This Valorant Life
Improve at Valorant and at life. Co-hosted by Tim Yeung and Adam (Dopai) we take a holistic look at improving at Valorant both in-game and out-of-game.
This Valorant Life
Deep Dive into Valorant Player Archetypes | This Valorant Life Episode 12 | Valorant Podcast
In this week's episode, Adam and myself get into the different player archetypes. We also get into a really cool video Platoon made about the data and the case for different player impacts in-game.
You can see his video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrLtJSpaSLI
📞 If you want to contact us:
thisvalorantlife@gmail.com
🎮 Dopai's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Dopai
🎥 Tim's Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@T_Yeung
🤙 Tim's Website: www.timyeung.me
⌚ Timestamps:
00:03 Understanding Player Archetypes
00:28 Exploring the Entry Duelist Archetype
03:46 The Importance of Confidence in Entry Duelists
04:18 The Challenges of Being an Entry Duelist
05:31 The Role of the Rotator
08:47 The Impact of the Anchor Role
15:45 Maximizing Your Natural Playstyle
22:22 The Complexity of Duelist Role
23:21 The Challenges of Transitioning Roles
24:37 The Concept of Homeostasis in Gaming
25:59 The Power of Persona in Gaming
26:45 Risk-Taking and Its Impact on Gaming Performance
28:09 The Role of Teamwork in Gaming Success
29:24 The Impact of Individual Players on Team Performance
30:18 The Importance of Player Impact in Winning Games
38:03 The Role of First Bloods in Gaming
40:37 The Importance of Risk-Taking in Gaming
41:02 Conclusion: Emulating Successful Players for Better Performance
hi, everyone. This week's episode of This Valorant Life, join Adam and myself as we dive into the different player archetypes and how they can make or break your team success. We go in-depth on the dynamic roles within the game, their unique attributes, And now understanding these can enhance your ranked matches. With that, let's get into it. Hi everyone. Welcome to episode 12 of this Valant Life. In this week's episode, we're gonna get into looking at different types of player archetypes, what they are, how you decide one for yourself and what are the nuances to all of this. So with that, we're gonna get into it. Adam. Maybe for the viewers, probably for me too. Like maybe give us what do you think the three main archetypes are and what do you think within all of those are the key characteristics? So maybe we'll start off with the first one. Like what do you think the main characteristics of an entry dualist is?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:So I think the first one is just being really explosive. That's the first thing I come that I pops into my mind for an entry flagger. And I always think of Freakazoid from cs. If anyone's with him. He was always very selfless. He would just run in with the UIL and kind of just. Trust that as teammates look at the entry, frac, like you have to be willing to die. And you're just there for the team to make space. think in Valant, those characteristics really shine, but the dying part isn't, as I. Noticeable because jet has a smoke. You know, like your entry flagger actually doesn't die too often if to execute is strong enough, but you still need that element of explosiveness, like really decisive play. And also being able to thrive in chaos I think is a huge thing for entry FRAs. And I think I fit into this like role, this archetype I really like to be in, I guess, chaotic situations and put myself in spots to look for timings. So. I think there needs to be like an element of creativity there. You know, and just not really caring about your score as much, but more so looking for kills. I also feel like diviv an entry doist. You kind of, so I think like there's the dualist term, which is like you, you pick a character that's a dualist, but like. I think there's also like, I don't know how you put it. Like, it's almost like you have to kind of have like the heart of a doist, right? Like, like you can't put that in on someone who doesn't like to thrive in chaos and doesn't want to go in.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Like, I just think of that, you know, there's that one clip and I think we can do this. I'll put it this in after, but there's a clip where pure x something like he entries on, a pearl B site, and it's the one where he like, I think he kills two or three people, and then he like updraft dashes into heaven. And then like in the air shorty's the guy in the face. Like, like that is like a rational, exuberant, creative confidence, right? Like, I think like if you told a sentinel player to do that, they'd be like, huh? Like, I don't like it. Like, this is like, like, oh, like there's so much happening here. You know, like, but I feel like there's like. It's like borderline, like a little crazy. And the craziness gives you so much effectiveness because people don't know what's gonna happen. They don't know how to deal with it. Right.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, it catches them off guard. I mean, there's so many players when you mention Pierre something, I mean that whole roster has crazy players like, like Jing, like forsaken, W gaming, literally, and you mentioned Pearl, like the clip that comes to mind for me is fluorescent when she did like this updraft dash into heaven and it's straight back in one tapped. I don't know. Yeah, maybe heaven, like pearl's, just that spot for doulas. Definitely need to have like, it almost feels like an X factor to be doulas players, which is probably why they are consistently the team star players, or at least the ones you think the most of.'cause like they're flashy, they have to thrive in those situations. And it's really hard, I think, to put a sentinel or a controller player in the that role because they're more used to being in control. Whereas like this is kinda like on the fly, just living in the chaos. Yeah.