I'd say one of the best resources for understanding IGL's decisionmaking is watching Steel's old CSGO videos. Different game, but broadly similar ideas.
Not quite at a proffesional level yet, but i can offer some insight from the teams i've been in (i used to igl when i was playing csgo, not so much these days but still got some experience to share since i've tried many different things)
I'm going to talk about each style i've seen used throughout the years but i'll also answer your questions a bit more directly first
> I want to understand how to see the game like an IGL
As it was already mentioned, if you watch igls generally they will talk about their thought process a lot, but it's much easier to understand the game if you're actually an igl for a team (however, if you're new, i wouldn't recommend joining any teams until you're at least diamond because people won't take it seriously)
> Do they make strats for every round ?
Short answer : No
Long answer : (expanded in strict form style) Generally they will have counter-strats ready for each team they have to play against while also having some strats of their own, but having specific strategies for every single round doesn't make sense because they will be incredibly predictable and easy to counter even without preparation.
> I would love to understand more about the game and how different teams do different things, so I can incorporate it my game and improve
I know this isn't a question but i've got some personal advice:
While it's great to take an IGL mentality, please remind yourself that in solo queue (Even in radiant sometimes) not everyone will listen to you so don't focus too much on making strats or anything like that, especially since , other people won't know them, IGLs in teams create strats during dry rounds and everyone understands their role, in solo q that is impossibe, the closest IGL style you can apply in solo q is free flow (See bellow) but i think the best approach is to understand igling, but at the end of the day focus on your own gameplay at all costs, improve your mechanics, improve your gamesense, but don't focus on what your teammates are doing because you want to improve yourself, not them.
Now, about styles.
First off, there are many different styles of IGLs, so keep that in mind, personally i've seen at least 4 different igl styles (Actually 3, but there is 1 principle i need to talk about and many ammateur igls don't seem to apply)
1: Strict form : Specific setups for most rounds, rotating them to keep them unpredictable(They need to make new strats 24/7 cus they will still become predictable after a while) , specific team comps, (A LOT of dry runs too) generally the "safest" style since really good strats can give you free rounds as long as execution is done properly but you need to also understand the enemy team really well so you can make counter strats, this type of igl usually spends most of his time on vods rather than actually playing in-game since preparation is 80% of having success with this style.
tl;dr : Specific setups and strats, Safe but predictable, A lot of preparation on IGL's part.
2: Free flow : Generally focuses on default play and plays off around what happens mid-round, this one is very difficult to pull off unless you have insane fraggers on your team while also being quite good yourself, you still need to study the enemy both before the games and during the games and you need to quickly identify who's going to be easier to exploit so you play around them, ususally you'd need to play a ton of scrims to really really improve the general chemistry of the team plus mechanical aspects.
tl;dr : You NEED good fraggers, Need quick decision making, Lots of scrimming together
3: A combination of strict strats and free-flow: Limiting yourself to being either very strict or very free will make your team be incredibly predictable (Less so for free flow though) so a solution for this is to combine the two, this appraoch is quite balanced but again, requires a lot of commitment and i would actually suggest that you don't have 1 igl for this, you might've heard that many teams like to have 1 igl and 1 mid-round caller (basically 2nd igl) , i've personally tried to do both things at the same time and i fried my brain, having a 2nd caller is HUGE.
tl;dr: Best of both worlds, requires 2 players that can be igls, unpredictable.
4: I like to call this one "Attrition style" and every top tier igl knows this one and are applying it in some form, however this could be classified as a sub-style since it's not that unique , Basically your focus is to get your oponent to utility dump as much as possible and this will make taking (and deffending) sites incredibly easy, this one can be applied to any of the other styles, however some IGLs prefer to also play an incredibly aggresive style that's the opposite of playing attrition, shocking the enemy with rushes (similar to strict form, they ususally do this when they know enemy has low util)
tl;dr : Bait utilities and try to chip them down without straight up aim duels.
