definitely not

to an extent

Pugs can teach you what other classes do, positioning, and even strats.

pugs are chaotic, its easier to get away with certain things compared to scrims...which is why it doesn't always translate well. so its good not to develop bad habits in that sense

I review invite/IM demos usually as a whole, like an overhead view to get an idea on the whole game rather than just one person.

fuck this turned into a rant, sry

This is an important thing many players don't realize. When you watch overhead you get a much better idea of how a team, or even an individual plays. First person speccing may be more entertaining but you're blind to more or less everything, seeing how players interact and position relative to each other will teach you more about the game than watching some dudes mouse movements when you have no idea what info he has available from comms.

Even if you just wanna watch one person, the overhead will give you a much better idea of their awareness and ability to react to whats happening around them than pov

if you watch the pov of a REALLY good player(especially great demos + meds), it's a different experience than most povs. When watching banny for example, he keeps basically everything important on his screen at all times. It's partially positioning, and great awareness + comms in mumble, but he knows what is happening everywhere, at all times. It's almost impossible to catch him off guard because he keeps his eyes on every path that someone could be using, or he KNOWS his teammate has eyes on it and can be relied on to give the early call. Knowing what exactly is going on around you via calls is great, but you will never be able to react as quick as you would seeing it yourself.

Being caught off guard is your own fault 90% of the time, sure sometimes you won't get the call etc etc, but most of the times if you had been in a better spot, turned a different direction so you can see choke + flank instead of just one, you won't get surprised by the scout who's been hiding for 30 seconds. It's just like an rts, if your mechanics are solid and you know how to handle most situations, the player who wins is the one who has the most information about what his enemy is doing/his teammates are doing

i like to think of pugs as organized dm

also better than dm because everyone isn't lit usually and faced away from you

Pugs will help you a lot more to get into competitive, and definitely help you more than pubbing, MGE or surfing will ever do. Overall, scrimming is the best practice, but if you aren't scrimming than pugs are the next best option.

Pugging can be really helpful if you come into the pug with a specific goal in mind. Like trying not to die the whole pug as medic, calling ALL your damage as demo, or trying new hiding spots 'n shit as roamer. Obviously pugs will never be a replacement for scrimming, but they can be helpful for working individual parts of your play.

Lol, surfing helps?

surfing jumping

It helps with surfing rockets and stickies, but outside of that I don't think it does.

I'm into comp. I'm in open and classified as mid, maybe higher idk, but I do have the basics down, I think pugs helps with that much like newbie mixes did. I am a roamer so I do believe that what I'm doing is better for me really.

I do see the dm aspect as a good idea, but I mean I'd rather just go into a dm server, it's not world changing, and I feel that I'd be doing more shooting and less respawning/stalemating.

MGE, jumping, and surfing are things I like to do rather than pug or pub. They don't necessarily make me better at anything really, but they aren't completely useless.

Thanks for the rant boomer it was a good read ^.^

I think pugs are really good practice before you scrim regularly with a team (like when you are new). At the point where you are scrimming multiple times a night (like 10 a week at least), I don't think a lot of players get huge results from pugging unless they have just not played too many individual games of 6v6.

The way I learned it was:

League Matches > Scrims > Pugs > MGE/DM > Jump maps/surfing/etc

pugs teach you to bait your teammates harder

scrims>demo reviews>matches>practice(dm,mge,etc)>pugs

I really like this priority. It's nearly identical to mine.
Guess it's not a coincidence that a lot of my advice comes from youmustmike lol.

Once you've started and you know the basics of 6v6/9v9, I think pugs are really helpful to get a really diverse range of calling styles and opinions on how to handle different in-game situations. I feel that a player can use this diversity to adapt and improve in their own game. I can still remember important stuff high level players of the past told me back when I was starting out.

Pugs probably aren't essential, but there's no downside if you find them fun.

I agree with this comment. When you play with your team you have to play your role and do what you are supposed to be doing for your team, which leads you to improve your game in that way.
In pugs you can be creative, if you play scout you can go ahead and try some sneaky flank pinch and not give a fuck if it doesn't work, or if you play roamer for your team you can try pocketing and see how you do (and vice versa if you main pocket). Also, pugging with the right players can give you a hint on how much have you been improving overall from playing with your team.

yeah hellbent mike is the man.

networking

Here's what I think my ideal path to learn competitive would be.

1. pub (to familiarize with classes, mechanics, gameplay objectives)
2. watch matches (to learn very basic game sense)
3. soap dm/mge/jump (to get dm JUST high enough to not be completely put off in first 6s game)
4. newbie mixes
5. lobbies (just a few)
6. pugs AND find a team/scrims
7. review demos

Once well into tf2 career, order of importance is (IMO)

scrims>demos>pugs/dm/mge/jump

Once you find a team, pugs are completely optional assuming you scrim regularly. If you enjoy them and feel you learn, then great - you should play them. If not, scrims will be enough.

can pugging be translated to mixing for us nonyanks

I believe a scrim is for trying things, like you said pugging is. A match is more of you know what do to and don't try new things, not necessarily a scrim.
I usually get multiple people to review my demos to get a wide view, and I try the advice in scrims and such. Reviewing demos also does this better imo.

Pugging could be good I guess. I think it'd be more of a hassle trying to find a good one where one side isn't rolled, people comm'ing and giving advice, than just doing something that will most likely be helpful 100% of the time. 1 out of the 15 pugs I've played was like that. I can't lie, I learned a little bit, but that was so long ago.

I'm led to believe it's mostly personal preference either way, but I do think reviewing demos helps a lot more than pugging.