@DzNutsKong
I sent you a DM on Discord
Replay sent was RN9C-D3DN-GQ5S-N1JK, on Inkblot Art Academy with the Order Charger Replica.
As a heads up, I don't play backlines or especially Chargers, but I felt I still had a few things to contribute. Take everything here with a grain of salt.
First up, Rainmaker pop. You correctly evaluate that it’s worth focusing on the pop and help out there given the comps, good stuff. It took not even ten seconds and there’s already a decision where it’d help more if I played backlines. I don’t know if I entirely agree with your decision to drop left here. A rule of thumb I’ve heard for backlines is to try and keep a teammate between you and your enemies. This does apply to mid, but you drop before you’re really able to tell if any of your opponents are also going to the left. You usually need an escape plan for if things don’t go as you intend for them to and a very easy thing that could have happened here is someone could have gone around the left side of the platform you end up standing against. Normally for a frontline weapon the play is to retreat back to the right on this map and defend yourself from there, but I don’t think one-shot Chargers can really do this.
Two people actually do go around left, but one tunnel visions a bit on the Rainmaker and you do have a teammate to defend from the other guy, so what happens as a result is you get what you want and end up hitting two shots, putting your team at a massive advantage. Great use of the terrain here in general both for hiding your laser from the Roller until you know you can hit them and to guarantee some distance between you and the N-ZAP as they drop. I like the following Ink Vac as well even if a slight nitpick would be to help your teammates pop the shield BEFORE using it so you get the pop a bit faster. Ultimately that has the same idea as what you did and I don’t know if you were just trying to use that as a failsafe for your teammates being too careless.
Your team gets the triple and you do end up correctly assessing whether or not you should grab the Rainmaker here before rushing forward. You guys end up with a wipe but unfortunately a Tristrike snags you and two of your teammates by the looks of it, so the push is dead. I get the idea of trying to dance around the Tristrikes the way you did even if it didn’t end up working. Your Splattershot player doesn’t seem to agree that the push is dead so you end up down a player as they push the Rainmaker up. The defensive spot you choose to stand in afterwards is probably ideal for this situation.
Next their Rainmaker drops and you choose to take two shots at it. I can’t say if you misjudge how much range your weapon has or were trying to read them rushing forward, but if I were to guess it’s the former? Happens either way. Your teammates all run in to try to get the Rainmaker and one of them trades with it. Cool.
After that you end up missing a shot on a Roller that ends up popping up where the Rainmaker was a few seconds ago. Here I wonder if something could have helped you. You already had a few teammates who dropped specifically to go after the Rainmaker. As the backline you will usually have the easiest time understanding where your teammates are and what they want. They all went after the Rainmaker and yet you put your focus into also going after the Rainmaker, which ends up with you seeming a bit surprised by the Roller appearing there and missing the following shot as a result. Had you acknowledged your teammates were all diving the Rainmaker you could have instead put your focus into other parts of the map that they wouldn’t be able to see or reach as easily. Maybe the Roller would’ve surprised you either way but this is food for thought.
Then your whole team goes down except for you. I’m unsure if you’re aware that nobody can really challenge you from there at that point but you’re currently standing in front of your teammates and not exactly laying low either. I also technically am unsure if you were aware you were the last person alive but not seeing any teammates on screen could have clued you into that. Getting the pick on the Aerospray wouldn’t have really done much since they’d still be a player up and could jump back in without much risk.
Here my priority would have been staying low until you’re certain you can impact the objective - specifically, try preemptively and quietly backing up a little to a spot where you’ll be safe after they pick up the checkpoint. You should be trying to fire one shot here, that being when the opponent is in the animation to dunk the Rainmaker in the checkpoint. The difference between checkpoint and no checkpoint is huge for slowing a team’s push down and this doesn’t seem to be what you’re focusing on as opposed to coming up with other ways to achieve that.
Up next you pop Ink Vac after noticing the opposing Charger which I don’t disagree with and then you get the pick with the resulting Rainmaker pop. Nice. I don’t think you respected the Charger enough after this though. You see them pop up again on top of that same platform after dropping with the Rainmaker. As you do this, you fully expose yourself to get the jump on them and end up getting killed for it.
To my knowledge the Charger mirror relies a lot on giving your opponent as few opportunities to shoot at you as possible even if it means playing slowly. You need to try and only barely peek from behind cover for as little time as possible as you shoot at them. From what I can gather the idea here might have been to desperately try and keep your Rainmaker carrier healthy by maximizing the chance you hit your one shot. Even if it was though, I would have put more trust in my teammates to position well rather than directly putting myself at risk.
