CommunityFortress

Leading a team is hard. Not just sorta hard, not just kinda hard. Really hard. Leading a team, being and feeling responsible for the well being of 5 other people, their in game experience, their coordination, communication, their every move is bloody hard. It has been a long time since I have had to lead a team, and I had forgotten how stressful, how painful, how utterly hair-pullingly frustrating it can be. But leading a team is also immensely rewarding, and this week, I learned that fact.

I think a little explanation is in order. After talking with Graham about there not being enough content, and realizing I basically keep a TF2 journal anyway, I decided that I would keep a blog of the trials, tribulations and celebrations that will follow my team through their season in ESEA-IM. I am Dr.shdwpuppet, medic for Dogma, caster/producer for eXtv and avid gamer. I will be doing this column weekly. If you don’t want to read what I have to say, that’s fine, this probably isn’t for you anyway. I hope I can help at least a few people struggling with their teams and entertain anyone else.

My team started as just a combo, left over from the old Incestual Princesses not wanting to play in IM anymore. I kept the roster, kept that IM spot and decided to form a team. Tryouts were hard, it was difficult finding people that could fill the role of IM player well enough that I didn’t feel completely hopeless. It took more than a month and a half of searching and we almost just said “fuck it” and went into open, content to pick up some solid open players and have a good season there. But I wanted to stick it out, and I am glad we did. Because now I have a roster I am confident can do well in IM, or at least, that is how I felt a week ago.

Then this week rolled along. Our matches, 90lg and xensity on badlands. I knew from the outset that xensity were untouchable. It wasn’t solidsnake, the ex-invite monster known for his sword and boarding. But the soldiers on that team are forces that my team would inevitably fold to. So I did what I always do when scheduling matches. I put the easier match first.

When we filed into that server to face off against the now 100% monster free 90lg, I was confident we could put up a great fight, win a few rounds and, if we were lucky, scrape a victory. I could not have been more wrong.

It started off hopeful, we won middle, fairly convincingly too. Then I, in all my infinite wisdom, decide to push my team through valley, hoping to cut off the retreat of our scattered foes. Instead, I got two pipes to the face and dropped the first uber of the season. It was all downhill from there. We started arguing, got frustrated, I got boneheaded, certain players on my team got sullen, we lost rounds. All of the rounds. I was pissed, people left mumble in fits of rage, conversations and pep talks were had. But at the end of the day, I felt like shit. As a medic, as a caller, as a leader, a team comes to expect a certain level of play, confidence and solidarity from you at all times. Without a strong caller keeping everyone focused, things start going to shit. Things went very quickly to the warm, if putrid and intolerable, arms of shit.

Next day, next match. Everything was different. If someone were to browse the stats and score of our game against Xensity, it wouldn’t look like things changed. The score was still 5-0. But in mumble, there was a fresher, cleaner attitude. People communicated, calls were made (and, perhaps more importantly, followed). We took mids, we contested spires, we pushed out of last defenses. We didn’t play anywhere near perfectly, but when everything was over, when the last point was capped (not by us) and the last g was g’ed, I was proud. Somehow, in a night, we had become a team that could at least put up a small challenge to other teams, we became a team that felt more like a cohesive unit. After that match, we scrimmed warmfront. We had fun. At the end of the night, things were civil, and one of my players even told me that, for the first time in weeks, he had finally left mumble, left the night of scrims satisfied. That brought a smile to my face. Like I said, leading a team can be immensely rewarding, and though I wasn’t touting a perfect record, or holding up a trophy to the setting Dallas sun, I would have traded all that for those simple words. Because it meant that I had succeeded in every way that I needed to that night. Victories will come, but only to a team that looks past the individual win/loss records, looks past dropped ubers, or failed bombs. Sometimes to be successful, you need to redefine what success means to you. TF2 is my hobby, it is my biggest single time sink, it is the one thing I know I can fall back on and have fun. But if a team isn’t having fun, they won’t win. I used to think the relationship was the exact opposite, but now I know.

Team leaders, take note. If your team is arguing, fighting, conflicting each other in game, you will never be successful, you will never play to anywhere near your potential. Work out your problems, move on, or be doomed to an early death (if you are lucky). Being frustrated in game is a part of learning, but it needs to be taken care of immediately. Teams have to talk to each other about what is going wrong, because I assure you, from whatever lofty seat your caller sits upon, he cannot see everything.

Here is to a better week on warmfront. GLHF my friends.

Love and brownies,

Alexei “Dr.shdwpuppet” Williams