as all hell. The best spot you could be as a
rifler is in that nook under the pillars or next to the car in the corner turne
d in so you do not get blind. At this point, if the CTs flash push you should be
able to trade at worst. Remember, on CT side you don't want to trade. On T side
you DO want to get those trades because it allows you access into sites incredi
bly easy. That is an example of how you should be assisting the AWPer pre-execut
ion of strats.
So now you are ready to execute on Banana, the rest of your team has finished th
rowing a fake at the other bombsite and are meeting up with you at Banana. You h
ave two people smoke off spawn and begin to flash the bombsite as you practiced.
Remember how in the last part your whole goal was to essentially support the AW
Per so he can pick? Well know you're rushing the site clearing spots(oranges, ge
nerator, emo, construction) and are being covered by the AWPer. Personally I may
not have the best aim or whatever, but to be a good rifler, especially when ent
ering a bombsite, you must do a good job clearing everything. Don't half-ass it.
Just remember to clear completely and make accurate calls of where the enemy is
. Along with this you want to CALL YOUR KILLS. An example is say there is an ene
my at oranges. When you see them say "One Oranges!". When you kill him say "Oran
ges down" or "I got the Oranges Guy" etc. It is so simple to type this out and s
ay well duh, but most people don't do this and then when three of your teammates
are looking at oranges and getting killed from a different spot because the ora
nges guy was dead it will all make sense to you. One of the few tips I can give
you entry fragging a site while you're executing is simply keep your gun out. Wh
en in doubt, gun out. There is really no need to be pulling out nades while you'
re executing on a site unless you are completely covered and 100% certain you wi
ll not be killed while doing so. It is a bad habit many players have, and it is
extremely hard to get over.
So we've taken Banana on Inferno and you and the AWPer are still alive. The two
of you have decided that holding construction will be best post plant positionin
g for the two of you as the bomb is planted on the side of the fountain. How do
you setup? Well originally you were supporting the AWPer, then you were an entry
fragger, and now you're back to support! In post plant situations like this you
need to set your AWPer up in an advantageous spot. In this case we'd have him i
n the door way in construction near garden looking towards CT spawn to try to ca
tch a couple AWP kills. Where is the rifler? He should be in a spot that can EAS
ILY assist the AWPer. The sandbags in construction is a great spot because it al
lows you to essentially control construction 100%. AWPer takes a shot and misses
, so the CTs rush construction where you are hiding and you mop up a couple kill
s. If the CTs come around the front side the AWPer and yourself basically switch
places and you peek from Garden and he peeks from Main. It is simple. If you ca
ll your peeks and say who is peeking first there should almost be no way you los
e a clutch when you and your awper work together in perfect harmony.
Aggressive Rifling Terrorist Side
Quote:
Being an entry fragger on the terrorist side is one of the most important roles
on your team. If you get your kill, the chance your team will win the round incr
ease tenfold. As an example we'll use Inferno's Banana Bombsite to show how to b
e an impact entry fragger. Your team is ready to execute on the bombsite and you
all begin flashing and you're taking the site. You have CT spawn smoked off and
now you only have to worry about clearing out site. One thing to remember when
being an entry fragger when committing to a site is that it is OKAY to trade kil
l. If you kill the CT playing "oranges" or back of site, and you are killed by a
guy from garden area it is okay! CTs to not want to trade kills. If you make it
a 4v4, and then you die it is a 3v4 but if your teammate gets that kill on the
CT who killed you it is a 3v3 and you have full site control plus you have the b
omb down and ticking.
Your whole mentality when entry fragging and taking a bombsite revolves around y
our ability to get that first kill, OR get that trade kill if someone else dies
before you. What you don't want to happen is to have the CT multi frag you guys
and have a 2v4 in their favor. All in all, the entry frags matter the most.
When going into the site you just have to check every single spot known to man a
long smartly dodging counter flashes and actively calling where the flashes are
coming from and where you know the CTs are. Again, your communication is so crit
ical to just making sure that your teammates can at least get a trade kill if yo
u should die and your teammate (usually your awper or the next rifler) can pick
off whoever killed you.
That is just one example of doing a site take and its importance. A whole differ
ent style of aggro rifling is playing for picks. If you aren't really working a
strat or you are solely trying to sell a fake while the rest of your team is wor
king to execute a strat, there are a few different things you can do.