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Walking that knife's edge. I think of in the NBA, there's a term, there's a podcast called the Bill Ziman podcast. He's like really well known, and he has this term, it's called the ir irrational confidence guy. Which is the guy that like, it doesn't matter if he's having a good game or a bad game, he still thinks he's the best. So like he could have missed five shots in a row. Like he's just so confident that he's gonna make the next five. Right? And like I think entry dualists kind of by their very nature to be most effective in many ways have to be kind of that irrational confidence guy, right? Like if you have a bad first half. That means you're not willing to do this on the second half, then you're not actually going to be an effect, an effective entry doist at all. Right? So.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, it's good that you bring that up.'cause I feel like that's also maybe where some of these entry flaggers could work on as a weakness is'cause even though that's like the good trait to have that irrational confidence, we probably. I mean, I know I feel this, it's like when I have a bad first half, I play differently and then it like compounds and I play worse because I start to doubt myself and like it, oh, it's almost a requirement to have that irrational confidence in your gameplay as a entry flagger. Otherwise you are gonna go through that cycle and start doubting your play style. And, you know, Jing does this really well for himself is he has like one place now, he sticks to it all the time maybe that's why he is one of the best.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Yeah.'cause you can see. You can see when people play scared
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yes
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:can see when they're playing, like less than the optimal they're hoping the game will just kind of fall in their lap, right? Whereas I think what you're talking about is that if Jing always sticks to this play style, like if he knows that he can do it, then even when things are going bad, he has a chance for things to go well. But if you change to become less optimal when things are going bad, then you have a much lower probability that things are gonna turn around. So maybe let's go to the, because we're kind of going in this kind of gradient. So there's the entry do list, right? And the next one we talked about is like this rotator roll, which I think is important to define.'cause it's not saying that the rotator roll is an initiator or the rotator roll is this secondary role, but, so when you talk about a rotator roll, like what does that mean for you?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:This is probably the most obscure one, so to try to just throw everything out there first and maybe we can reel it back in. I kind of think of this one as like the glue of the team. Like they try to fill in any gaps that is there. So if your entry factor goes in and dies, you're the one that trade rags. If your on defense and your anchor is still alive and you need help them, you're the one that runs in and throws you till for his teammate, like for your teammate and potentially you know, gets that trade as well. So you're kinda like in that middle of the team, like you keep, you're everything, that you're the one that keeps everything together. And maybe you can think of that this as like a support player, but one player that really comes to mind for this is Ethan.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:I was gonna say.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:incredible. Probably the best player that fits this role. I think out of all of Valant we've seen so far, and I think it's due to his experience in cs, you have to kind of have that system in cs. And I don't think it's really caught on Valant because. There's a lot more flow in valor. It's a lot more adaptable, but I think Ethan, he does it so well. It's incredible. Like he's like his flashes, I've never seen anything like it, and he's always there for the trade. So, so when you say his flashes, like what is unique about what he does in game? Because I think, you know, we've all seen well we all saw EG dominate and champions last year, but like, he was also like, not, or maybe it was the team as a whole, but he didn't have a great year with a hundred T before that.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:So what was different and what do you think makes his support play so impactful?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Well, the first one I would say is his Uto always sets up his teammates to make plays like I will. You'll regularly see Ethan's flash come in and then his teammate swings off it and gets a killer, gets two kills. And it's never that noticeable in other teams because I think the util is used for like delaying, or their teammates aren't actually peaking with the flash and it's just kind of wasted. But EG has created a really good system, or they did now that the roster's broken up like, you would always see a flash come in and like Busia, their Kilroy player would just run out and kill two people. Or you know, obviously demon one will, you know, get kills or something. So it wasn't really that Ethan was supporting their dualist, it was Ethan was supporting the whole team and everyone was able to make plays. And it's because he's always in those spots and he knows how to put his flash in a spot to make his teammates, you know, ready for So interesting too.'cause if you think about it, then.'cause it like at some level, like Valant is an economy game, right? Like we have to have eco to buy guns. We need to have eco to buy U util. And if every piece of U util is used at like a hundred percent, then it's almost like you got an extra gun. You know, like, or you got extra money compared to other people who use u util in like suboptimal waste. Right and so you talked about rotator that, that was kind of secondary trade. What's the next, what's the last archetype that we wanna talk about? So for defense, this would be like your hard side anchor. And then for offense, this would probably be like your lurker role. This one, I think characteristics would kind of just be a little bit more passive. Maybe patient is a better word. They're very okay with the game just happening and they're living in their own world. plays League of Legends, I would probably attribute this to like a top liner. