Becoming a professional esports player is something that many young men and women, and even not so young men and women, aspire to. Esports are a great avenue where you can demonstrate your talent and for all intents and purposes esports are a real sport. They take grit, determination, practice, and unflagging commitment to make it work. It’s one thing to go to your favorite Dota 2 betting site, such as dota-bet.com, and place a bet, but it’s another thing to make a career out of the same esports you are betting on. Today, we will talk about how to achieve just that.
1. Pick Your Game
The first and most important thing to do here is to pick a game that you truly enjoy and appreciate. There are many esports games you can pick from and this is the good news. You will be able to choose from shooters, MOBAs, and even real-time strategies, which are admittedly some of the hardest to get into.
MOBAs seem to draw the biggest audiences, but shooters tend to be the most appealing games that new players plunge into. Everyone enjoys different things as it is, and that is perfectly fine. Some of the leading esports titles you can try becoming a professional include but aren’t limited to:
- Valiant
- Overwatch
- League of Legends
- Counter-Strike
- Dota 2
2. Start Learning
Once you have your game selected, it’s time to start learning everything you can about the game. Our advice is to start very simply. Teach yourself movement, orientation, and learn about abilities and characters.
Learn the layouts of a map, how to interact with others and start working your way towards deeper understanding. Make sure you are having fun while playing, and stick with the characters that give you greater satisfaction. This means that you have found a natural role for yourself without even trying.
3. Copy the Meta
Once you are done with the so-called “ropes” of the game and know a thing or two about the games you are going to play, it’s time to get serious about your learning. To achieve this, you need to understand something that is called “the meta.”
The “meta” refers to the optimal pace and mode of play. The term refers to the best strategies and the things you should be doing or trying to be doing. You can simply copy the meta, but it’s always advisable that you try to understand it by going deeper and looking into what the game actually has to offer. To achieve this, you simply need to dig deeper into the game and learn more about what is happening. People who study the meta all share some key qualities.
They like to “theory-craft,” which means that they take a condition about the game and try to improve it. Is a certain build or strategy good? Can you counteract it? To be on top of the meta you will have to read through patch notes and try to relate these patch notes to actual game understanding, too.
4. Analyze Your Mistakes
To really move forward, you need to study your own mistakes. If you are losing, it’s not because your opponent is so much better – or that they are better in the first place. Rather, you are making more mistakes than they are and this can easily get in the way.
But, how do you get to the point where you make fewer mistakes? There are several ways to do this in fact. The first one is the most time-demanding. You need to watch your own replays and see yourself from aside.
You must look into your game behavior as an independent observer, so watching replays. However, this takes time and a lot of time. If you are truly committed, though, you will do your duty with unflagging determination, which is not always the case for everyone.
To avoid this as a whole, you can just reach out to someone who is already experienced and willing to train you. They can feed you all the info you need to know and thus help you analyze your mistakes much, much quicker in the end.
5. Watch Others Play
Professional players have a little too much ego, and this is understandable. After all, they are at the very top of their field and they do not need to apologize to anyone for that. Yet, it’s good to watch others play while you are an esports professional in the making.
It will give you a sense of what you can implement into your own game with the ultimate goal being playing to your best ability. Of course, you have to allocate sufficient time to training your muscle memory, too. In other words, make sure you find the perfect balance between watching and playing.
6. Seek Knowledge
Do not limit yourself to practices that may not be optimal. Always question events in a game and learn why they happen. Understanding orb effects in Dota 2 could be very helpful and so is understanding a thing or two about your abilities in League of Legends.
When something happens and you cannot really explain it, it’s best to take a step back and ask yourself – why is this happening? What can I do to counterweigh it or even make sure that I learn from it? Seeking knowledge is one of the best pieces of advice we can put forward for you to benefit from today.
7. Teach Yourself Discipline
The one thing that gamers should have is discipline. The most successful players didn’t get there because they played for fun or after school. In many cases, they spent tremendous amount of time playing, which is the way to succeed. To put it this way, if you are just good at a game and you play it only as a form of recreation, you won’t get too far.
Sure, you will dominate the ELO or MMR, or whatever ranking metric the game you have chosen uses. However, to truly excel, you have to challenge yourself against new and smarter opponents who are just as driven as you are to succeed and do not take losses easily.
To get there, you will need discipline and a commitment to the game you have chosen. This means creating a schedule, getting enough sleep, and making sure you are having enough practice to make a game truly work.
8. Do Not Blame People
The most important thing to growth is being able to maintain a positive outlook when difficult times come. Unfortunately, no matter how well we manage our lives or esports careers, there will eventually be a hard spell and when those come, it’s important that we are prepared and remain committed.
Playing esports means being under a lot of pressure, and this could easily prompt you to play the “blame game,” which you don’t want to do. Instead, positive attitude is best. Positivity is infectious and it easily crawls under people’s skin and allows a team to come back from the verge of collapse, whether this is esports or even mainstream athletic competitions.
9. Do Things Outside the Game
A Starcraft player by the name of Lee “Flash” Young Ho once famously responded to a reporter who asked him what he did in his free time. “I play other races,” Flash said. While this makes for a humorous anecdote, many professional esports teams today see the value of spending time outside the game as well.
Esports organizations today generate millions of dollars and companies pay esports players big salaries. In other words, they want to make sure that you are physically fit and feeling well. This means regular exercise and good, healthy food.
10. Learn How to Lose
Losing is a difficult skill to learn. People tend to lash out, get upset, and get demotivated and depressed. “What’s the point” is a question many promising and successful players have asked many, many times. The thing is they have looked past this temporary setback, took it in stride, and bounced back in a way that allowed them to continually develop their abilities.
Learning how to lose is one of the best skills you can teach yourself on the way to becoming an esports professional. It’s not going to be easy, because emotions will certainly get in the way. The good news is that you can do it.