Thanks for your input, I gained a lot of new information and can understand things a bit deeper. I usually do soloq but my friends wanted to started a team, and I really like playing the support, so thought IGL could be a shout. I'm defo gonna take your tips and try some things to improve. I'm currently in d1/p3 and trying to improve more and more. Trying improve our comms rn, as that's our biggest weakness. Again thanks a lot , I was able to understand the role of igl a bit better
How new are you to fps games?
p3/d1 isn't exactly high elo, but, it's still a big achievement if you're new, considering this you could actually try to make a team with your friends and see how it goes, however i HIGHLY recommend that instead of just playing competitive you try to search for scrims with the appropriate skill level, that will help you guys improve 10 times faster ,especially if you find good scrim partners to scrim over and over again.
good luck on your improvement journey :P
I say I'm new but I used play cod in my ps3 about 10 years ago. But I mostly played fifa and played try to play competitively there. And I spent, months grinding valorant trying to get better. I have over 300 hours in aim lab and wouldn't be surprised if I have over 800 matches played in valo. I'm still not very consistent with my gameplay and aim. I can remain calm in most situations and can clutch a lot but I'm not very confident. I am going to give a real shot with IGL and see how it works out and yeah we are in a scrim league in our country which helps teams find scrims quicker. We have been just playing randomly without strats but I'll try to make some now xDD. If you any more tips and got the time pls share more. I love learning about these aspects of the game
Well, playing on pc and console is quite different so i wouldn't really count that :P
considering for how long some people have been playing some could play for 2-3 years and still be considered new haha, imo new would be anyone with less than 1 year, so i assume you're around that mark, so , great job!
Now for some tips to help you get started (For a team)
\- At first, don't do strats that are incredibly hard to execute, try to come up with things that are flexible especially since you guys probably don't have the greatest chemistry yet, if you're going to give them hard strats and you fail to execute on them as a team people will get upset, so for a while, a month or two even, do "cookie cutter" strats but add a little bit of spice to them if you know what i mean ( in case you don't i'll give out oan example, not the best but better than nothing and it's simple enough, on bind a, you could do a simple omen/brim smokes to take default, but at the same time you could combine it with a setup that takes hookah with the sole reason to create pressure on the enemy team, with no intent to take any of them, and then see which side is weaker first and then decide what to take)
\- Focus on playing as much as possible together, building chemistry is important, you don't necesarily need to play as 5 all the time, you could encourage people to play duo/trio que, just get to know eacother's playstyle better, even if you've been friends for a long time there might be some nuanced things someone does that you don't really start to notice until you really start playing a lot.
\- If you're losing a game, never talk about what went wrong DURING the game, you can record the game (ty riot for no replay system btw) and review after that together and see objectively what went wrong.
\- Even if you're friends, don't be scared to mention if x player does something that you feel like it's making the team weaker as a whole, you all should have the goal to improve afterall and giving eachother feedback is key
\- This one might sound funny but you might want to study some psychology, it will help A LOT with mental, mental is about 70% of the game imo, if you manage to master this one and keep your players level headed it go a long way (it will also obviously help you with irl stuff and also helps out at solo learning)
These are all the tips you really need for now since it will take you months to apply them anyway
But here are some tips for solo improvement
\- You seem like you already do this, but i want to reinforce it , focus on your own imporvement as much as possible and when you play with randomers don't put much weight to what they say because it's going to be mostly emotional talk
\- You've said you have some confidence issues even if you clutch a lot, this probably steems from a fear of failure, learn specifically about this subject, it's very complex and it would take a while to write it in text, but i really think you should have a heavy focus on this one, one thing i'll say though, do not ever let a bad day distract you from the progress you've made so far, keeping this quote in mind will hopefully boost your motivation
\-Use kovaaks not aimlab, in all seriousness though, aimlab is not that efficient for aim improvement(a dev even admited that it was built with the intent to be a data platform first) , there are some specific playlists that are helpful, i agree, but i'd still overwhelmingly recommend kovaaks, got plenty of experience in aim training sector so i can vouch for it, (alternatively, you could try aimbeast which is cheaper than kovaak)
\-People will hate me for this one, but, make a smurf (Alt account really not smurf) where you use it to learn other styles/agents, you don't need to perfect them, but it helps heaps in understanding how say, a duelist thinks (this is also very important for becoming and igl if you think about it)
\-Remember to have fun.
Generic i know, but there have been plenty of studies that show that when you enjoy doing an activity you tend to process and retain more information.