For example, sometimes you may want to fake Long A on dust2 while the rest of yo
ur team sets up a take at B. Usually how I would go about this is throw a one-wa
y smoke into the double doors at long, flash over to blind the awper, and sit in
the smoke behind the door and see if anyone is peeking from the corner or from
pit. If someone peeks, kill them! Remember, if the pit rifler sees you out there
, or you start shooting at him, he is going to call for the awper or another rif
ler to assist him, which means the CTs will be putting a good junk of their team
at the farthest place on dust2 away from the B bombsite. Now it is just a metho
d of delaying your enemy while the rest of your team begins to execute on B in a
4v2 situation at B (assuming one other CT is watching middle with two in the B
bombsite). Again, ASSUMING you have a good B take, you should be able to get the
bomb down and depending how the round is going you can make a judgment call at
long A. Sometimes you may want to flank and catch the CT's rotating towards B, o
ther times you may want to go back towards middle and late flank middle, or you
may even want to go all the way back through B tunnels. Either way, the decision
will be up to you and you have to be smart about it and tell your teammates wha
t you are doing and what exactly is going on at your side of the map. Another th
ing you can do at long is once you work out into the one way smoke, flash your w
ay into pit. If you have pit control, even if if you didn't kill anyone, you for
ce the CTs to either play on catwalk or down to CT spawn. If you force CT's to c
atwalk, it is extremely easy to take cat in a well organized take.
To be honest though, I've seen some of the best aggressive riflers sometimes jus
t round out into a spot and try to get a frag. Whether it be balls out running i
t into ramp room on nuke, or rushing out upper A on season. A well timed random
rush can sometimes work wonders and it all comes down to aim in that case.
Sam DaZeD Marine
Quote:
Here we have a player in Ryan who is extremely talented, and can play any role o
n a team. He explains player s roles very clearly and concisely and is a great exa
mple of a player who can literally do it all. You need players who know there ro
le, because if you don t have set roles people aren t going to be doing their jobs e
ffectively. There are people on teams who tend to take charge and tell others wh
at do to, and entry frag first, those players need to KNOW that this is their ro
le, so that when a big situation and match occurs they don t back down and forget
this. It s a good idea to talk to your team about the roles each person plays, so
that you cannot necessarily place blame, but you know what to fix in case things
aren t working or going as well as they should.

Chapter Five Developing and Calling Strats (Featuring Chewbacca)

Sam Chewbacca Tesh
Developing and Calling Strats
Quote:
Currently many of the top teams simply rely on communication and raw aim to win
them rounds. Playing like this requires the least effort, and if your players ar
e skilled enough you will be successful. However, when you are outclassed in ski
ll or when the map is heavily one sided, such as nuke, you re going to need a good
set of strats in order to win. Making and calling strats is easily the most dif
ficult thing for a team that always just pugged it by relying on comms and aim.
Whenever I make a strat I always tend to look for a new angle. If it s a map that s
been worked to death, like dust 2 for instance, it can be hard to find. However,
there are always small things-a new flash, a better smoke, which make all the d
ifference. I can t even count the number of times that I thought I was throwing a
good flash, but when I tested it with my teammates in the server, it turns out I
should have been throwing it way differently. The same thing goes for smokes. I
thought I couldn t be seen in that smoke oops, I was wrong. Simply TESTING your ide
as beforehand will give you a huge advantage. If I am confident my flash is good
that my smoke is a total one-way, then I will play significantly better. There
have been numerous times where instead of scrimming a map we have spent an hour
or two going over things and won a lopsided victory verses a good team. Dry runn
ing and rehearsing is VASTLY more effective than scrimming.
Anyways, back to the new angle thing. Once I have a good smoke/flash/ I begin to b
uild a strat around it. On nuke we have a really cool smoke that double smokes m
ini garage. This makes taking upper really easy and retaking upper very difficul
t for CTs. I know for sure that this smoke will give us an advantage. The CT s MUS
T change their play style in order to hold the site(usually they play in vents).
So what I do is I build two or three versions of the strat. The first time I ru
n it I do it normally and take upper. If the ct team is good(I m using what x3o do
es as my example) they will change up how they play to counter the mini smokes.
