by GuyHero1234

5-Stack or Solo-Q?? What’s better

It’s all personal preference but there are many benefits and drawbacks to both solo-q’ing and 5 stacking ranked. Each focuses on a different skill and hones in on that.

Solo-Q

Youtuber Aust1n (with around 75k+ subs) put out a video 6 months ago titled How To Solo Queue. In his video, he highlights some important tips and ways to play ranked by yourself that will help you improve and win that game. One of the more important things he says in the video happens at the 50-second mark or so, Aust1n says “you should be able to rely only on yourself and not rely at all on your teammates” This is one of the things that you should take to heart. To me, that means take the game as a 1V5 and your choices should take advantage of every piece of information you have at your disposal. The best way to get better, in my opinion, is solo-q BUT, you need to have the right mindset going into it.

5-Stacking

5-Stacking focuses more on your team skills such as comms and abilities to coordinate a push or to coordinate a pinching maneuver on an enemy. You will start to see 5-Stacks more in the higher ELO range as well so it is recommended to have a dedicated 5-Stack backup when you get to that level.

Mindset

I don’t know how many of you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, but in short, he is a self-made millionaire who went from rags to riches. Here’s a quote by him and I’ll explain it after “Stop complaining. Stop making excuses. Nobody is listening.” – Gary Vaynerchuk. Now take this into consideration, how many times have you died and you said or thought “Oh, He’s hacking” or “How was that not a headshot” I’ve personally done this multiple times but here’s the trick, NEVER try and shift the blame from yourself to others for you dying, ( unless they were actually hacking and in that case, it’s pretty obvious). The next time you die, instead of pressing a button to skip that kill cam, watch it through, and think “What could I have done differently in that instant that would have prevented me from dying” Whether it be better crosshair placement, not sprinting, or literally anything else, never blame the person who killed you or your teammates for your death. Now I’m willing to bet some of you are typing away “But, What if my teammate says a room is clear and it isn’t?” Well I’m gonna have to say you could have either checked your corners (which you should be frequently doing anyway) or you could have flicked onto the person who killed you. Again, there is ALWAYS something you could have done to prevent your untimely demise in the game.At the time of this posting, I am working on an extensive mindset guide so stay tuned for that in the coming future!!

The Game itself

This might or might not go out of date if Ubi changes ranked to a more Pro League style of format with Pick and bans and all that good stuff.

Team Comp

My first and possibly only thing to say here is to pick operators that you are comfortable with and also counter the enemy teams play style. Referencing Aust1n’s Video again will help you pick operators that counter the enemy. Of course, some of the things he mentions is quite out of date with the introduction of people like Clash and Nomad for example.

• Pick operators that synergize well with your teammate’s picks. For instance, if you already have a Mira, picking Jager, Mute, Bandit, Kaid, might help the Mira and the window stay alive for longer, allowing more use out of it.
• On attack, if you already have a Thermite (or Hibana) and a Thatcher then picking a soft breacher like Ash, Zofia, Buck, or Sledge would make it just that much harder for the defenders to hold onto one of the bombsites with the number of angles they have to watch.
• There are some maps and cases where a hard breacher is not entirely necessary (Coastline being the only one I can think of RN) and it is Ok to run a team comp that is more geared to taking a site effectively and easily

Attacking Prep Phase

• If you are Twitch, for the love of god please don’t take your drone inside the building, Just drive it around to where you are spawning so when you spawn you can pick it up. I say this because, if the enemy doesn’t know that there is a Twitch attacking, the less likely they are to have their eyes peeled looking for the slightest hint that there is a Twitch. In my experience Twitch thrives on the element of surprise and striking when the defenders least expect it.
• If in a 5 stack, have 2-3 people drone out the building and the other two place their drones outside where they are spawning and make sure the drone can see the most common spawn peek spot from where it is so you can call out “Spawn peek from kids window” and your teammates know to watch that angle when approaching.
• For the 2-3 people with their drone inside the building, I typically like to say, “I will check kitchen and Kids” that way my teammates know not to take their drone near there so we can cover the most ground in the 45 seconds that are given. If the room I checked is clear I like to hide my drone in the closest room that is not usually played in, Or I will take it outside and get it close to where I spawn if I am close to an exit.
• That’s about it for prep phase for attackers.

