Teamwork – The Most Important Element

What is teamwork?  Why is it important?  The answer to these questions seem simple, however after nearly ten years of competitive CS, teamwork was what I found lacking the most in teams that I've played with and against at the main level.  To help with both the lack of understanding and the wrong attitudes of players, I have written this article in the hopes of elucidating the concept of teamwork and illustrating why using it is your only hope to advance in this game.

Team Mentality – The Right Attitude

What does it mean to be a team player?  The vast majority of this community have no clue what this means at all.  Before I discuss teamwork concepts, I want to address this attitude issue because before people will use teamwork they will have to ditch their selfish attitudes.

I have several prototypical players in mind.  The first is the team-hopper.  This person jumps from team to team or makes team after team trying to assemble that killer lineup.  Except they never go anywhere, and it's always the team's fault, so they join (or make) a different team, only for the cycle to repeat itself.  The other player I have in mind is the ESEA all star.  Usually they are loners who think they are God's Gift to CS, getting top scores in ESEA pugs and wondering why a good team won't pick them up.  Along the way they call everyone else “bad.”  Any time they join a team, it's a short-lived stay, because almost no one can tolerate their huge ego.  Not to mention, when put in a team situation they are completely clueless and just bait their team and lose.

I generally have no sympathy for such players.  However, if the above describes you, realize the error of your ways, and you will be ready to step into the light ;-).  The first thing you must learn is that you need to lose the ego – everyone is skilled at this game – without your team, you're just another nobody going nowhere.  If you're serious about advancing in this game, you need to let go of the “I” and embrace the “We.”  This is because teamwork is what separates the winners from the losers – the teams going places and the ones eternally stuck in CEVO-Free.

Teamwork – the Most Important Element

Why is teamwork so important?  Well, teamwork, along with skill and tactics, are the three most important elements of CS.  The question asked by many players is how important each one is in the final evaluation.  I've heard Neo from Wicked say something along the lines of “70% aim, 30% tactics."  I've also heard cArn from fnatic say that “tactics are not that important” while aim/skill is.  I have heard dsn of fnatic talk about the importance of playing smart as a team in his blogs.  I will give my answer to this question, not because I think I know more than these esteemed players, but because I actually believe that they are spot on and in the end my analysis will agree with theirs. 

Teamwork, skill, and tactics are all important, and the degree to which each one is important in part depends on the level you are playing at and in part depends on how developed the other two are.  At the open level, everything is important, because all three elements are practically non-existent.  In practice, skill usually dominates at the open level, because some people are naturally more talented, and since nothing else can even the odds, the victors are the ones who have individual skill.  But if there were an open level team with an unusually high degree of teamwork and/or really good tactics, they could be a dominant team – at least in open.  At the very highest levels of the game, individual skill is very important for a different reason.  At the level cArn and Neo play at, a lot of it comes down to who hits their shots on any given day, because the team tactics and strategy of both teams is impeccable from thorough practice and every player at that level is as skilled as human beings can possibly get.  In other words, all of the three elements have reached their cap or “maxed out” so that in the end it's about who plays better in the moment.