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. just like, on your island, you're dealing with like a one V one, maybe a one V two, when you get, you know, three or four man tower dove top side and you have no support, that's the that happens to an anchor. Okay. I was, the other one I was thinking would be like the a FK jungle farmer, Yeah. I've farmer's jungle for like 20 minutes and you come out and you're like, I'm ready guys. Yeah. You're, you farm to your first item level six and then you gank Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the main characteristics and I think to be a really good anchor and looker role, you actually have to have pretty good aim. I think it's easy for players to fall into this role because it's inherently the most. Passive role where you get the least amount of gunfights, but then you don't really thrive. And I see this a lot with lowering players, and maybe I'm getting on a tangent here, but in order to actually be a good anchor role, you can't just do the bare minimum, I think. And the bare minimum would be like, you know, killing one and dying or. You know, maybe just running away and not actually anchoring, like you're just playing on that side of the map and running away.'cause you're scared. And I see that so much, I can't emphasize it enough, but like, if you actually wanna be good at this role, I think your mechanics have to be maybe on par with like an entry frack, or maybe even better. And the one that comes to mind for me is brax. Like this guy, He doesn't really play that much anymore, but when he did play, he dominated, right? When he took a break from the game in Valant and came back, he would hit wrinkle one like. The kid was incredible. And I think it's because his mechanics are so good, he's able to win those duals that just And I think anchors are in that position more oftentimes than you would think because like everyone thinks impact comes from your entry dualist, but your anchor is like just as important or maybe even more important because they're in those situations to get multi FRAs more consistently. Whereas like an entry frager, you're kind of just running in and hoping for the But yeah, it's kind of. I mean, they're not too far ends of the extreme. Right. But it almost feels like they, they fill in the same Yeah, they kind of like on one side is like, you know, crazy aggressive and on the other side is anchoring. But like they kind of, at some point, because of how gun skill oriented they are, they kind of almost wrap around a touch and there there's a lot of nuance to this of course, but in my opinion, I think the best anchors are the ones that can really shoot their guns super well. And you have the anchors or the support players in this role, like the controller or the sentinel, that don't feel that, and they don't really feel like they are stars. They're just there you can make it work. You know, it probably depends on team dynamic, but in my opinion, I don't think it's optimal. I think it's just they're doing it.'cause maybe they haven't really developed into it yet. Like they're like on a stage below. And maybe that's just me being, you know, dualist brain. But I really do think the best anchors are the ones that can shoot super well.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Yeah, because when you talk about that, I think about Alpha Air on Fanatic and how often as an anchor, like he'll just get two, like it feels like kind of automatic. Right? And that's not because I. He's lurking in getting it. It's because like a lot of times it's just, he's just better at shooting his gun.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Right. And I guess like the biggest, like now that you mentioned alpha hair, it's like Alpha versus Boster. Like they kind of fill in that same role almost, but Boster. Doesn't really shoot like that. So he plays like a completely different style, like more IGL oriented more, he doesn't wanna take as many solo deals as Alpha would for example. And I think within the anchor role you have those two types of players. But you know, I would always favor the alpha type of player just'cause you have more impact in the game. So.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Well, and the other important thing I feel like that anchors do is it forces everyone to play honest, right? If the anchor just if the anchor stays then it forces the other team to, to play the whole map. Right. Or even as a luer, I feel like on offense, like it forces someone to stay as an anchor or else someone can kind of just lurk up behind. And so I feel like anchors almost are this kind of check and balance to everyone hits this site. Everyone just rotates that site and you just have a big team fight.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah. Yeah, that makes It's like the opposite of the ranked play style.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Which is, I was gonna say then. Playing an anchor in low elo. Like I think I was watching this huge video a little while ago and he's like, you always bite on the first fake, like if they're rushing, just assume they're not faking.