Many do not understand the fundamentals of being an in-game leader and how important an in-game leader is. This article will cover everything you need to know about being the in-game leader and how important they are to a team and also how to be an efficient and a good In-game Leader.

There are a lot of points that will be covered in this article and a lot of explanation on how to take control of your team and establish mutual respect for each other so your team listens to your calls and trusts them.

Not everyone can be an in-game leader. I mean, you can call basic strategies and tell your team something basic to do. However, only the best know how to make the most out of their utility and weapons and how to use each and every person on the team to get the best out of them and truly make the players ability shine.

What is an In-Game Leader?

An in-game leader is the most important role in a Counter-Strike team. The reason for this is that they are setting up the team for success and almost single-handedly setting up the foundations of a team. That one person, let it be a coach or a player, is calling how the entire team is going to play out the round. They apply the strategical aspect to the team and devise strategical ways to beat your opponents and to utilize each and every person on the team to get the most out of everyone. An in-game leader does not necessarily have to be very smart, but they have to be someone who is dedicated to the game, who puts in time and effort and someone who is calm and collected under pressure. They must also be able to understand the economy of the game as this is a very important factor in how you approach rounds depending on the opponent's equipment going into that round.

Establishing Yourself as an In-Game Leader

When I talk about establishing yourself, I'm talking about how you can take control of your team and how you can gain that respect from your teammates to trust in your calls and trust in your ideas. An in-game leader can take control of their team in two ways, you can either be dominant and be really strict or be a more laid back leader who has a loose style of calling. Either way is fine, as long as you and your team know what everyone is supposed to do going into the round. Any type of calling is fine and in some cases you can change the way you call depending on the situation. Being more assertive and commanding does sometimes give your team more structure which can be beneficial but also can hurt your team. Being loose lets you be more unpredictable but if the round doesn't go to plan, things can go sketchy really quickly.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both ways of calling. If you do have a loose calling style and establish your leading as a more laid back and relaxed type, it gives your team an upper-hand in a way that you will be more unpredictable as you won't have a set plan for the round and will rely more on individual skill to win you the rounds, which is good for a team with high raw fragging power like FaZe or Fnatic. However, loose calling can mean egos could start to conflict and when it's crunch time and when the pressure is on, some can crumble because they don't have a plan set in stone. Also, loose calling does mean your team doesn't have a plan B or another approach to the round if it starts to go wrong, so in the end you play out the round in a puggy style.

Having a stricter, commanding type of calling which is the more traditional where you have a plan set in stone and have numerous ways to play out the round. This does allow your players to be used more effectively and gives you an idea of how to use your players. Although this gives your team structure, it can be negative as it allows you to become more readable and predictable, which seems to be the only downside to the more traditional step by step calling.

Image courtesy of HLTV.org

Managing the mentality of the team and the confidence when it matters

There are several moments in Counter-Strike where your mentality and confidence can change. You and your team can tilt off the planet and can never recover fast enough to come back into the game and climb your way back into the game. These are things you want to avoid as an in-game leader. You want to make sure you and your team never lose your focus and make sure emotions do not get into the way of playing to your full potential. In-game leaders must keep their team's confidence in check and always motivate and cheer on their players. Arguably, the whole team should really be motivating each other really but just make sure you guys do not tilt and lose control and always make sure that you reiterate the idea that a comeback is always possible into your players' heads. You do not want you and your team's mentality after losing a map or having a bad start to be negative. Remember to keep your teammates thinking positive and bright. Do not let them think because of a bad start they will lose the map and it will be a one sided affair. No, always keep your team's mentality positive, this will ultimately improve their confidence and their ability to execute what you're calling.

Also the biggest main thing you must not do during a game or in the middle of a round is start up an argument on why a certain play was made. This applies to every player and it's not only the in-game leader's responsibility to stop these arguments, it is everyone's. However, I can still apply this to the in-game leader because as one you do not want to challenge in depth someone's decisions or actions in the middle of a round or during the game, especially at late rounds when it matters the most. This is because it can crush confidence and cause frustration between team-mates, the best time to do this is to do it after the game or when you're going over demos together. However, if they are constantly repeating the mistake and it is costing you during the game, you can just tell them to stop but make sure you do not challenge the player so much that it causes conflict, leave it till after the game. Always remember you want to build up confidence, not crush it.

Utilizing Your Players

Another key aspect to being a good in-game leader is knowing how to use your players and where they're most comfortable playing and what they like doing. Usually in a team you have your five set roles so you have a general idea of who's playing where. Now to utilize your players well it will take time and doesn't happen overnight. The way this happens is through time. If you guys do stick together long enough, naturally overtime, chemistry will build up and you will become better as a unit as you start to grow accustom to your team-mates. Build this chemistry by playing scrims and matches together, and also if you want to build chemistry with specific players, play with them out of practice by pugging or some matchmaking.

The more you guys play together, the more you know who plays better with who. As an in-game leader this is very important, and you must build up this chemistry. This way you can find out who plays best with each other on certain bomb-sites on the Counter-Terrorist side and strengths of your players on the Terrorist side. All of this information about your team-mates can be very valuable and can ultimately win you more games. By knowing your players' strengths and weaknesses you can set up strategies and set-ups so it brings out the most in your team-mates and can unleash their potential so they can shine.

