In order to progress past the silver ranks you have to start to not just work on mechanics, but also your overall knowledge of the game. You have to start being able to adapt to your teammates and at least start attempting team plays.
Players should continue to practice and do the training packs mentioned in my previous post. They can also now start to progress past these trainings and start to try and do the “All-Star” difficulty versions.
Moving on, Silver and Gold are both what I consider to be the ranks where the vast majority of the games population is at. These are the ranks where you can get stuck and not be able to get out. I have seem many players who seem to have really good car control and some really nice mechanics, but they have no idea how to actually play the game with a teammate. That is why they are still stuck at their rank.
Here are a few things to remember.
- Rotations
- Play smart and safe.
- Learn how to defend.
- Shadow Defense.
- Read the play and cut off passes/easy shots on goal.
We will start by talking about rotations. This is probably the single most important thing you can learn in the game. You can be a completely mediocre player and not be very skilled mechanically, but if you can rotate well then you will always be in the right places a the right times and will be able to help your team a lot.
I will start by talking about rotations for Doubles. If you divide the field into nine squares, then all you have to remember is to never be in the same box as your teammate and position yourself at diagonals. This helps because it gives your teammate a passing option. If they cannot beat the defender one on one, or if they are low boost then they can easily just pass the ball over to you and allow you to attack and give them time to grab boost or rotate behind you incase you lose possession. A video explaining this more in depth can be found here.
The rotation for a 3v3 game is a a little different than 2v2. I still think it helps to see the field in the six squares we talked about before. On offense in 3v3 there are 3 positions that must be filled at all times. You need to have a shooter, passer, and defender. I think the best way to learn this is to be able to visually see it. So I’m going to link a video here about 3v3 rotations in depth.
Next I want to talk about playing smart. An important part of this is knowing yourself as a player and assessing your skill level. Be honest with yourself about your skill level and what you are capable of. After assessing yourself and your skill level, be able to decide when it is smart to move up the field with speed and when it is better to stay back. Same goes for deciding when to challenge a ball and try and take away the other team’s possession. If you see a ball go up the side wall at mid field and you don’t have confidence that you can go and win that ball, then retreat and play defense. Sometimes the best offense is a great defense.
This will all help players advance by not only becoming mechanically better, but also by giving them new things to think about and look for to make them a better overall player.
See you next time!
A Potato's Guide to Rocket League 