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:cause you kind of have to make them show that they're willing to fake for you to be willing to play to it. Right. Right so I think, you know, my guess would be, and my question for you is, I'm guessing like an anchor role is probably a little less impactful and less I. Control of the game, the lower evil you go because the less fakes and like, kind of proper play style that people play on offense or defense. Yeah, I would agree with that. It's a little too passive, like in the lower ranks is, well, really in any rank, but especially the lower ranks. It's more about trying to get gun deals and just getting a random man a vintage. And if you're playing anchor, you're just gambling, it's like a 50 50, they come to my site or they don't, and now you're just, you know, playing the odds. Whereas like if you're a little bit more aggressive, you can actually read the situation on what's happening in the round and then make that. A gunfight come to you or you come to them, but you know, you're making a gunfight happen rather than just praying it comes. And you know, there, there's a lot of nuance to it, but the best anchors. Are the ones that can read the situation and play the map. And it's not as simple as, oh, a good anchor sits backside b site on a cent. Like that's not the case. They're very mobile. They might take B main space or might be in market. Like, I don't want anyone listening to this be like, oh yeah, they talked about the anchor role and how they're so good and now I'm just gonna anchor every round and sit here. Like that's, no probably actually how you become a worst player. So, there's a lot of nuance to it. And it's not as cut and dry as that. And I guess to put that on the flip side as an entry factor, it's not always just running in and dying. I see that a lot too. Like, oh yeah, I'm the entry factor. I gotta go in. No, you're just dying So just wanted to outline that. There's a lot of nuance there. Don't generalize it to every round.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Well, and I think the nuance too is that between intra doist and anchor, there's a gradient, right? And sometimes players naturally will flow up and down this gradient. And at the same time as well you as a player will need to be different things on this list in different maps or different team comps or in different games, right?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:A hundred percent.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Maybe let's talk about maximizing your natural plays style. You know, I'm thinking about basketball. If you are naturally a shorter basketball player and you have better ball handling skills, you're going to naturally be a point guard. If you are really tall, you're not so good at, you know, handling a basketball, you're probably gonna end up being a center or a forward, where have you seen with your clients, like how do you direct them to maximize maybe one to find their play style and to maximize their play style instead of like trying to be something they're not?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Okay, so this is a very difficult one. To start with, I think I want to outline that in order to actually have a play style, you need to experience the game. First, so with lower ranked players, and we've talked about it on this podcast too, is you don't really have a play style. Everyone's naturally gonna be passive because you're new to the game, right? So in an attempt to make people. Over index on the aggressive side first, I always recommend people play dualists and get the violent fundamentals first, but that doesn't mean later down the road they can't switch roles. If that were the case, then everyone I coach that are low rank would end up being dualist players. But that's not Like we start with Dualists to get that foundation down. If we were to bring this analogy over to basketball, I guess that would be learning how to dribble and shoot the ball, I guess. And if you don't know how to do that, you can't do anything So I wanna outline that first. That's where I start. If you don't know how to shoot your gun, I recommend doulas and getting that aggressive side first. Because if you are naturally a passive player and you can see the aggressive side of things first, you'll know how to counter it. And then you'll also know how to add that to your gameplay to not be so one dimensional. to start there. Now, if that's the case and you're really let's say like now we've climbed the ladder, you're in plate to senate range, I think this is where you really start to look at your play style. So before that, you're just playing the game to get your reps. Now you're gonna plan to senate. You really look at your play style. What agent should I main? What role should I main, right? So if you like to kind of not talk a lot, I would probably put you on the side of the extremes. So you're either the entry flagger or you're the anchor. And the reason for this is because in the middle you need that glue player. And typically your glue player's gonna be the most vocal, right?'cause they have the most teamwork. If you're not very vocal, I would put you on one of the extremes. And that'll let you leverage your kind of flow state, like I'm in the moment I can shoot my gun.'cause as noted, those are the two areas where you wanna shoot your gun. So, in that case then you would have to ask yourself, do I wanna be more aggressive or do I wanna be more passive? And then you pick dualist or anchor. And then for maximizing yourself as a glue player, like if you're very vocal, put yourself on a vocal role. I see a lot of people play the wrong role when they're vocal, like they should objectively be an initiator or that second dual list so that they can coordinate site hits or retakes with their utility, right? And yeah, I think that's just how you maximize it. You see what you fit the most. You put yourself in that situation and then you just think about what your strength is and then just abuse it. So if you're super vocal, spam, call everything even to the point of overcoming, I'd rather you overcome than under calm. If you're not vocal at all, you know, you can maybe even lean into that and just let your teammates do the calling, hopefully, and try to thrive in chaos. But I guess a caveat there, just to put an asterisk, I'm not encouraging. No calm, you know, you should ideally train up your comms to ask for the bare minimum. Like if you a smoke, ask for the smoke. If you need a teammate, the trade swing or whatever, call it three, two, one, something that. Like. You can climb the ladder though, coming, but it's a lot harder. yeah. The one thing I think we forgot to talk about was between entry do. Rotator and anchor. I think as you go from the top to the bottom, let's say your game sense, I think actually has to, like, is a big part of being a good anchor and worker. Whereas I think the game sense is a little less as like, of course it's important, but I feel like it's a little less important for an entry Doist,'cause you're so.