March 4, 2026

1: Awareness

Awareness needed to be a lot better. Although at the beginning of most of the games we were doing well with keeping an eye on the roller/trislosher, as the games went on we eventually lost track and stopped calling it out. When there are weapons like that where we really struggle with their sharking capabilities we can't just get complacent with it we need to constantly be vigilant. Like we saw on the shipshape game if we don't make sure a weapon like that is cleared out before we push then there's a chance the push ends before it even begins.

We also can't just rely on something like auto bomb/point sensor/torpedo for situations like that because there's a chance that we won't have those sub weapons, but also we might not always have the ink tank to use them. Location subs help, yes, but they can't be a crutch.

2: Short Range vs. Long Range

Playing a shorter-ranged comp into a comp with an actual backline this time didn't go as well as we were hoping (but also they were just... way better than us mechanically and in terms of decision-making so there's not much we could do on that front). The problem is that we swung into the opposite end: we were playing way too scared/patiently to capitalize on anything and we were still panicking when we made big pushes. We can't always wait for an opening, sometimes we need to force ourselves into a situation to make an opening ourselves. At our level of play games are determined by who makes the more mistakes instead of who is playing the game more optimally.

When we play against backline comps with a backless comp, we need to start actively pressuring the backline by throwing bombs at them before we can push the rest of them out. There were a few times where we tried that but it didn't work because we either overcommitted or didn't commit fast enough. A backline is a threat to a backless comp, so we can't just let it live on its snipe for free. We'll have more bombs, so I think that using those to bomb a backline out of position will help.

3: Chaining specials

When we were chaining specials for retake it either worked out well and we crumbled because we couldn't fight off their incoming assault or we burned our specials too quickly and were punished for it. There were multiple retakes where we did really well and had good holds, but I think we fell apart in those situations because we also weren't fighting with each other and sort of went off on our own without bringing a teammate with us.

I do think that the Missiles → Hammer/Kraken → Crab → Reefslider/Bubble chain works. Missiles scatters the opponents so that they have to move out of key positions. While they're scattered, we can send Train in with either hammer or kraken to do some damage and scatter them further/corral them into the LOS of one of our weapons with a quick ttk (one-shots like wiper, decav, charger/pen, etc.) Then we can use the crab on a power spot/key point while they're respawning to keep them staggered near/in their base. Reefslider can play a similar role there, or we could use bubble to further hold a spot.

4: Decision-making

Our decision-making could probably have been much better too. I feel like we would decide on a play and overcommit to the point where we would get easily killed especially if we were pushing in without sufficient back-up. On the other end of the spectrum, I also feel like there were moments where we didn't commit enough.

Like I said up before, I feel like sometimes we wait for the "perfect moment" to arrive, but that's not always going to happen. Obviously if we see our opponent make a mistake then we need to punish it and use it to our advantage, but we also need to start thinking about what do we do when our opponents (like tonight) didn't make (as many) mistakes as we did. If they aren't making mistakes like other teams on our level would do in those situations, then it's not like we can wait for the perfect moment. We need to make it happen ourselves by forcing an opening.

That means we definitely need to work on our mechanics. There were multiple fights that I could have won if my mechanics were better (but what does it mean to have better mechanics?) I definitely should have lived longer in multiple places. We're trying our best to not rely on cooler as much as we used to, so we need to start thinking on how we can play patiently and safely without throwing our lives away and giving up way too much space.