I’ll try to keep the question part short: I received two conflicting opinions about process mid that I wanted to share and get more opinions on. Appreciate any discussion or insights, especially from high level players - both opinions are my summarized understanding from adv. players.
For clarification: Left meet / Left meat => the perspective of a team that plays left against a team that is playing right.
Opinion 1: (Left Meat = Passive, Right Meat = Aggressive)
On a left meat mid you’re looking to play passive as the proximity of the geometry generally ensures the opposing team will have control of your crate first. This is fine as your demo can efficiently clear them off while your combo has enough room and ground to maneuver to dodge spam. After you’ve knocked their players off height, you can take control of your crate or simply bomb past it while the enemy team is locked into a corner.
Conversely, on a right mid you gain immediate control of the crate - but have to quickly aggress to take advantage of this control or else as soon as you lose your height you have no ability to continue fighting the mid/stay in.
Opinion 2: (Left Meat = Aggressive, Right Meat = Passive)
On a left meat mid you’re looking to play aggressive as your combo can’t play close to deny the high ground due to lack of cover from spam, and if they back out too far your flank will get focused into losing all high ground control of the mid. This aggression is especially true for your medic who doesn’t have the ability to play off the exposed pack and so needs to commit close to forwards off space made from your bombers.
On right mids, you can play passive as control of their crate gives you an effective bunker or kill zone to deny or efficiently trade bombers. If they don’t send bombers - then with your high ground control you can have your demo push forward to the pack where he can effectively lock out the opposing combo to win the mid.
I’ll try to keep the question part short: I received two conflicting opinions about process mid that I wanted to share and get more opinions on. Appreciate any discussion or insights, especially from high level players - both opinions are my summarized understanding from adv. players.
For clarification: Left meet / Left meat => the perspective of a team that plays left against a team that is playing right.
Opinion 1: (Left Meat = Passive, Right Meat = Aggressive)
On a left meat mid you’re looking to play passive as the proximity of the geometry generally ensures the opposing team will have control of your crate first. This is fine as your demo can efficiently clear them off while your combo has enough room and ground to maneuver to dodge spam. After you’ve knocked their players off height, you can take control of your crate or simply bomb past it while the enemy team is locked into a corner.
Conversely, on a right mid you gain immediate control of the crate - but have to quickly aggress to take advantage of this control or else as soon as you lose your height you have no ability to continue fighting the mid/stay in.
Opinion 2: (Left Meat = Aggressive, Right Meat = Passive)
On a left meat mid you’re looking to play aggressive as your combo can’t play close to deny the high ground due to lack of cover from spam, and if they back out too far your flank will get focused into losing all high ground control of the mid. This aggression is especially true for your medic who doesn’t have the ability to play off the exposed pack and so needs to commit close to forwards off space made from your bombers.
On right mids, you can play passive as control of their crate gives you an effective bunker or kill zone to deny or efficiently trade bombers. If they don’t send bombers - then with your high ground control you can have your demo push forward to the pack where he can effectively lock out the opposing combo to win the mid.
im not gonna explain it but left is aggressive and right is passive. thats all. cheers
im not gonna explain it but left is aggressive and right is passive. thats all. cheers
I think it's simplifying too much to say that one direction is *always* passive and one *always* aggressive since a lot of the aggression part of it depends on if the opposing team is actually gonna meet you there, which is usually a coin flip. If your team is struggling I'd consider getting more granular with your mid strategies.
e.g.:
"We're going left, we're going to take their crate aggressively and fight for it if they meet us, we play passive if they don't meet us"
OR
"We're going left, we're going to take their crate aggressively and fight for it if they meet us, if they don't meet us we'll high bomb our roamer, rotate back to the right and take a fight with them near our sewer."
etc.
Also worth considering, from a demoman POV: if their roamer fast rolls out a lot it makes aggressive left mids much harder since they can easily just land on their team's crate, deny your demo your pack, which gives their team a lot of control over that side. Obviously this is a good thing for your roamer to do often if you like playing right side passively since this one move denies a lot of potential aggression from the other team on that side early on.
I think it's simplifying too much to say that one direction is *always* passive and one *always* aggressive since a lot of the aggression part of it depends on if the opposing team is actually gonna meet you there, which is usually a coin flip. If your team is struggling I'd consider getting more granular with your mid strategies.
e.g.:
"We're going left, we're going to take their crate aggressively and fight for it if they meet us, we play passive if they don't meet us"
OR
"We're going left, we're going to take their crate aggressively and fight for it if they meet us, if they don't meet us we'll high bomb our roamer, rotate back to the right and take a fight with them near our sewer."
etc.
Also worth considering, from a demoman POV: if their roamer fast rolls out a lot it makes aggressive left mids much harder since they can easily just land on their team's crate, deny your demo your pack, which gives their team a lot of control over that side. Obviously this is a good thing for your roamer to do often if you like playing right side passively since this one move denies a lot of potential aggression from the other team on that side early on.
Left is the more aggressive approach, right is the more passive approach.
However, any kind of mid really boils down to what your roamer and scouts plan to do (and sometimes your pocket if they act as another roamer on mid). Is your roamer going to create space by jumping into them? Are your scouts going to take fights aggressively, take height control, or play passively as a blob? Are the enemy soldiers diving into your medic and demo, and if so, do you respond by letting your scouts fall back to deny them? Or do you try to counter with your own aggression?
While there's certainly a gameplan on mid for where you should go in the first few seconds, the rest of it is all about adapting. This applies to every map.
Left is the more aggressive approach, right is the more passive approach.
However, any kind of mid really boils down to what your roamer and scouts plan to do (and sometimes your pocket if they act as another roamer on mid). Is your roamer going to create space by jumping into them? Are your scouts going to take fights aggressively, take height control, or play passively as a blob? Are the enemy soldiers diving into your medic and demo, and if so, do you respond by letting your scouts fall back to deny them? Or do you try to counter with your own aggression?
While there's certainly a gameplan on mid for where you should go in the first few seconds, the rest of it is all about adapting. This applies to every map.
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