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:You're such an antagonist, like you just, you control the timing. Right. Whereas I feel like that loker role, especially of like when to walk, like when to run, like when to hold your spot, when to take more space. I feel like that requires like a ton of game sense.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, there's a lot of nuance there for sure. And maybe not to. Say it so much as a gradient, because I think the hardest role in the game is actually the initiator supporter role. So more of like a pyramid Sure. Okay. Whereas like the bottom two are the anchor and the dualist and then it comes up to the initiator. Because the way I think about it is the glue player needs to know the nuance of the other two to be a really good, but you are correct. I think you could take it a few ways, but. I feel like because the dualists are the ones kind of, you know, being proactive about it, it does feel a little bit more simple, like the lurker anchor role has to think a little bit more. So that's probably why you see the smarter players play the anchor role because they're actually thinking about the game. Yeah. Maybe we were talking before we jumped on the pod about, you know, your transition from or playing different roles from do list to kind of a controller anchor role versus maybe ho's experience doing that. So maybe talk about like, why you feel like that went a bit more smoothly for you than it's going for ho. Yeah, and I'm sure this is the case, not just for Hoge, but just that, you know, experience for that role in general. Like I feel like most Doist players would be able to go to that passive role. So maybe to get into it I think as a entry player, the fact that you are hyper aggressive means that you're already have comfort in. Chaos. Right? And more importantly, because you're entry fragging, you're gonna be fighting the anchor most of the time, right? So you have that skill when you switch to an anchor role and you're experimenting with it to know how the other deal list is gonna play and counter that. So I think what helped for me is like when I was playing Anchor and I was holding down a site, I was like, oh yeah, their jet's gonna dash here or here. I'm gonna play in a spot to kill them. And like my success rate on killing the entry was fairly high. I would say it's probably above 50% on most of my site holds because I've already been in that situation on the reverse. Whereas I think the flip side of that is not exactly the case. Like when anchors try to start entering, actually a lot more nuance to it. It's not just the anchor that you're worried about, you're worried about the player running through the smoke. On, like if you're executing a scent, a site, someone's running through the tree smoke someone's running through the heaven smoke and you don't really see that when you're playing anchor. So basically there's more threats when you entry. And it's not just the doulas, for example, like the anchor roll. They just come outta one choke point or at most two. Right. Whereas like as a doula, you're thinking about all these different threats on the bomb site. So it just feels a little bit more chaotic to get accustomed to. Right. And on top of that, as an anchor, you're very self-sufficient, right? You at most rely on your U util, or sorry, you at the very bare minimum require on, rely on your U util. But at most lean on one or two teammates, uil, like that second player that rotates in and helps you, right? But as a dualist, you need your smokes, your initiative U util, and then ideally someone else coming with you. So it like it requires a little bit more team coordination. I. So yeah, I think going from that to controller is a lot, man, more manageable because it feels like the game is simpler, but when you go from anchor to entry frat, it feels like the game's a lot more complex, at least in my opinion. How have you seen that with the clients that you've worked with? So typically the players that play Sentinel or Controller have a very hard time. Looking for round winning plays. They're very textbook, very rigid. If they have to play a retake, they play retake If they have to, you know, they're very team oriented and they have this kind of like preset rules in their mind and they follow it. Whereas like, dos players that are learning a new role or just, it's more like I have to reel them in and tame them rather than trying to unleash them. And that's the best way I can explain it They don't really follow rules, so you have to put rules on them, but because the anchor role is a little bit more rule based, it's much, much harder for them to break out of their shell. And honestly, that's maybe where my lack of coaching experience comes in. But I have a much harder time trying to get the rule followers. To expand their gameplay rather than reeling in a do list player. And maybe that's'cause I am also a do list player. But I think it's just naturally harder to do that, if that makes sense.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Well, I think it's interesting'cause I've been reading a bunch about this stuff because in my other work I, I do a bunch of, like, work with organizations and bigger groups of people and, you know, there's this thing called it comes from like a term for your own physical body. Your health. It's called a term called homeostasis. Have you heard this before?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:I think so, yes.