You watch their every stream. You buy the same skins they use. You play the same agents they play. You say the same things they say. You have their jersey. You have the same mouse, the same keyboard, the same headset, the same monitor, and the same settings. You are your favorite player. But should you play like them? No, you probably shouldn’t. Let’s find out why.
Watching pro-play in any game comes with its benefits. You may learn a new trick, a new strategy, or see the game from a different point of view. This does not mean that you should take everything away from what you’re seeing during a professional match. Sometimes trying to be your favorite pro can actually hurt your team and your own gameplay as well.
The main thing you must remind yourself when watching pro play is that everything is telegraphed and pre-planned with intricate executes that rely on timing and communication. To create a playbook and run plays from it, they must understand the “Dos and Don’ts” of the game, the team composition, and the map. Understanding and more importantly, mastering these fundamentals allows you to play with the rules to create something new, intricate, and progressive. You can liken this to any professional, but the easiest to see this distinction is in art.
Take Pablo Picasso’s Science and Charity (1897). Here we see Picasso master the skill of realistic portraits through oil on canvas at age 15.
Having been classically trained in Madrid and receiving accolades for his painting ability, he decided to take a new progressive direction in his art. Introduce the Proto-Cubism movement in the early 1900’s, which Picasso had a heavy hand in leading, we see works later in his career like The Weeping Woman (1937).
Without that formal training and mastery, we cannot get new work that pushes the boundaries of the medium. One cannot paint something, mixing cubism and surrealism, like this without having the experience and training of the former painting. Sure, you can copy the style; you can try to take elements from this painting and apply it to your own, but it will not be the same and not have the same impact that Picasso’s portrait has. You have to fully understand the medium to progress it.
Now back to Valorant.
You can copy the movements and positioning of a pro-player. You can use your utility like them, maybe using certain abilities early in a round, or saving them to counter another ability, but you will not have the same impact as them. You have yet to master the basics, the understanding of the game, and the intentionality that comes with your positioning, movement, and ability use. Pros often bend rules, play with them, and adapt situationally based on the philosophy of the game and the most efficient tactics available to them. The meta is dictated both by the pros and the developers and pushing the boundaries of the game is something that professionals constantly do. So, you can’t just copy what you see, but you should use it as an opportunity to understand why they are doing some of the things that they do.
Applying concepts that you learn from pro players to your own gameplay is the best way to learn from them. Valorant coaches often break down pro gameplay into digestible concepts for you to implement into your games. In pro-play, if the attacking player does A, the defending player does X. In the next round, if the attacking player does A, the defending player does X. Now that the defending player knows they do A, they will then first do Y, while the attacking player tries to counter with B, which results in a triple kill. You as a viewer might just notice the play that results in a triple kill and try to do the same in your ranked game, but what you fail to translate is the conditioning of the previous rounds. The conditioning of the ability use, the rest of the team’s positioning, and the context of the situation.
Professionals master these basics and work on conditioning the opponents, so that it gives their set plays the best chance to work. Because players, both professional and higher-level casual, are conditioned by these “rules”, they have the ability to bend and break them to catch the opposition off guard. If you see a professional do something amazing by playing with the medium, you might not notice that they broke a “rule”. Taking that play and breaking rules in your competitive match might just frustrate your team since you’re not on the same page. Understanding and mastering the basics (the rules) is important to do first before you copy a pro player. Here is a great example of Valorant coach JollzTV breaking down a concept and explaining a pro’s decision making and positioning. (Think like a pro player
by u/Jollztv on r/VALORANT)
If you were to hold Lamps here without the context of the situation, you’d get flamed by your teammates for holding that position. It is not a smart position to hold. With the context of the situation, you understand that that was the only viable position to hold. They are bending and breaking the rules to adapt to their situation. So, it would not be smart to copy the pro player, but to learn as to why they did that and why it was smart for the aggressing players to both go Lamps.
The takeaway there is to remember to press the Tab key, look at the information given to you and assess the situation. The opposition may have an ultimate, maybe you noticed they only used one of their two available smokes, maybe they’re on an economy round. Try to think about what you’re up against in your situation.
Once you watch the How-Tos or read the articles on the basics, you can now watch pro play through a more educated and analytical lens. You will notice them breaking the rules and ask yourself, “Why?” and see why it worked or why it didn’t. Then you can take the concept of that rule breaking play and see if it could apply to your gameplay. The more that happens, the more the meta shifts and the more creative you can get with your gameplay. Maybe you can create something you haven’t seen before by learning the concepts from the pros. So don’t just copy, learn.