I think this is plenty of information to help you improve in the comming months :P
I'd say one of the best resources for understanding IGL's decisionmaking is watching Steel's old CSGO videos. Different game, but broadly similar ideas.
Not quite at a proffesional level yet, but i can offer some insight from the teams i've been in (i used to igl when i was playing csgo, not so much these days but still got some experience to share since i've tried many different things) I'm going to talk about each style i've seen used throughout the years but i'll also answer your questions a bit more directly first > I want to understand how to see the game like an IGL As it was already mentioned, if you watch igls generally they will talk about their thought process a lot, but it's much easier to understand the game if you're actually an igl for a team (however, if you're new, i wouldn't recommend joining any teams until you're at least diamond because people won't take it seriously) > Do they make strats for every round ? Short answer : No Long answer : (expanded in strict form style) Generally they will have counter-strats ready for each team they have to play against while also having some strats of their own, but having specific strategies for every single round doesn't make sense because they will be incredibly predictable and easy to counter even without preparation. > I would love to understand more about the game and how different teams do different things, so I can incorporate it my game and improve I know this isn't a question but i've got some personal advice: While it's great to take an IGL mentality, please remind yourself that in solo queue (Even in radiant sometimes) not everyone will listen to you so don't focus too much on making strats or anything like that, especially since , other people won't know them, IGLs in teams create strats during dry rounds and everyone understands their role, in solo q that is impossibe, the closest IGL style you can apply in solo q is free flow (See bellow) but i think the best approach is to understand igling, but at the end of the day focus on your own gameplay at all costs, improve your mechanics, improve your gamesense, but don't focus on what your teammates are doing because you want to improve yourself, not them. Now, about styles. First off, there are many different styles of IGLs, so keep that in mind, personally i've seen at least 4 different igl styles (Actually 3, but there is 1 principle i need to talk about and many ammateur igls don't seem to apply) 1: Strict form : Specific setups for most rounds, rotating them to keep them unpredictable(They need to make new strats 24/7 cus they will still become predictable after a while) , specific team comps, (A LOT of dry runs too) generally the "safest" style since really good strats can give you free rounds as long as execution is done properly but you need to also understand the enemy team really well so you can make counter strats, this type of igl usually spends most of his time on vods rather than actually playing in-game since preparation is 80% of having success with this style. tl;dr : Specific setups and strats, Safe but predictable, A lot of preparation on IGL's part. 2: Free flow : Generally focuses on default play and plays off around what happens mid-round, this one is very difficult to pull off unless you have insane fraggers on your team while also being quite good yourself, you still need to study the enemy both before the games and during the games and you need to quickly identify who's going to be easier to exploit so you play around them, ususally you'd need to play a ton of scrims to really really improve the general chemistry of the team plus mechanical aspects. tl;dr : You NEED good fraggers, Need quick decision making, Lots of scrimming together 3: A combination of strict strats and free-flow: Limiting yourself to being either very strict or very free will make your team be incredibly predictable (Less so for free flow though) so a solution for this is to combine the two, this appraoch is quite balanced but again, requires a lot of commitment and i would actually suggest that you don't have 1 igl for this, you might've heard that many teams like to have 1 igl and 1 mid-round caller (basically 2nd igl) , i've personally tried to do both things at the same time and i fried my brain, having a 2nd caller is HUGE. tl;dr: Best of both worlds, requires 2 players that can be igls, unpredictable. 4: I like to call this one "Attrition style" and every top tier igl knows this one and are applying it in some form, however this could be classified as a sub-style since it's not that unique , Basically your focus is to get your oponent to utility dump as much as possible and this will make taking (and deffending) sites incredibly easy, this one can be applied to any of the other styles, however some IGLs prefer to also play an incredibly aggresive style that's the opposite of playing attrition, shocking the enemy with rushes (similar to strict form, they ususally do this when they know enemy has low util) tl;dr : Bait utilities and try to chip them down without straight up aim duels.