Defending Prep Phase

• I would highly suggest watching some videos (I.E King Georges map defense strats) to know where your reinforcements should go, and if not DirtyDave has some more recent videos about where to reinforce
• I always highly suggest that the three armors go and reinforce hatches, as many three armors have very little to do in the prep phase and it lets the roamers get their equipment down faster, allowing them to get further away from the site and more time to position themselves where the attackers least expect them to be.
• There is not much more to cover from my experience other than making sure you know where and why to reinforce certain walls, even if they are not close to the site

Action Phase

First I would like to thank CJChrome for helping me understand the Attack/Defender Action phases better.

You’ve got three minutes to either, capture the objective, plant the defuser or grab the hostage as an attacker. I highly recommend you play bomb most of the time, but it is your personal preference and how you play is how you play.

As a defender, you have 3 minutes to do literally everything you can to prevent the attackers from getting anywhere near the site.

Attacking and Defending

Now here is where I jump off the train of thought I have been on for this entire post. Attacking and defending are purely based on how well your Aim, Map knowledge, and game sense are developed. I can not tell you “This is how you attack X site” or “This is how you defend Z site”I would highly recommend watching pro-league and pay close attention to where they station players and their utility and learn from where and why they do the things they do. The more you learn from the pro’s the more likely you are to think and play like a pro.

CJChrome told me this, and it has helped me tremendously

” What makes the difference is gameplay. One thing I see people do on either attack or defense is when watching a doorway, they aim where the enemies’ crotch would be, which is not good. When waiting for any player, whether it be defense waiting for attackers or attackers waiting for roamers or people getting aggressive, they should be placing their crosshair where the enemies’ head would be. The idea and phases of attack and defense are simple, it’s just the fact that people need to practice, get used to the maps, aim for the head, and maybe work on reflexes. You have a better chance of surviving with a faster reflex, and reflexes can be trained to be faster. Another gameplay tip, which I see a lot of lower levels mess up on is leaning the wrong way. A lean should be so that the majority of your body is hidden by the structure you’re behind while your head is the one peeking out, it shouldn’t be the other way around, your body shouldn’t show up for them before your head does. You could go into detail on how to deal with roamers, talking about how to clear the roamer or what to do in those types of situations. “

Some Tid-Bits of info

So that’s it, the guides finished. Now here are some quick tips that might help you in ranked and casual!!

• Don’t be greedy for the kill. If you down someone and can’t finish it off call out that ” Rook is down in laundry” that way your teammates know to watch for a rotate to revive their fallen comrade. If you down someone and can finish it off but you might die doing so, don’t go for the kill, You being alive later in the game at max HP while the other is at 50 is a big difference, trust me.
• Have fun. This is a game after all right?? You will play better when you are having fun and not taking the game like it’s a life or death scenario for you IRL. If you find yourself getting flustered and angry, get off of the game and got outside, get something to eat, or watch youtube (don’t watch siege content tho). You want your mind to reset and if you keep thinking about it.
• Perfect practice makes perfect. The more you play the game, the more you learn the maps and such. If you want to work on aim, go to T-Hunt Classic on any map of your choosing, pick your favorite op, put their gun on single fire, and only shoot the terrorist heads. Put on some music that hypes you up (for me it’s the Van Halen Best of Both Worlds Album) and go to town. Pretend you accidentally ticked a headshot only option and you can only kill them Via a headshot. When you get to a C4 room, practice flicking between the C4’s trying to hit them all without missing or over or under compensating your shot