An example of this is Fnatic's duo; Krimz and Olofmeister. When these two are together, they shine. Specifically, on bomb-sites, these two lock down a bombsite together. A great example of how much they rely on each other and the chemistry they built up from being on LGB together, is as soon as Olofmeister got injured, Krimz became worse and worse because he did not have his 'partner' with him to lock down these bomb-sites together and play with each other. This is why you want to make sure you utilize your team-mates well as it can increase their skill-ceiling and also unleash the best in them.

Co-Ordination & Creativity

As an in-game leader your knowledge of smokes and flashes should be really good and more than the average player. This is because you are the one that will come up with the strategies and the executes for your team to perform. Be confident in your ability to call and your knowledge and make sure you are calm under pressure so when things go wrong, you can still co-ordinate your team effectively to execute a strategy. Being good at co-ordination is key, because it ensures your players aren't confused on what to do and also makes sure they know what their roles are in a team. It also helps to be good at coordinating a team because a more structured approach to a round can win you those key rounds and keep your players confidence high. Being creative is essential in an in-game leader and is equally as important as being knowledgeable. If you are a creative person this is a big bonus for you and your team because you can find the most unusual smokes or plays to keep your opponents guessing. You can catch other teams off-guard with creative flashes and use of utility. Being creative allows you to be structured and unpredictable. You can also pass any creative things you learn onto your team-mates and help them use this to their advantage. Being creative gives you that edge over other teams and over basic strategies because you can come up with un-seen ideas that can win you key rounds. You can throw what is called "curveballs" at teams when it matters most and most likely win the round.

Reviewing Demos

Many people ask current in-game leaders such as Sean Gares of EchoFox on how to become good at anti-stratting or even picking out things from demos. The answer to this is really simple. To begin with, as an in-game leader you want to spend a lot of time reviewing demos because this allows you to anti-strat and even patch up holes in your own team. Demo reviewing is at the top of my list when it comes to being a good in-game leader. You have to demo review even after 16-0's or 16-1's. This is because you can improve and improve even when winning. Some may ask, where do I find my demos? Well, depending on what client you're using, most clients such as ESEA & CEVO allow you to download demos after a match and also let you download your opponent's demos. The screenshots below show you how the demo download page should look on the match pages. These are demos for the FaceIt, ESEA and CEVO platforms.

Own Demos

Now another key question people ask is what are you supposed to look out for in demos? Now I will split this up into two sections, your own demos and the other team demos. For your own demos you should be looking out for how you guys are setting up and see if it's working, if you are trade fragging your team-mates, co-ordination of executes (are you guys throwing your smokes and flashes right), timings (are you guys doing everything together and timing wraps or splits correctly) Another thing to look out for in demos is for individual mistakes, this can be applied to every member of your team and as an in-game leader you should be able to point out any individual mistakes or misplays made by a member of the team.

Opponent Demos

When looking at opponent's demos, you want to look at their tendencies. For example, how fast do they rotate and are they easy to fake? You also want to look at how they set-up and respond to specific rounds such as force-buys or when they're on a really light buy. For example, do they go for double pushes or do they stack sites when on force buys. Additionally, you want to look at how they use each other on bomb sites. When they throw a flash into A main for example on bombsite A on Cache, does someone else follow up with another flash and peek in for information? You always want to look out for small strategies they play on both sides. As an in-game leader try and find out what they like to do early on specific maps, do they go for pushes or flash plays? Maybe boosts? All of this is key and can win you rounds because you know what to expect. This is the art of anti-stratting.

Anti-stratting is very important because you know what to expect and can counter it and it's just rounds that can easily be won because you are predicting correctly. For example, a way of anti-stratting on pistol rounds, is looking at what they do early on. If they're pushing two up catwalk on Dust2 every time, then have three or four team-mates sitting and waiting. Anti-stratting is the most important element when reviewing the opponent's demos, because it gives you an idea of how they play and also their set-ups. Knowing their set-ups also allows you to create strategies to counter these set-ups. As well as knowing what type of executes they'll throw at you, this will allow you to devise set-ups to counter these executes and put it down before it even begins.

If the above still didn't help about demos, then listen to Thoorin's video as he explains demo reviewing!

Where to Create Strategies and Set-Ups?

If you have a server, you can use your own server to create strats and set-ups. However, if you don't, do not worry! There is a lot of sites out there that allow you to draw up strategies and set-ups for FREE!

Conclusion

To summarize this wall of text, to be a successful and good in-game leader you must be -

Cool and collected under pressure
Be enthusiastic and dedicated to the game
Be able to utilize your players effectively and know what their roles are and get the best out of them
Be able to motivate the team and keep them from tilting
Have a good knowledge of smokes and nades and have a creative mind
Make sure your comms and delivery of what you want to do during the round is clear and precise to avoid confusion
Have confidence in your calls, make sure your team listens to your calls
Always adapt and change your strats based on the current meta, you want to stay up to date and not behind

Summarizing what you need to look out for in demos -

Opponent tendencies and set-ups
What the opponent likes to do and how they play early in the round
The opponent's executes, so you can counter those executes by adjusting your set-up
Look at your own set-ups and see if they are working
Check if you guys are trade fragging correctly
Fix any holes/mistakes that occurred
Point out individual mistakes
Check your team is running the strat correctly
If the strategy isn't working, look over it and see how to adjust it

I hope this really detailed guide has helped you or has made you more confident in taking the in-game leader role!

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