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« on: May 17, 2010, 04:53:13 pm » |
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CALLING:
When to call dynamically
It’s generally a good idea for a team to have several rehearsed, memorized strats put together for each map. A strat caller must know when it is best to run set strats and when it is best to throw those strats out the window and begin to call dynamically. There will be plenty of times when your set strats just seem to get completely shut down against a particular team. It could be the case that you are just getting outshot, or your strats need some changes to them, however a lot of the time you’ll find that they just flat out don’t work against particular types of teams. In that situation, you want to switch to dynamic strats. It could also be the case that when playing a team you can quickly see something you could possibly exploit (there is a list of exploitable tendencies below). Being able to identify exploitable tendencies is a sign of a great caller. If you can see those things it may be best if you begin calling dynamically right off the bat.
Being a good dynamic caller is the most difficult part of being an in-game leader – however doing it well will have a dramatic impact upon your team. I think the problem with most inexperienced dynamic callers is that they don’t have reasoning behind the strats they call. They simply call a strat because it’s the latest random idea that floated into their head. Instead, every on-the-fly call should be made because you see something worth exploiting. For example, I call a strat on inferno that involves three of us nading the generator at the banana bombsite because he plays there often meanwhile one of us holds passively in mid because we noticed they tend to flank quickly. You’ll notice the key word “because”. When you’re about to call a strat, can you justify it with a “because” (I’m not saying you always have to explain why to your team, but just ask yourself if you could)? The strats don’t need to be overly complicated to be effective – and in my cases you only have about 10 seconds during freezetime to call it, so they really can’t be all that complicated. The important thing is that they have reasoning behind them.
Dynamic calling is a team effort
Good strat calling is the art of exploiting your opponent’s tendencies. In order for a strat caller to be successful, he must first figure out the tendencies of his opponent. The key to a good dynamic team is making sure that each player on the team does their job in recognizing the play style of their opponent. The strat caller can only see so much that happens during a particular round. His knowledge of what the other team is doing is limited to only that which he can see. However, he has four other sets of eyes and ears on his team, so why not use them to gain more information? If on a round-by-round basis all of his teammates shared knowledge of how the other team is playing, it would make it much easier for him to put together a good strat call.
However, what kind of things should each player be looking out for? Furthermore, how does the caller make a strat based on that information?
What you should be looking for
• Does an opponent play a particular spot every round?
The most obvious thing you may notice about an opponent is a particular spot he may tend to play. If he is playing the same spot over and over, make sure the caller knows this. Call a strat that involves exploiting his predictability. Is it possible to nade his spot? Can he be flashed easily there? Is there a way we can try to get a pick on him? Take these questions into consideration when you’ve identified a predictable player.
• Do they push a lot?
If your strats are falling apart because they are getting entries on you from early pushes, counter this by slowing things down and posting up on possible push points. Play more passive in this case and make them push into your setup. If they are becoming offensive as CT, you must adapt by becoming defensive as T.
• Do they flank quickly?
In the case that they flank very quickly, counter this by setting up a guy to catch their flanker from behind. Use your main group of guys to put pressure on a site in the hopes that one guy tries to flank right away. You can usually get a free kill by doing that, then have the rest of the team head in the direction you got the kill.
• Are you having problems taking sites because you’re getting blind?
A lot of times, when you try to run strats with rehearsed nades, they are disrupted by counterflashes from the opposing team. If this is this case, use walk-picks and nade draws to try to take the site (more info on this in Strat School: Anticipating the Unexpected Part I).
• Do they overrotate? Do they underrotate?
If you notice that they always have a ton of guys at the site you are taking, chances are that they rotate quickly and are susceptible to fakes. On the contrary, if they tend to hold their positions until you have taken a site, then it would be a good idea to just send five guys in one direction to take the site.
• When in doubt, just put your best players in positions to frag.
When things get bad and it seems like no matter what you try everything just fails, don’t be afraid to just put the game into the hands of your best fragger - usually this is your best AWPer. I can’t count how many times we’ve been bailed out by n0it pulling off some magic out of nowhere. All it takes is me to ask, “Okay n0it, where do you want to go?” He chooses a spot where he feels comfortable, we give him support and hold map control while he works, and often we can pull off several rounds just by doing that. However, remember “picking off” isn’t a strat – but when you seem to be out of options, just find a way to get your impact players in positions to make a play.