What x3o tends to do is play in vents. So then I will go to my second version of
the strat. I throw all of the same smokes but instead of taking upper I have a
player in hut flash vents and we send two down vents. By forcing x3o to adapt to
my strat I have essentially molded their play style. I can predict how they wil
l play in response to my strats and build multiple versions to counter all of th
eir possible responses. In the end teams get desperate and try things like rushi
ng as ct s. Patience and late round execution of strats will win the majority of t
imes when a team starts pushing like this.
The other important thing to do is to optimize every single player s position in a
strat. Take for instance dust2. Dazed and I have one of the strongest B takes o
f anyone around. Almost every round I know that dazed and myself can take b alon
e. However, does this mean that we should bring 4 players to B tunnels? 4 would
be better than 2 for taking b? Right? Wrong . Simply forcing your way into b with
4 players is not an optimal use of your players. If two people can take it, the
other 2 should be doing something else. By working other parts of the map, these
two players will make it even EASIER for us to work B site. In this instance, t
he other two players should be taking control of catwalk. If they take control o
f catwalk it pushes their mid player to A ramp to help defend cat. This means th
at one of their b players is now responsible for mid. This of course leaves thei
r B much more vulnerable to attack, and makes their rotations from A slow and in
effective. If you ever find yourself simply doing nothing for a period of time whi
le running a strat, ask yourself how you can be useful. Holding a flank when har
dly anyone ever flanks is worthless. Likewise charging into a site that your tea
mmates can take while leaving a common flank open is never a good idea.
Finally, and most importantly, you must realize that when you first make strats
for a map you are going to play worse. Players won t be used to focusing on a stra
t and will find themselves distracted and uncomfortable with their new play styl
e. I always say that you take one step back to take three steps forward. If you
are playing with the types of players who get angry and want to go back to puggi
ng you should find new players or a new team. It takes dedication and perseveran
ce to get a strat perfected.
So right here we have a very educated and long time strat caller who bases his s
trats off smokes and/or flashes he finds either on his own or from seeing it in
a demo or scrim. He has a set way of making his strats. I ll break it down into st
eps for you. After that he goes into the server, usually with me, and we brainst
orm on the best ways of capitalizing on these smokes and flashes. Putting people
in the right spot, analyzing what the other team will do, how the other team wi
ll react, etc. etc.
This method of strat calling is based off what we call gimmick plays, and set st
rats. Usually these strats are not strats that you run multiple times in a row,
because once they ve been ran more than once or twice, people will usually know ho
w to counter it.
1. Find Effective Flash/Smoke
2. Test the effectiveness of the Flash/Smoke
3. Analyze what the flash/smoke will do to the other player, PUT YOURSELF IN THE
IR SHOES!
At this point you will simply have to ask yourself whether these nades are good
enough to build
a strat around, and if they are then you should continue with step 4.
4. Put the right players in the right spots. This means having your best entry f
raggers entry fragging, your awper in a good awp spot, the flank watcher in a go
od spot to watch the flank, etc. etc.
5. Give Players a JOB! Each player should have a specific task and/or responsibi
lity so there is no confusion, if it s your job to throw this flash then watch the
flank, and you fail at it, then we know where the blame lies and know if the st
rat is bad, or if we need to adjust it, or if we simply got unlucky. I can t stres
s this point enough, because without giving players a job you will never know wh
at went wrong, and will never know how to adjust the strat to make it better.
6. Dry run and test the strat in scrims
7. Adjust and make the strat better, or make multiple versions of the strat to c
ounter different setups. Many times this can be done on the fly.
Sam DaZeD Marine
Quote:
As Chewbacca pointed out, when making a strat you need to take everything into a
ccount. You need to Analyze and understand how the other team is playing and wha
t your nades and players are going to do to counter it. MAKE SURE THE STRAT IN T
HEORY MAKES SENSE! If it doesn t in theory make sense, it s never going to translate
into a good strat.
Now that we ve gone over Gimmick plays and Set Strats, let s go over your defaults a
nd pick strats. Defaults and pick strats are very different then set strats, whe
n we make a default strat we usually just identify where we want to hit, and oft
en times players positions don t even change because at the start of the round you
always want to establish map control. So I m going to go over another check list
for a default. It s important to understand that when you play a team who you have
not played against before, it s usually pretty good to start off with a default s
o that you can see what they are doing and how they are setting up so that you c
an effectively pick a strat to run.
DEFAULTS SET UP YOUR GIMMICK PLAYS AND SET STRATS!