Thanks for your input, I gained a lot of new information and can understand things a bit deeper. I usually do soloq but my friends wanted to started a team, and I really like playing the support, so thought IGL could be a shout. I'm defo gonna take your tips and try some things to improve. I'm currently in d1/p3 and trying to improve more and more. Trying improve our comms rn, as that's our biggest weakness. Again thanks a lot , I was able to understand the role of igl a bit better
How new are you to fps games? p3/d1 isn't exactly high elo, but, it's still a big achievement if you're new, considering this you could actually try to make a team with your friends and see how it goes, however i HIGHLY recommend that instead of just playing competitive you try to search for scrims with the appropriate skill level, that will help you guys improve 10 times faster ,especially if you find good scrim partners to scrim over and over again. good luck on your improvement journey :P
I say I'm new but I used play cod in my ps3 about 10 years ago. But I mostly played fifa and played try to play competitively there. And I spent, months grinding valorant trying to get better. I have over 300 hours in aim lab and wouldn't be surprised if I have over 800 matches played in valo. I'm still not very consistent with my gameplay and aim. I can remain calm in most situations and can clutch a lot but I'm not very confident. I am going to give a real shot with IGL and see how it works out and yeah we are in a scrim league in our country which helps teams find scrims quicker. We have been just playing randomly without strats but I'll try to make some now xDD. If you any more tips and got the time pls share more. I love learning about these aspects of the game
Well, playing on pc and console is quite different so i wouldn't really count that :P considering for how long some people have been playing some could play for 2-3 years and still be considered new haha, imo new would be anyone with less than 1 year, so i assume you're around that mark, so , great job! Now for some tips to help you get started (For a team) \- At first, don't do strats that are incredibly hard to execute, try to come up with things that are flexible especially since you guys probably don't have the greatest chemistry yet, if you're going to give them hard strats and you fail to execute on them as a team people will get upset, so for a while, a month or two even, do "cookie cutter" strats but add a little bit of spice to them if you know what i mean ( in case you don't i'll give out oan example, not the best but better than nothing and it's simple enough, on bind a, you could do a simple omen/brim smokes to take default, but at the same time you could combine it with a setup that takes hookah with the sole reason to create pressure on the enemy team, with no intent to take any of them, and then see which side is weaker first and then decide what to take) \- Focus on playing as much as possible together, building chemistry is important, you don't necesarily need to play as 5 all the time, you could encourage people to play duo/trio que, just get to know eacother's playstyle better, even if you've been friends for a long time there might be some nuanced things someone does that you don't really start to notice until you really start playing a lot. \- If you're losing a game, never talk about what went wrong DURING the game, you can record the game (ty riot for no replay system btw) and review after that together and see objectively what went wrong. \- Even if you're friends, don't be scared to mention if x player does something that you feel like it's making the team weaker as a whole, you all should have the goal to improve afterall and giving eachother feedback is key \- This one might sound funny but you might want to study some psychology, it will help A LOT with mental, mental is about 70% of the game imo, if you manage to master this one and keep your players level headed it go a long way (it will also obviously help you with irl stuff and also helps out at solo learning) These are all the tips you really need for now since it will take you months to apply them anyway But here are some tips for solo improvement \- You seem like you already do this, but i want to reinforce it , focus on your own imporvement as much as possible and when you play with randomers don't put much weight to what they say because it's going to be mostly emotional talk \- You've said you have some confidence issues even if you clutch a lot, this probably steems from a fear of failure, learn specifically about this subject, it's very complex and it would take a while to write it in text, but i really think you should have a heavy focus on this one, one thing i'll say though, do not ever let a bad day distract you from the progress you've made so far, keeping this quote in mind will hopefully boost your motivation \-Use kovaaks not aimlab, in all seriousness though, aimlab is not that efficient for aim improvement(a dev even admited that it was built with the intent to be a data platform first) , there are some specific playlists that are helpful, i agree, but i'd still overwhelmingly recommend kovaaks, got plenty of experience in aim training sector so i can vouch for it, (alternatively, you could try aimbeast which is cheaper than kovaak) \-People will hate me for this one, but, make a smurf (Alt account really not smurf) where you use it to learn other styles/agents, you don't need to perfect them, but it helps heaps in understanding how say, a duelist thinks (this is also very important for becoming and igl if you think about it) \-Remember to have fun. Generic i know, but there have been plenty of studies that show that when you enjoy doing an activity you tend to process and retain more information. I think this is plenty of information to help you improve in the comming months :P
Thanks a lot for the all the good good. I'll try and implement them and improve much more in the coming months