Ventrilo

Personally, I do find ghosting a bit annoying; however, you must accept the fact that teams will do it and you must learn to adjust. If you kill a guy, an individual strategy for fooling ghosting is to start to run one way then move somewhere else after his camera fades. The days of a player boosted on a ledge and taking out an entire team online is over. Even the most disciplined teams in the world will be forced to yell out the position. This is just a simple change. Kill and move. That’s it.

The Bad Scrim

Now suppose you're playing this team that you're rolling. They most likely think that you cheat and you don’t even have to try. Instead of wasting your time with a para, this is a great opportunity to get your team to work on some save round strats. What better time to try out quick strats or defensive stacks than on a team you have no worries beating. When real match time comes, you might have a new strat to call when others seem to fail.

On the other hand, say that you are getting destroyed in a scrim. This team is much better than you. This is not the time to leave, but it is the perfect time to see if you can stack a bombsite and defeat them or if your team can push a section to catch them off guard. This is also the time to watch the performance of your teammates; especially on how they perform under difficult conditions. Are people baiting each other? Do you notice a player’s mouse speed as being too slow? Are your guys just clueless? Is your team just having a bad day? Take the time to learn things about you and your team from a difficult scrim instead of finding this out during a match versus a much better team.

The X factor

Perhaps the other team has a player that is either SK|Potti or he left his walls on his other PC. If he is cheating or not it isn’t a factor. You’re playing versus a team that has one guy controlling the match and lessons can be learned from this. What do you do? Focus your attack on taking him out of the picture. Nade, flash, and spam the hell out of him. If he is cheating, all the flashes in the world isn’t going to help you, but at least your team will have put the time to good use by working out a problem together and gaining experience.

The Buddy System

Find a team to scrim over and over. No matter what league you’re in, you should be able to find a team equal to your skill or a bit better. Become friends and scrim this team a few times a week. If you’re trying to work out your pistol strat, then play a bunch of pistol rounds in a row versus this team. What team doesn’t want to test their defense to multiple types of attacks? It’s like getting a week’s worth of scrimming done in one day. Now, say you have a bad half of a map and your team just wasn’t on or you have new ideas. In that case, play the same map more than once in a row. This allows the other team to try new things and also test out how well they can adjust to a team that has figured out their setups. One long scrim versus the same team is more productive than playing three pugs that leave at the half.

Warm Up

When no one is around to scrim, why waste time on aim maps or running up the middle of the map shooting scouts at each other? Take two members and have them defend a site against the other three. For example, have the three attackers assault the B site on dust 2 over and over for ten minutes and it will get your defenders prepared for everything that can be thrown at them. It will also allow them to try new stacks and tactics to support each other. Switch this up to all the sites or spots you like to set up as CTs. Very importantly, it should be noted that teams should not be dumb with this. If you have two guys working on holding the catwalk, don’t come from long A. That gets back into the kissing your Mom remark. You’re not trying to win, but you’re trying to get your team ready to play. Focus on your goals as a team and not on being a sneaky ninja.

Will all this advice help your team be the next CAL I superstars? Probably not, but it will help your team get better and, at the least, maybe I will get to play all 30 rounds on a scrim for the first time since the new rule changes.

About the author: Jason “Alchemist” Baker provides color commentary for the Team Sportscast Network and can be heard twice a week on “In the Crosshair” every Monday and Thursday. Jason is also known for producing movies for MFAVP.