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:So like, homeostasis is the idea that like your body ideally needs to be in a certain range to survive. And so, you know, your temperature as an example, like, we don't wanna be too hot and we don't wanna be too cold, right? So what happens when we're too hot is we sweat and it's to lower our temperature, right? And so, like the body naturally will try to keep you in that band which is a good thing. When you look at people, I think sometimes there's a lot of homeostasis as well, right? Like you are in this very passive let's say sentinel role that wants to make no mistakes, wants to play textbook, right? And so when you try to stretch out of that, there's natural feedback loops that bring you back, right? So that player tries to play a little crazy, right? But there's like a little part of them that was like, but that's not textbook. Right. Like there's this voice in their head and then that brings them back. So I think that's why it's hard, right? Like it's hard to change because of that mechanism that brings you back. And I would say in some ways the, I, the ideal way to make that change is to like almost pretend to be someone else. Like I think I forget the name, but like. Of course, like Beyonce has like a stage name. I forget what it is, but like, she puts it on and so that's why she's like fierce Beyonce on the stage. Like I forget what her what that persona is, but it's almost like players, if they want to change that, it's like worthwhile to put on a persona. Like it just pretend that for a day playing ranked, I'm gonna play like pure X something. Like just a hundred percent confidence dashing in people's faces. Just to stretch my understanding of what it feels like to play differently, and then decide which parts of this I wanna keep and which parts I don't.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:I'm actually so glad you brought that up. It's, the way I view it maybe is entry flags are more comfortable pushing out of their comfort zone, like they're risk takers in. By definition. Right? And because they're risk takers, they get to explore more and feel what's good and see the game in, you know, in that perspective. But you know, like we're talking about like with this homeostasis, like some of that's very passive, doesn't really push out that comfort zone too much so they have a harder time growing. I think that probably actually answers so many questions that I've had because I had a thought yesterday and actually annoyed me so much. The people I work with are so like typically really good people. And then there's people in the higher ranks that I hate playing with, right? They're just so toxic. They're so annoying. And I think the personality trait there is because they're so annoying and so toxic, they are inherently more likely to take risk because they don't care. And that's probably one of the biggest contributors to actually improving as a player, is being able to take that risk. And it almost feels like the better you are as a person, the less risk you're taking'cause. You don't can't, yeah, you don't want to screw it up for other yeah, exactly. So I mean, I don't know, I feel like you just, you saying that just made me have an epiphany that like risk is probably the most important, one of the most important things to actually improve as a player Willingness to take that. Yeah.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:It's interesting, like, you know, sometimes I'm thinking about basketball, like there are players that are so good. It almost requires like, it's not even just a season. Sometimes like something, sometimes there are players that are so good, but they're very selfless and they don't want to play for themselves. They're always playing for other people and in those players, for them to kind of turn the corner to become a little more selfish, to unlock their team. It's not like. One season. Sometimes it takes like multiple seasons of their own teammates, their coaches telling them consistently like, you need to take your shot. Like you need to shoot your shot so we can have more room to shoot our shots. Right? But it actually takes, like that process of change is not a short one, right? Because again, like that natural play style has been there for a long time and I think it's just interesting where. You actually have to like encourage someone to be a little more selfish, at least in game, and to encourage them to lean more into what they can do so that it can open up more things for what other people can do.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, that makes sense. That makes so much sense. That's probably why like players like, yay. Did so well in 2022'cause he was encouraged to play his game and then that let his teammates play off of him.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Yeah. Well, I mean, I. We, we'll go into this, we were gonna jump into some slides from a great platoon video where he talked about like, which players are most impactful, but like, yay was like off the charts, like back that season. I feel in, in an occasional game, there will be a player that goes off and like, wins like one or two rounds by themselves, right? Like, I think of like. I remember, I think there was that round with Gambit where Chronicle, I think won like a one V three and was like a spray transfer or something. It was like crazy, right? But like laid, yay, sorry. Yay. During that season, I think single handedly would win like one or two rounds per map, just like chamber. And he is just like boom, headshot. And it's like they didn't have any chance winning that round and suddenly they do.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, I think the style is actually higher. I think. I think it was like, I wanna say it was like closer to like four or six rounds for a yay. Just single hairing winning the game. But yeah. We'll definitely have to pull out these platoon stats for those of you you guys listening that aren't familiar there's a YouTube channel called, his name is Platoon, and he broke down by looking at data in certain metrics to find out who was the most impactful player in 2023. And then. He looked at yay stats because he was the most standout player in 2022 and compared it to the list.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Yeah, so I'm gonna put this one up and then you can talk about it.'cause I'm gonna go see if I can get the other one.