Recap
There are three keys to being a good dynamic caller. Firstly, you must know when it is time to use set strats and when it is time to call on-the-fly. Are your set strats being shutdown or do you see something that can be exploited? In that case, switch to dynamic play. Secondly, your whole team must contribute when playing dynamically. A good dynamic team has five sets of eyes and ears always looking to identify possible weaknesses. Finally, a good dynamic caller must be able to counter his opponents’ tendencies and have reasoning behind each strat that he calls.
SPAWNS:
In a recent forum thread here on the site, there was a question brought up about spawns, and whether they are random or not. I'm sure there are some people who know a lot about how the spawn system works, but I think very few people actually apply that knowledge to predict what their opponent is going to do. Knowing the spawns can also tell you the likelihood of a T side rush succeeding.
How spawns work
The actual set of spawns you receive is truly random. However, what most people don't realize is that there are four sets of spawns that cycle over and over. Every four rounds you will receive the same spawn. So in a given half, you will have the same spawns on the following rounds:
1 - 5 - 9
2 - 6 - 10
3 - 7 - 11
4 - 8 - 12
Knowing when to rush
Since both CTs and Ts are on a four round spawn rotation, that means if on the first round the Ts have good spawns and the CTs have bad ones, that same scenario will happen on the fifth and ninth round as well. The success of spawn-based rushing strats, in most cases, are highly dependent on how good the spawns of your opponent are. It's a good idea to have a few good spawn-based rushing strats for each map (perhaps excluding inferno - I don't think it is a very good rushing map considering the CTs get to their spots at both sites well before the Ts regardless of spawn) to use when you have good spawns. Knowing how the spawn system works can aid you when deciding when to use those strats.
Use these strats the first time you get a good spawn. If you win that round, you'll have two more rounds to run it again with a high probability of winning them. If you get shutdown, the next time you get those spawns just run a different strat and you'll save yourself a round lost. You'll notice in one of my nuke commentaries versus JMC, every time we had a good spawn we rushed squeaky. Our rush was successful on the first run, so I knew it was likely that we would probably win if we did it again. Just because we knew our spawns were better than theirs, we were able to get three rounds on rushes on T side nuke. In my commentary versus complexity, we knew that they only sent one to ramp early - we exploited this by rushing ramp every time we had the spawn for it and won almost every round there. Having the knowledge of knowing whether your rushes will work can easily turn a 4-8 into an 8-4 half. Likewise, ignoring spawn rotations can have the opposite effect.
Using spawns to predict the offense
This same concept can and should be applied to countering what you think the other team is going to do. Let's say that you are CT, and you are playing 2 ramp, 2 inside, and 1 outside on nuke at the beginning of the round. On the second round of the half, the other team rushes squeaky and is able to convincingly take inside. Knowing what you now know about spawn rotations, it is likely that again on the sixth round they will probably rush again (since their previous rush was successful and their spawn will come again on the sixth round).
When the sixth round comes, instead of going into your default 2/2/1 setup, change it to maybe a 1 ramp / 3 inside / 1 outside - or perhaps even a 4 inside / 1 ramp setup if you are particularly confident they will hit inside. Stacking the site like this will almost guarantee you'll stop the rush and win the round. Again, being able to anticipate these kinds of things can make a big difference in the overall score of the half.
Faking your rush against advanced opponents
If you know you are playing a high caliber team, and perhaps you believe they understand the concept of spawn rotations, they may be stacking their defense to stop your rush. Let's say on the first round you rushed inside on nuke and you were successful. However, the team you are playing is smart (perhaps they read juansource) and on the fifth round when you try to rush again, they anticipate your rush, stack the site, and you lose the round.
All is not lost, however! You can still use your spawn rotation knowledge to give yourself a better chance of winning the next time you get those spawns. On the ninth round (when your good spawns come up again), it would be a good idea to "sell" your rush inside, but instead rush ramp. Do this by committing one guy to the inside rush, using whatever flashes/smokes you use on your rush to make them think you're trying it again, meanwhile the rest of your guys rush ramp. The idea here is to let them think we're running into their stack again, but instead hitting where they likely are playing light.
Wrap-up
Take note to what round your opponents rush on you. Doing so will allow you to accurately predict when they rush next, allowing you to stack a particular area and give you a much higher chance to win the round. Furthermore on T side, you can know if future rushes are likely to work given the success of your first one, since spawns for both teams will always be the same. If you sense your opponent knows about spawn rotations, use this to your advantage by selling fakes on the rounds that you would normally rush.
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