The biggest thing that has helped me be successful is to make sure you call regularly and consistently. Therefore you and your team are comfortable and able to react to the calls come match time.

the most important part of main calling is confidence!

i press tab and say what i see

if this is for a team, then a really useful thing to do is go over demos as a team and when you discuss at length with each other your calls should become significantly better. you understand what you're all looking at and so whenever you say something to your team its a little more meaningful, the more you understand whats going on through each others POVs and the more effective even really short calls can become

-call damage
-call positioning
-talk a lot
-have a distinct voice
-have a hot voice that will get the people in your mumble hot and bothered
-call who needs heals
-be predicting pushes/kritzes/etc, uber percentages/advantages/disadvantages

yeah

most of all? be loud and precise in your calls. bad calls are better than no calls because standing around is stupid

also yell a lot if that's yo style

If something doesn't work blame your team, it's always their fault

It sounds funny but this is great advice. Just general status updates on what's going on in the game can help a lot. "Heals on gray." "Holding lobby." It helps a lot even though it's information you'd expect everyone to know. Keeping everyone on the same page is really the most important part of it.

-As maincaller it is essential you maintain a spotless record, so any mistake you make (eg calling for a pyro, spy and two snipers to mid) must be shifted to other teammates in order to maintain your golden image (It would have worked if you guys did useful practice like pyro mge rather than dumb dm all day). On top of this, make sure your teammates are aware of your mustardoverlord levels of dm and gamesense by screaming into the mic at every hit airshot or even just directs if you're having an off day. It's not mumble clutter if it reminds people how great you are!

-Make sure nobody goes unpunished for even the tiniest mistake. If your roamer takes fall damage on his rollout, teach him a lesson by not giving him a single heal for the duration of the round. Spare the stick, spoil the teammate!

-People may get bored of the game and quit/form an offclass team/shift to dota if there is ever a point where you are not keeping up a flow of noise out of your mouth and into their ears. Any time you have nothing to say, say something! What you had for lunch, the dump you took earlier, how much weed you smoke, all are great starting topics. Remember, the worst thing you can do is give anybody else a chance to speak.

Practice it in pugs, a lot. Focus on having a good tone, being concise, clear, confident, and loud enough/understandable. Calling actions (like back up) is usually better than describing the situation (like we're down numbers), it's one less step the rest of your team has to think about when performing.

Also everybody on the team should generally call what they're doing, whether they're pressuring one area, backing up, supporting another player, etc.

just get good at blaming other people and instantly people think you know what youre talking about

source: experience

Good attitude + not whining, doing "hindsight" analyses of plays, focusing on things that have already happened - Super important to keeping comms good and clear.

Knowing how to play different situations comes down to experience and knowing your team.

Thats because it always is your fault!

thanks!

I like you man.

But seriously, thats really great advice. I would have never thought this way until now, gonna this style out.
(Edit: Spelling)

Do not call irrelevant stuff - unless it was a double airshot

- a silent mumble stays silent so talk all the time, but make sure you're not being overbearing

- always always always know what ubers are looking like, even if your medic always knows/is supposed to know.

- pocket is the best position to main call because he can peek the most corners and call positioning quite easily thus seeing the most things(a scout or buffed roamer can do this on the flank as well).

BE TYRONE

Commonly overlooked is the fact that your team needs to listen to the main-caller. Even if the call isn't ideal, 6 players on the same page will result in a play with a much better chance of success than 3 players going and 3 players arguing.

If you're scrimming, it's probably better to just go with the call and discuss why it was a poor call later. This makes sure you're all on the same page and it also gives the main-caller the opportunity to see his/her choice fail which enables that person to learn from it.

also if somebody ELSE fucked up, take no more than 5 seconds to point it out if pointing it out at all

always own up to fuckin up to keep the scrim moving along and keep people focused on whats happening and not what happened

ex. "our medic died because i wasnt watching the choke, my bad guys"
"ya sorry i missed 2 rockets and every shotgun we shouldve done more work with that uber"

etc

you have all post scrim to talk about what went wrong and why, dont drown comms in diagnosing the problem mid game

this so much and what mason said

calling someone out or arguing when you're getting fucked kills the mumble atmosphere fast and makes people play worse

Little known fact, it's litterally always yaks fault

if a teammate messes up in an actual match, ask him if he's throwing bro???

See www.mikemarcin.com for additional tips and tricks

this puts it pretty well

This a thousand times.

***unless that person is alfa and he's telling you to use kritz through an obviously stickied badlands choke when the entire other team is behind spire not peeking. got dam transylvanians

If you're going to main call, it is important for everyone on the team to completely respect you. One issue that I've seen other teams have is that the main caller says something and then half the team undermines him because they think that they know better.

A great way to get others on your team to respect you is to LISTEN to their criticisms and realize that you do not know everything about the game. The quality of the interpersonal relationships in a team has a direct correlation to the kind of response that your team will give to your calls.

I know that all sounds obvious and stupid, but I see too many teams suffering from it when they shouldn't.

EDIT: Double post - please delete.

You should use the search function.

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/8384/1

Platinum and myself made some pretty good points in here (24 & 20, respectively), both of us having been main callers for our respective teams for quite a while.

To answer your question in the latter part of your post, probably demo/pocket, as they're typically leading the helm of a push & the highest damage dealers. Medic is also with these players the most, and is generally able to see the majority of the positioning and health of their team. In the end, it really just comes down to preference and style.

eg - I main call for immunity. On the flipside, knoxxx and numlocked maincall(ed) for epsilon.