Practices are the best time for your teams to improve. It gives coaches the opportunity to help students learn from failure and reflect on ways to improve. A typical practice can last 2-3 hours and includes team meetings, warm-ups, scrimmages, and cool-downs.

Team Meeting

Team meetings establish expectations and structure for your practice. This is your opportunity to address questions, establish a goal, and create a climate of trust and collaboration.

During this time:

Set individual and team goals.
Review and recap previous goals.
Discuss wins and learning moments from previous practices, scrimmages, or matches.

Examples of practice day goals: review previous scrimmage footage and practice a weak area, clear team communication, defending goals, aerial shots, minion wave clearing, etc.

Warm Up

Like traditional sports, warming up the body is essential for esports players to prevent injury. Warm-up muscles for gamers are wrists, elbows, fingers, shoulders, neck, and back.

Examples of a warm-up: 1HP Warm Up, GamerDoc, 1HP How to Stretch

Scrimmage

Utilize previous game-play to set an objective for your skill development in Scrimmages at PlayVS.

The Deliberate Practice theory states that to prevent plateauing, players should hone on a specific skill to increase overall playing ability. Skills can be practiced individually or as a team. Strategies can be practiced in custom matches with bots, other teams at your school, or connecting with schools via PlayVS Discord.

PlayVS Tip: To understand Deliberate Practice, watch JaKaTaKtv’s What is Sandbox? video, specifically 0:20-2:40.

Coaches can also use the PlayVS Discord server to connect with schools across the country. Scrimmaging against other schools allows teams to simulate and better prepare for match days. After a game finishes up, circle back and do a brief breakdown. Then, decide whether to continue practicing your objective or to move to a new skill or strategy.