What happened after this made me smile actually. Basically was a perfect execution of what I mentioned before with hitting them while they’re approaching the checkpoint. You noticed you were down three players after your opponents had likely been pushed back, so you stay low, paint a little bit for special, wait for an easy shot on the Rainmaker and nail it. Your opponents literally cannot push any closer to you because you hit that shot. Great job here.
Then your team ends up being up three players, with just their Aerospray being alive. You spend a lot of time worrying about them and end up giving away a potentially huge push as a result. The Aerospray is actually in an extremely ignoreable position because you, the Rainmaker, and all of your teammates can just push the objective forward and he would have to chase you down. His best chance would be to try and skirmish or make a predictable approach which any of your weapons could’ve stuffed out because…come on. It’s an Aerospray.
I’m not saying to completely take your eyes off of them but I would have not worried too hard about them and instead tried to go up and take space with the rest of your team. I would have ran up one of the platforms in mid and tried to put pressure on the rest of the opponents while keeping my camera pointed towards the Aerospray if at all possible.
Once your Rainmaker dies it’s just you, one guy and the opponents’ Rainmaker and Charger. I don’t disagree with the choice to use Ink Vac there even if the end result is unfortunate. You still end up being able to stall out the Rainmaker for a bit as your teammates are respawning and get a few nice picks here. I don’t have too much to say for a while because the objective lines get kind of weird at this point and it turns into everyone fending for themselves.
At around 1:10 remaining I do wonder if there’s any spot you could have stood to pose a threat to mid as opposed to the situation you found yourself in where you just backed off from the specials. Maybe there isn’t, or maybe the solution is just to move right in response to that Tristrike? You spent a pretty hefty amount of time just overwhelmed by special output and not really able to pose much of a threat to mid as a result. After this you get a pick that is nice but allows an opponent’s teammate to pick up the Rainmaker. I would have probably waited specifically until your opponent had picked it up rather than until you saw someone going to pick it up, but it turns out fine as a teammate snags them as they get close to your ramp.
Aerospray spooks you here but gets picked off by your teammates. I do kinda get you not being ready for that because they technically are down there but they are far enough to the right to the point where it could’ve been possible for them to slip by those two. Then you start painting for Ink Vac which is a good call given the situation and how important it might be to counteract your opponents’ final push.
But then your teammate grabs the Rainmaker and starts pushing forward. This is an understandable call since at the time only their Roller is alive. Your decision here ends up being to stay back rather than pushing in with your team. I understand the thought process individually, you’re playing one of the most potent weapons for stopping opposing Rainmaker pushes and there’s not much time left in the game, but I would have considered going in with my team here.
In general with this game there’s been a little of hesitance to push in with your teammates and I think it’s most pressing at this point. You want to play safe and end up letting your teammates go in and die as a result. The enemy’s side of the part of the map you’re standing on is the easiest way for them to go from their spawn to the Rainmaker and you can’t reach that space. If you want to wait for the enemies to get the Rainmaker and run it to you, then you’re placing way too much importance on yourself hitting a shot that might not be easy to hit for one reason or another, be it because of opposing specials, the carrier being cautious with you pulling a similar trick earlier, or just you not having many chances to take those shots.
Your idea isn’t bad here but ultimately ignores what all of your other teammates want. This can be fine sometimes but might not work even if you have insane mechanics. I would have pushed up onto one of the two platforms in mid. You do end up doing this later but it’s a little too late. What ends up happening is you block your own line of sight and miss a chance on a Shooter player as a result.
Then you go up and pop Ink Vac to the right. To be completely honest, I don’t understand why you’d do that here. You saw two Shooter players go to the left and don’t know where the Charger is unless I missed something. Even still, maybe you can give me some insight here but what would have happened best case scenario after you had popped Ink Vac? It looks more like a panic option than anything else but I want to hear what you would say. Ultimately though you do get lucky and have teammates behind you ready to turn that into a trade. The game ends after they don’t have enough time to grab the Rainmaker after a teammate picks one of their opponents off. Nice game regardless.
To Recap...
Here's the part where I'd jot down a few major, recurring points but actually I don’t know if there are any I can make here. Another big difference from me not playing backlines. My bad lmao. Regardless…
Hope this helped! Please let me know if anything here could be explained better or if you have anything else you’d like to ask or tell me about.