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:okay, so this stat here I'll just read through it. Percent chance to lose round when first blooded, so basically if this player lost the chance that they lost a round that was a percentage on the screen. Right. So for the players at the very top, that means their team relied on them to win the rounds. And this of course if they're not traded within three seconds. So as you can see at the very top, if as best died first, their chance of winning round was actually super high, 81%, which is actually ridiculous. And then you can see as this goes down and down, yays up there from 2022, and at the very bottom you'll see the teams that maybe are a little bit more champion style. You have fanatic, you have EG, if one of their players died. It didn't really matter because they had a really good system. Like they didn't rely so much on one player. Whereas as you can see, loud and forsaken and early optic heavily relied on those players. And of course there was a bias in this video for initiator players. If your initiator died first, you don't have util and that's why you comm is so up there. Yeah, it's just interesting to see. That specifically a single player can be so high up and influenced around so much. Like that team relies on that system, which is a
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Well, and the other one, which is cut off by my like bad screenshot is at like the very bottom. And you can see that like demon one, like arguably like the best player last year was like the least, missed what he literally when he died first. And I think that's not a knock on demon one because I think if you just watch him like he's a super impactful flare. I think it actually speaks to the fact that the team play and the kind of overall strength of that team enabled them to win rounds when they lost him first and he wasn't traded. On the opposite end was that and he wasn't near the top, but like losing calm really impacted their ability to win rounds because of the things that he does and the agents he plays and the things that like he brings to the table. I.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, and the system just makes so much. Sense when you say it like that is demon one is allowed to die. So they've incorporated their strategy to win with or without him. Right. Whereas like the system to win the round without calm doesn't really exist.'cause he's like the glue as
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Yeah, he's the glue. He's the guy that is, is like he's like the boogeyman, right? Like in, in so many of the rounds, he's like, like the guy, they're like, he couldn't be lurking. Like, but calm was lurking, right? Like just every single time. So, we're gonna do the next one, the round differential.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Oh my God.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:So this one was super interesting, I think, which is that the round differential when kills were greater than 16 versus less than 16. And it was be, and the reason platoon chose this stat was because when he looked at the average of number of kills per game, they were around 15. So if your dualist or if player was killing more than 16 people in a game, then they were above average and obviously vice versa, below average. And so, it's interesting. The difference between when Jing got more than 16 versus less than 16 was like five and a half more rounds. So when he was having a good game, they won five and a half more rounds than when they lost. Like, that is just an astonishing stat.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:That's so crazy like that prx is blood is Jing, and I don't know, like you could see, yay is obviously up there too, so it matches. But the fact that it's such like, it's a whole round difference for Jing just goes to show how important that wq play style is for that team. Well we talk about how like winning a pistol is so pivotal, right? Like'cause you win a pistol, you get the one round is effectively two rounds, right? Well Jing playing well is like winning both pistols and more Yeah kind of nuts. that's insane. And I think like what is the most like reason why, like why he explains it is, first of all, Valant and PRX is very momentum based. Like just the game itself, just where the economy works, but also with Jing being the one that gets kills because he is the entry, he's gonna have rocket. And him having Rayel puts even more emphasis because his satchels and his Ts are so impactful anyways, that increases the chances of winning another round. So like if he wins three rounds and gets kills because he is getting a lot of kills, they just have like more alts and jing. Alts are insane. I think it's not only, they're just insane, but like I almost couldn't think of a player. That better uses his alt, Like, like they, like, he's, he creates space and like you, you don't, like, basically you hear that alt and you are like backpedaling, like you were running for your life, right? And so I think like an alt, that snowballs couldn't be more impactful than the raise out forging because of who he is and how they play. Right. I think the term, you said snowball makes the most sense. The only other OI can think of in the game would be killjoy. Killjoy is so impactful, but it's very hard to put your killjoy in positions to kind of get as many alts as you do a raised rocket. Yeah. Yeah.'cause like they're more passive. They probably don't get to farm old orbs and stuff like that. That's one thing actually I noticed about J'S ranked gameplay is he farms a lot of old orbs, like a lot. But yeah, maybe we can scroll down to the bottom of the list here. So yeah they already see EG again, you know, it doesn't matter if your teammates have a good game, it, That's so interesting. That's like the bottom four Yeah. That's insane. It's just that system is so good.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:is where's Demon one?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, he is right. Oh, he is there above calm.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Oh, okay. So then where's the last EG player?
