Guild Sparring Teams

So as you all know guild sparring is an activity inside iClassic in which you and 4 others can enter the arena to do battle with another guild, but the "Guild Spar Tournament" Offers much more then this, it lets you create your own team a unique feature, but what if I was to put a twist on this and say that you and your team-mates could even have set roles, ladies and gentlemen today I present to you my guide to the perfect team :).

• What you'll need
• How to pick your members
• practice
• Set Roles

First off a guild sparring team is made up of 5 core players and 2 substitutes, but it's always good to take into account that its better to even have 5-6 more members just in case 1 person drops out.

When going through the recruitment process you'll want to be looking for players who are talented and amazing sparrers, a sort of "controversial" part of this process and choosing singles sparrers, often teams can make the mistake of choosing players who are great in a singles spar but horrible in the guild spar, BUT a good singles sparrer is generally going to be able to spar fine in a guild spar, although there are players who are better in a guild spar then a singles spar, choose players who aren't to laggy because in a GST match you can be disqualified for having a laggy player.

For practice set a time that the whole team has to be online, or maybe even have a separate tag that members can guild spar on whenever they want, but make sure none of them go rusty because this can effect your whole teams performance.

Now not many teams do this but in my opinion this can make or break your teams run in the GST.

• Leader
• Lurk
• Support

Generally you won't want your team spamming the guild chat, the leader will be the only one talking calling all the strats and positions for you to use the leader is the most experienced on the team

The Lurks role is too play for picks and help out like you normally would, if the lurk sees a player on 0.5 he will make his way through the crowd of players to get the pick forcing the other team in a 4v5 giving you the advantage, a lurk player can make or break a game so its important he can get in and get out unharmed or only losing .5-1 hp.

Support is the stock role for any guild sparrer, for example your lurk moves in for a pick on a player with 0.5 health, cover him as he escapes by putting pressure on the other team, you'll be playing as you normally would don't worry, so in smaller simpler way everyone on the team plays this role.

I made this guide for mixed teams mainly but I suggest that mixed teams use teamspeak3 to communicate during spars, its low ping (less lag) and easy to use download it here: www.teamspeak.com/?page=downloads
For an iDevice guide use angel roses guide here:
http://www.graalians.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25577
For a PC guide use Thallens guide here: http://sparschool.blogspot.com
For my other guide on going positive in singles spar go here: http://www.graalians.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28074


btw the roles have never been official just saying

The roles thing is new to me; has this been a thing for awhile and I've just been missing out?

I'm not sure if I came up with this idea myself for graal, but This system is well known in games like counter-strike,Its used by all the teams I've been apart of.

In my opinion, you are over-analyzing this waaaaaay too much.

I know Alumni doesn't use any sort of communication when we gs, nor do we have any set roles for the team, really. The core players just know what they're good at and don't choke hard, there isn't a real secret. And it's not like this doesn't work either, evidenced by the last 4 GSTs.

I'm now probably going to get a lot of hate just cause I mentioned the guild but whatever. Just my insight.

heh what why? not ur fault that alumni is full of adults (i supposed IDK?) that spar most of the time right

It's just that a lot of times when a good player/guild is mentioned a slew of people will fly in attacking it/them with personal insults or other forms of attempted trolls/bullying/whatever you want to call it. It's happened a lot, I've just gotten used to it/expect it. It's best not to bring it up.

I felt like i was reading a youtube video discription.Nicely written and well arranged.gg

:D tyty

Trust me I respect Alumni more then any other sparring guild atm (besides WAR of course :P)

you should add something about area control. guild spar is all about area control

true, imo if you can "trap" an individual between 2 players you have that control, so if you see someone run towards a corner punish them for it :D

i see a lot of players are just afraid to get hit so they won't move certain directions if they have that doubt. there are also Wiley players that will try and break your area control by moving out of your pattern. They are trying to hit you, but yet you are just trying to have dominant space. still the advantages are supported by skill. I'm more defensive in GS focusing on area and player support and I usually help teams greatly. I would really like to GS with some experienced players cause I'm a noob and I love killing.

Don't make it sound too complicated. Guild sparring isn't single spar. You just need five members that are capable of adapting zoning technique. Zoning is the most important skill in the guild spar. I don't recommend any teams to use the wall strategy, because if you wall you won't be having a space to dodge and become very predictable. It's best to have members that can charge in and pressure the enemy as a team, eventually the enemy will run out of space to dodge and will try to escape from it. However this technique doesn't work on foreign players, which is why I had such a hard time getting at them.
It's also important to remember not to die or lose your health fast. I've watched some of my past GST footage. My teams lost because of me dying too early. It was pretty much 4v5 for them, even though I roughly gave in about 5-6 hits.
Last but not least, the person in the center should be able to handle any opponents in three direction. Assuming that your back is covered, the person in the center can act as a support and pressure the enemy one by one and eliminate them as a team.
Every team has their own strategy. I personally do not discuss anything with my members, but I just happen to choose the right person to use. Practicing naturally helps a lot, but don't over do it or your enemy will read every one of your moves.

#pro'sopinion

Get a group of dudes/ladies that won't yolo in (and take bad trades) and you'll win.

The first non-overanalyzation! Praise be to Crono!