Source: https://x.com/i/status/2042285470038507822

Hey everyone!

To preface this, I just want to say this is my own experience and it doesn’t apply to everyone. I’ve been thinking this over and just wanted to share. Curious to hear your thoughts on it.

I play Tracer and was a Bronze dps for a while and was extremely confused by the variance in match quality. Some games would go amazing, the others would end so poorly that we would be stuck in spawn, getting absolutely dog-walked by the enemy team.

In hopes of moving to Silver I watched a ton of tutorials, Spilo videos, high level VODs, and would try to apply those strats to my gameplay. While I learned some interesting things like flank routes, combos, etc. it still felt impossible applying the fundamentals to my games. I feel like watching these high level VODs are a bit counterproductive for beginners because they assume a level of coordination that doesn’t exist in Bronze.

I experimented with my gameplay and tried out different strats while taking time to reflect on the games and their outcomes. One thing I came to realize was that there’s always someone in the lobby who’s playing so well they dictate the match.

I analyzed the games where I happened to be that person and realized why. In those games I wasn’t trying to employ high level strats, I was playing my own game, which in turn caused the enemy team to play my game. Instead of waiting for my team to set up, I would try and be the first person to draw blood. Not only did this distract the enemy team, it helped set the pace for the entire match. The enemy team came in with a game plan (as far as bronze game plans go) and when there was a Tracer immediately in their backline getting picks, it completely threw them off. That’s how I accidentally discovered the concept of tempo, lol. Those initial picks compound into teams being staggered, losing out on ult building, playing out of position.

My mistake was expecting my team to capitalize on specific plays that I made. They’ll shoot the tank regardless, but if that tank doesn’t realize his supports are chasing a tracer around, their tank shooting goes much further.

In matches where the opposite happened, I set up with my team and waited for the enemy to come to me. By doing that I was playing reactively and playing by their rules.

TLDR:

The way out of Bronze isn’t to play like a higher ranked player, it’s acknowledging the hot mess that is Bronze and using it to your benefit.

Hi everyone! My best friend and I are looking for our favorite clip - one caster mistakenly says the wrong team name, and the other practically yells “YOU IDIOT!” It was so jarring to hear from professional casters that it just absolutely sent us. Here’s what I THINK was the context:

-I’m almost entirely certain it was an SF Shock Game, and I’m pretty sure another “S” team like the Spark or Shanghai.

-I think the casters were Uber and MrX, but I’m not 100% on that

-In comparing our ADHD-riddled memories, we THINK this game occurred sometime in 2020 or 2021.

Edit: Spark OR Shanghai. Forgive me.

If anyone can find this (or even confirm we’re not crazy), we’d love to find the clip and the full game! TIA!

Every season, I subject myself to this torture for the shiny new weapon skins. My score goes up once—maybe twice—and just when I’m one win away from the next reward, I lose so many times that it crashes back down to the previous threshold.

This is legitimately infuriating... Who keeps advocating for this format???