It can be frustrating being stuck in the same rank, but there are ways you can get out of that rut. From analyzing your replays to playing the dreaded 1s, there are many routes you can take that will help you improve and break out of your rank.
We’ve all been there at some point, feeling like you are stuck in a rank and unable to move up. No matter what rank you are in, there are many resources at your disposal that you can use to help climb out when you are stuck in that rank. Using one or more of these tools will give you the push you need to progress through the ranks.
Saving your replays can be a great way to take a closer look at what you may be doing wrong and need to improve on. While we all like to save our good games, keeping our average games is going to be more beneficial to review. This is because trying to study a game where you played very well will give you little to work on, as you will have made minimal mistakes. Likewise, analyzing a game that you know you played poorly in gives you nothing to improve on, as you know you are not playing at your normal level. Instead, focusing on a fairly average game will distinctively show you what your strengths and weaknesses are.
When watching your replays, you do not always want to use your point of view. Viewing from a teammate’s or opponent’s angle will let you see a different perspective on how the play went. There are cases where you may have misread a scenario, therefore watching it from an outside point of view can teach you how it looks and what to be mindful of next time you are in that position. Looking through your teammates point of view can help you see times where they may have thought you were going for the ball but did not. That will give you future reference for your positioning and when you need to go for the ball instead of your teammate.
For a non-player perspective you can use “Fly” to angle the screen where you want. This can be handy if you want to see the play from a third party to capture a different view rather than being locked on to a player's viewpoint. A good example for this would be to position the camera above your own goal. This will allow you to see the positioning of everyone on the field. From there you can judge your rotations based on everyone else’s positions.
This is how the above net perspective will look:
There will be a lot of different things going on when reviewing the replay, so do not overwhelm yourself with trying to catch everything that happens. You can watch your replays multiple times to give two or three things your full attention in each one. A few things you may want to focus on are positioning, missed challenges, and reading the play.
If you are stumped on what to look for or how you are supposed to be playing, you can always take a look at other people’s gameplay. There are endless YouTube and streaming channels of players in higher ranks and even point of views of professional players to help give you an idea of what to look for.
As you progress through the ranks, you will need to widen and improve your skill set. That extra push you need to get out of your rank may come from getting serious about improving and learning new skills. There are two resources to use for means of practicing: freeplay and training packs. Playing either is a great way to improve.
Freeplay will give you more control when it comes to practicing. You have the ability to free roam around a map with button presets to manipulate the ball in certain ways that you can utilize such as passing the ball to yourself or popping it in the air. One good way to improve in freeplay will be to try and hit the ball as fast as you can. This will teach you how to hit the ball with power, maintain your momentum, and how to read the ball bouncing off of surfaces. Those three things will overall boost your speed of play.
Below are the key bindings available in freeplay:
Training packs are a great way to improve on your skills or learn a new one. There are premade ones to choose from or you can even get creative and make your own. This can be a perfect resource if you know certain skills that you want to focus on or simply want to practice. There are even training packs that say the specific rank that the skills in it apply to.
One resource that will help you rank up is often neglected. Most players will stay clear of playing the 1s gamemode as at first it is frustrating. With it just being you and your opponent on the map, defense and offense are solely relying on you. Looking past all of the negative comments on the 1s mode, it does have many benefits to finding what you need to improve on to rank up.
When starting to play 1s, it can be pretty difficult trying to keep with it. No one wants to keep playing a game where all of their mistakes cost them the match, after all no one likes to keep playing a game they lose. If you are able to push through this and get over the fact that your mistakes can be costly, you can see the benefits to playing.
Since you are flying solo, any area of skill that you lack in is going to be drawn out. Instead of giving up for those weaknesses costing you the match, you can take that knowledge of what you need to work on and put it towards practicing. There are premade training packs that even pertain to certain skills that you could utilize.
Changing your mentality when playing 1s can majorly change how the game affects you. Once you start looking at mistakes as “how can I improve this?” or “what I should have done”, it makes the game more of a way for you to focus on improving your gameplay rather than letting your mistakes get to you. When you get bested by your opponent, you should take it as an opportunity to see what they did well and how to improve on your side or how to apply what they did to your gameplay. There is a lot you can take away from playing 1s, you just need to get past the initial frustration.
Ranked can be stressful, feeling the need to win every match. Luckily, there are alternative game modes that you can play instead. Casual is a great way to take a breather from ranked, that way you can play the game without the added pressure of needing to win.
Taking the stress out of playing, you can start focusing on your gameplay rather than getting a win. We sometimes get blinded by the need to win and forget what we have practiced or should be doing in game. Using casual as an outlet for your tenseness from ranked can help you come back to ranked ready and refreshed.
These methods are not limited to those of lower ranks. Getting stuck in your rank is not enjoyable for anyone, so thankfully there are ways we can combat that. From analyzing replays of your matches to using the training mode, there are multiple in game options that you can utilize to help you improve.
