Today we're going over the topic in-game leading, what it is, why it's necessary and why everybody can do it.

What is an In-game leader?

An IGL (short for in-game leader) is the one who calls out the rotations, strategies, how his team mates should position themselves, when specific parts of the map should be pushed and a lot more. He's the brain of the team and thus an very important member to have. Every top level team has an in-game leader, an example would be Mathias 'MSL' Lauridsen from Team Dignitas, he does everything I listed, and much more.

Why is it so important?

There's an easy answer for that. Without an IGL your team would be playing the so called PUG" (pick-up game) style, which means you're going to run around and try to get entry picks. It's a free playstyle and everybody is doing his own thing. This is mostly played in its name giving pick-up games, a game where a bunch of players that don't know each other are just playing.

With an IGL you're getting structure in your team, everybody knows what they need to do, knows what and when he should flash, when he should push, and all kinds of different things which need a deeper tactic. I mentioned that a IGL also calls strategies, so called "set strategies", which are pre-defined executes on one of the two bombsites. This means that every player has a role for the execute. Two of the players are smoking entrances off, one is flashing trough a chokepoint, and the other two are charging in first. This would be an example of a set strategy. Most of the IGL also give their set strategies names. This one could be called "default push."

Another example could be a fast mid take on Cache, which would need a guy smoking off the Mid connector, one guy flashing and three people pushing trough T-Main.

Example drawing for the fast mid take on de_Cache

How can I be an IGL?

There is no requirement or some poll who is going to be the IGL. Just raise your voice in a PUG or anywhere else. Just call something out, and you can be the volunteer IGL for that PUG. It's different with a set team though. In a team that's playing in leagues or is competing, the IGL mostly is the one who isn't that much of an madfragger, but more of an tactician, someone who knows a lot of the game and has a top tier gamesense. Try it, and if you like it to be the brain of your team then continue to do it.

Conclusion

If you're pugging and need an IGL, just do it if you want to. It rises your chances of winning that PUG! If you want to be an IGL of your own team, just practice it. Watch demos of pro players, listen to the POVs of some matches and hear what the IGL of each team are calling out in specific scenarios. Practice makes perfect, and it's not different in this category. With time comes more experience, and you need a lot of it for the role of an IGL, because it's hard thing to make perfect calls in each game state.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the in-game leader role and I hope you also learned something.

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