Quote:
1. Map Control. Almost all defaults are based off map control, what part of the
maps are you willing to give to the CT s, and what part of the map are you willing
to take? Certain spots are easy and obvious to take control of, like B tunnels
on Dust2. But if a CT awper is playing aggressive mid and riflers on cat, are yo
u going to risk going for mid control, or are you going to give it up and try to
work around it? Identify your teams strengths and weaknesses to figure out what
to do in these situations. Often times we simply have our awpers challenge and
try to pick the CT mid awper and that in lies the whole default. Once you get th
at pick you work off that.
2. Decide whether or not you are a team that likes to take it s time, or react imm
ediately after a kill is made. All maps can be played differently, but you have
to understand that when a frag is made EVERYONE on the map reacts to it. If a T
kills a CT at Long A on Dust2, and the CT spots 2-3 more T s, then that B player w
ill react. He might take this time to rotate outside B, or he might push B. UNDE
RSTAND THIS AND PUT PLAYERS IN THE RIGHT POSITIONS FOR IT!
3. Don t have your players trying to force things or do too much. Often times a te
am relies too heavily on one player, and this player may feel like he should hav
e to do everything for the team. This player will often times end up hurting the
team because you re not always going to be able to frag out, and if this is the c
ase you need to take a back seat and let your other players shine. So be patient
, let everyone contribute to the strat, if someone says they feel they are weak
here and they can work it, assist them and ask what you can do to help. If you d
o not allow these players the freedom to make plays as we call it, they will never
develop the skill set, then in the future if your star player can t get the job d
one, they won t be able to step it up.
4. Develop a system that you use to actually take sites, adapt and fix this syst
em and use this system every time, that way everyone knows what to do at all tim
es!
5. Most sites and what you will hit will usually be called mid-round, so don t pan
ic and make sure you take your time. CGS time is gone, you got a ton of time to
play with. Realize this. Bait nades, spot the other team out, be coordinated wit
h your takes.
Calling Strats.
Quote:
With my team we essentially have two strat callers, myself and Chewbacca. We wor
k off each other quite well, he calls the set strats, I usually call the pug str
ats and if I have an adjustment to make on the set strat we work off the adjustm
ent that I say. For instance, if Chewbacca calls a strat on train to double smok
e z then rush inner at 55seconds, and I see they are playing agro to spot ivy, I
will say alright, I m going to push back ivy at 105 first. You guys get setup. Th
at right there is the mid round adjustment that can win the round. We generally
try to have a healthy balance of set strats and pug strats, but understand that
your set strats and gimmick plays are not always going to work. Teams will study
you and be prepared for you, in this scenario you need to have a good default/p
ug play style to work around. We always try and win off our brains, teamwork and
execution, but at times we need to just out skill the other team. If you are on
a roll with your gimmick strats, don t be afraid to throw out something crazy and
rush them with a dumb strat, because often times team will not be prepared for
it at all.
Calling strats is a game that is usually won before the match, you win the strat
calling game during practice and scrimmages. If you do not come prepared, don t e
xpect to win.

Chapter Six Holding your Spot (Featuring caseyfoster)

Casey caseyfoster Foster
Holding Your Spot
Quote:
This is probably my best attribute in counter-strike source, I was never really
an entry fragger, never an impact player, I always played more support and spot
holding. Holding your spot can make or break a round, being able to hold your sp
ot is just as important as being able to get entry frags. But its something that
you need to be able to do 100% of the time. For example, DaZeD and I would play
long together as long as our 3rd A player (dust2) was still alive, but as soon
as our 3rd A player died, dazed would have to rotate near cars and watch the cat
exit. So that would leave me at long a alone, which i was really damn good at.
Which dazed knew as well and he knew that he could focus on his spot and not hav
e to worry about me holding long vs 2-3 people when they execute their strat.
When holding spots a lot of people just try to just out aim their opponents inst
ead of out thinking them with knowledge of flashes and proper smokes. You need t
o realize that these utilities (smokes/flashes) make your job easier, so use the
m. You should know exactly what to do in every situation in your spot, and your
teammates should know what you are doing at all times in your spots, so they can
play theirs accordingly.
Holding your spot in a box. Play your game and don t try to be a game changer unle
ss it s necessary. Don t try to do too much, and trust your teammates! Use all of yo
ur tools to your advantage (smokes, flashes and positioning) it will make your j
ob easier. Listen/trust your teammates calls, they have a better perspective on
what s going on, on the other side of the map then you do. Know your spot in and o
ut, having this knowledge allows you to make on the fly decisions and can be the
difference between you winning and losing a round.

