How should i start with comp?

[GiggaPoggers]

Im thinking of going competitive, but i dont know where to start. Any advice for a newbie?

 

[sevenleaf]

i’m a very new competitive player (i just got on a team!) and my trajectory so far has looked like this:

• i spent a while just kinda observing from the outside, lurking in discord servers, watching competitive content, getting familiar with things like terminology and the tournament scene… if you do this you don’t have to do this nearly as long as i did (which was like, a year, mostly because i was hesitant to jump in for real lol)
• this past january i played in junior’s draft, just to get some tournament experience without having to put myself out there as a free agent. my team did not make brackets. BUT it was a good learning experience. i now know like, logistically, how playing in tournaments works!
• after that my plan WAS to play more draft tournaments (like idtga, spawning grounds…) to gain experience and maybe gather some cool results to eventually put on a FA post, but i was also keeping an eye on team recruitment spaces to see if any teams compatible with my level & goals (and looking for my weapon/role, which is not pencil cooler farmer, lol). this ended up working out for me!

there’s no one way to get into comp, though. i think a lot of people’s first step is to make a free agent post and put themselves out there; i mentioned wanting some tournament results to embellish mine with, but that’s not really a requirement from what i’ve seen, especially if you’re looking to join other beginners. i think a lot of teams want to see your existing FA post to use to consider you as a teammate, so having one might help you if you want to actively apply to teams rather than waiting for one to contact you. alternatively, i don’t think my initial plan of “play a bunch of draft tourneys before trying to join a team” was a bad one, even if i did end up abandoning it, lol

edit: also, if you’re looking quite literally for where to start, the inkopolis crosswalk discord server has links to several different servers that might be helpful to at least lurk in - recruitment & free agency, splatoon stronghold, several tournament organizations’ servers, etc etc…