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:He's probably not on this list
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Okay.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:unless he's up. Did you see him? No.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:No, that's crazy. Okay. The last
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Oh no. I see him. I see him. Joo is right above Boster, so it's boost. Yo calm demon. One Ethan for the bottom four. Okay. so still really low. Yeah, So they're not really dependent at all. no, but that makes sense for Jaguar. He's a race player, there's that momentum again, slightly above And I think the last one player impact. This one good stat. this is a good stat. So basically, if you wanna watch the video. We'll link it. And what he did was this guy platoon characterized like the game state, which is like, oh, there's like a, currently it's a five V four or a five V three. And he said, okay. When you go, when you get a kill and you move the situation from like, let's say a one V three to a one V two, well obviously you're much more likely to, you're still unlikely to win the round, but you're way more likely to win the round.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Then at a one V three. And so what he did was he characterized every single kill and how did it move or change that percentage. And so you can see here that in a game loud as pass, because of the impact of his kills, not just the number of kills, the impact of his kills, he changed the round win percentage by like 339%. So basically you could say he, he actually won 3.39 rounds on his own. And that's insane.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah, I mean. itself in the role identity we were talking about earlier. You would, I imagine more of your doist players would have higher impact, and this is something I try to explain to my clients is like, the amount of impact you have in a game isn't by kills. Right? I see A of people will send me screenshots is a typical, oh yeah, I'm at MVPing. Why can't I win? Right. I'm like, well, if you're a DOS player, let's work on your impact. And that typically attributes to how many first bloods you get. That's the easiest stat to look at. So if I'm working with the doulas player, I'm like, okay, let's try to get your first bloods higher than four. Right. If you can get more first, like four first floods or more in a game, you're probably having pretty decent impact and not look at the kills. Right. And I see, I think that's a good stat to look for entry flaggers.'cause typically you'll die a lot. So Katie's gonna suck. But if for first floods is pretty high, I think you'd have high impact. So you remember I sent that thing to you on Discord, which was like the, like better to have process goals than outcome goals. And so the one I would throw out there is like, if you want more first buds and you are. Entry dualist. Then you probably want to say like you can't do it every round, but you probably want to try to get 12 first contact dues in your game. If you can do that, then you're on the way to getting those first buds. I agree. I agree.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:I'm gonna pull up the last one because that includes yay.'cause I think this last one didn't. There we go. Now you have one left. It was really hard to see. There we go. This shows, yay. So he was even above like, I think I forget who was the last one. I. Ye was like 352 in that, or 352% in that year. They cut out cloud and Kang Kang because they, he like didn't make it past the early the quarterfinals.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah which is why they cut out some of those players'cause he felt like it was too small of a sample. But he thought it was really interesting how they actually stacked up here. Like cloud I think everyone knows is really good and Kang is super good as well, but. Actually now I'm so interested.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Now I need to find out who this is.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Yeah. the last play, I forget. But
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:cnet. It was Navi. cnet. Ah, that, that makes so much
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:that makes sense.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:Okay. So just so you know, fill this in with cnet. That's cnet. That isn't crazy. That is crazy. Like, but I mean, obviously I think that Navi team did not have like a great year but he was like basically carrying them on his back. It sounds, it looks like, based on this
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:sense. Dude, when he was on Ascend, he was the guy, he was the goat. Everyone avoided. He's still that guy. He's just, you know, the roster just isn't working out Crazy to see. But, no, I think he's back with the Turkish team where he was with FUT. Right. idea. Okay. I think he's back on a Turkish team, so hopefully he rises back to his old level, his dominance. Yeah so we're gonna, I'm gonna link to this video, the platoon video. It's so good. Like he did such an amazing job. So please go watch it. I think that's kind of all we had today. Did you have anything else? Nope that's it. I think maybe just to summarize quickly I. If you're in the plan, ascendant, this is where you find who you wanna be as a player and try to push outta your comfort zone. Take some risk and, you know, don't be afraid to play all three roles to see what you like the most. And yeah, this is your experimentation stage. And then go, like, dive into it and then leverage your strengths to, to fill in those roles. Yeah, I think you know what's really interesting is I've found that when I prepare for games by like watching a bit of gameplay for the player I want to emulate, it feels much more natural in games. So like if I wanna be like super, I. Meticulous with my peaks. If I watch like a yay vad, it just comes really naturally.
tim_1_02-02-2024_091149:So for all of the people that are below Plat, before you play your game, watch that PX something hype video, and you're just gonna be like, you're gonna be just going going hard. So, with that, thanks everyone for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this episode and we look forward to seeing you guys next week.
squadcaster-50gf_1_02-02-2024_121121:Peace out.