Sam DaZeD Marine

Quote:
What casey pointed out was a good outline. The bottom line is in source you don t
ever want to make your teammates jobs harder than they have to be. You want to m
ake the game as easy as possible and as simple as possible for your teammates. T
his is the key thing to remember when holding your spot. For instance, if casey
is at long a, and he tries to do too much, and maybe even gets a frag, it may no
t be worth it, because he has just made my job at car infinitely harder. If you
get traded at long every round, sure you may have a ridiculous 1.0FPR, but your
leaving your teammates out to dry. If you die at long, then your teammate at car
will get pinched on cat. This is something new players a lot of the time fail t
o realize, they do their own thing, instead of playing with a team mentality. Ev
en though the box score might say you had 1.0FPR and played a great game, chance
s are you cost your team plenty of rounds in the process.
Another thing casey touched up on was smokes and flashes. Using your resources c
orrectly is essential when holding your spot. If you use your nades correctly yo
u can sometimes disrupt a strat to the point where you already won the round wit
hout killing anybody. The bottom line is, on CT side that is what you need to us
e your resources for, disrupting a strat. When it comes to disrupting a strat, e
verything is situational, so it really is impossible to explain what that is in
a text based article. But a small example would be on nuke, if you see that the
team just double smoked heaven, you can immediately double smoke hut with a team
mate, and stream a flash into hut to completely destroy any out of hut strat the
y are trying to run.
Finally, making calls when holding your spot is essential to doing your job. The
round doesn t end when you simply die! You can affect the round with your in-game
calls for teammates, and with your death camera. Holding your spot is just as m
uch about communicating to your teammates as it is getting the frags and throwin
g good nades.
So in the end the simple list goes like this.
- Don t try to do too much
- Throw good nades/flash
- Communicate
- Disrupt the strat

Chapter Seven Rotations (Featuring Remix)

Jarrod Remix Shaw
Rotations
Quote:
- A few BIG problems with most lower tier players when it comes to rotations are
:
1. Misuse of flashbangs
2. Trust issues
3. lack of communication
The perfect way to rotate is by making sure EVERY SINGLE ONE of your teammates k
now exactly what you are doing, whether that be flashing and rushing or flashing
and falling back or flashing and expecting your teammate to move off of your fl
ashbang. You MUST MUST MUST repeat yourself, do not be afraid to make the same c
all 2-3 times EVERY time. Communication is way more important than your teammate
s having the ability to hear what is going on around them. This will help you wh
en you travel for a LAN tournament.
- Situations in which you should rotate:
1. One of your teammates specifically asks for YOUR help, which means if a teamm
ate at B bombsite says he needs help and you're at A bombsite you do NOT rotate
to help him unless you're the last two alive. Leave that up to the people in cha
rge of holding B. You have to TRUST that your two teammates at B can hold their
spot, not trusting your teammates will make you over-rotate and this will lead t
o the strat caller on the other team will have a field day.
2. You are the rotator on your CT setup and have a feeling on which direction yo
u think they are going.
3. You know where the bomb is and you know that it can not change direction and
come back to your initial area.
There is only one rule on when to throw a flash:
1. Only throw a flash bang to save a life or take a life, never waste a flash an
d NEVER throw one right after another unless you're orchestrating a rush
Sam DaZeD Marine
Quote:
Remix has consistently been one of the top players in source for 5+ years, and a
big reason to this is because he simply relies on intelligence rather than pure
skill. If you have ever played with remix before there are certain things you c
an control and certain things you cannot control. Basically, there is NO excuse
for not communicating and rotating effectively. You can get out-shot at any give
n moment, and you can t really control that 100%, but what you can control you nee
d to use to your advantage.

Chapter Eight - League Participation

DaZeD, caseyfoster, Chewbacca, CEVO|Celone
Leagues
Quote:
What skill division is your team ready for?
This section might come off the wrong way, but it s a topic that needs to be talke
d about. What happens with up and coming teams and players, is they always think
that they are better then they actually are. So the team is formed and they scr
im a few teams as a new team so they are basically a pug but with a team tag. They
scrim for the first week or so with no chemistry just pure fragging and random
strats and will end up beating a few established cal-main/cevo-main teams. The nex
t thing you know they are spamming in IRC for Top CEVOm/CEVOp scrims and talking t
rash to all the rest of the teams that are in lower leagues because they might h
ave got a lucky win on a good team in a scrim. This kind of thing happens ALL TH
E TIME, and the players end up getting these really big egos for no reason. So b
asically what im trying to get across is that teams shouldn t get all crazy big he
aded over winning a scrim vs a decent team. Being as you cant just go straight t
o CEVOmain or ESEAmain and you have to work your way up from CEVOopen and ESEAop
en you should always be finding scrims within reason for your teams base skill.
Playing other teams that are in your league/caliber is the best way to improve a
nd find out what works and does not work for your team. Playing a team that you
can just run over does not help your team at all and on the other end of the spe
ctrum playing a team that you can t get kills vs either doesn t help either.
Quote:
Should the team have a single leader or a group vote?
From my past experiences there should never be a single person that makes decisi
ons for the whole team, it should ALAWYS be a group vote. But that applys to lik
e adding/cutting players from the team, when it comes to strategies and or in-ga
me leading, this should be at most 2 people. 1 or 2 people should be developing
the strategies working off of each others ideas, but it should only be one perso
n who is consistently calling the in-game strategies. This worked well for DaZeD
and Chewbacca for a few seasons in CEVOp where they would both go in the server
s and makes the strategies and the plays and work off each others ideas and then
sometimes DaZeD called and sometimes Chewbacca called in-game.
Quote:
Managing multiple leagues with time management
This is just part of time management, being able to manage real life activities
and your gaming is the biggest part of being dedicated. I feel that every human be
ing should be able to go to school, work, hang with friends, have a girlfriend a
nd be able to game. Doing everything in moderations is the key to life, even whe
n it comes to gaming. But as far as leagues, depending on what division you are
in you will have either 1 or 2 matches per week. Yeah that doesn t sound like a lo
t now, but when your in CEVO, ESEA and scriming on the site, that can be anywher
e from 10-15 hours per week. I cant emphasize how important it is to NOT overloa
d your team with too many leagues, too much scriming, too much gaming. People ge
t burnt out, some get burnt out faster then others, but it happens. So before yo
u sign your team up for both leagues talk with your teammates and find out what
their gaming availability is.
With the leagues usually playing different maps on different weeks, you will hav
e to be able to practice two maps per week. So its all on how you approach it, i
f you can get like 2-3 nights in per week where you cover the map with your team
and go over strategies and then scrim. That SHOULD be enough, but depending on
how new or how well your team does will determine if you need more work. Try get
ting your team into this cycle of practicing 2-3 times per week, playing the mat
ches, recapping on the matches. This was a really good method that DaZeD and Che
wbacca applied when they won CEVOp two seasons in a row.
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Preparing your team for playoffs
Playoffs, the holy grail of gaming, its where everyone wants to be. So preparing
your team for playoffs can either be a headache or just another night of practi
ce. Depending on the league/caliber you are in will determine how your playoff p
rep will go. In lower leagues ESEAo, ESEAm, CEVOo, CEVOm teams wont really take
the time to go and find your demos and watch them and anti-strat your team. So you
wont really have to come up with new strategies for playoffs, but in higher lea
gues this is usually the case. So getting your team for playoffs can just be lik
e a normal week but with a bit more reward in the end. So just make sure your te
am knows exactly what they need to do in their positions and that they all know
their roles in the strats. Because a well prepared team will almost ALWAYS win a
s long as the skill level of the two teams are within reason.
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Is a loss more important then a learning experience.
A loss is not the end of the world, but it is for sure a moral killer. BUT a los
s is just a loss, you have to take that loss find out what you did wrong and fix
those wrongs. Your team will have ups and downs, you will win and you will lose
. Simple as that, the best teams in the world lose, they lose scrims, they lose
lans, they lose tournaments. That s just how gaming goes, your not always 100% goi
ng to win EVEN IF YOU ARE THE BETTER TEAM. Of course a loss sucks, but it should
be a learning experience. As long as you can keep your team talking after the m
atch and have everyone go and watch the SourceTV demo and talk about what happen
ed and what you can change to have a better chance next time you will be success
ful. So just try to take a loss as a wake up call, that your team is not the bes
t in the world, and that everyone can be improving. As long as you keep that in
mind while playing with your team you will be golden.
Conclusion