Think your teammates bring you down? It's not them, it's YOU

Teammates bringing you down? Nope, it's not them, it's you. You're the problem. Read here for a champion-level play-by-play of why you're the problem and the things you can do to alleviate it.

Introduction

If you think your teammates are bringing you down, I'm sorry. It's not them, it's you. You're the problem. Now, I'm not saying that your teammates don't make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, and plenty of them. But time after time I've found one thing to be true while playing this game. If you EVER get to the point wherein you're blaming your teammates game after game, the problem is with you.

You can only fix what you do, not what your teammate does. How's that saying I just made up go? Oh yeah. Focus on your problems, and you'll grow better. Focus on other people's problems, and you'll grow bitter. You have to always be trying to figure out how you can mesh better with people and win as a team, as opposed to looking for flaws in your teammates that give you a reason for losing. The point of this guide is to give you some things to look at with an aggressively self-blaming attitude that should help you improve and prevent you from blaming others for losing.

Here's what you're probably doing wrong.

None of that is all too constructive though, so here's a checklist of things to look for in yourself. I don't know what rank you're at, but they're things I end up doing that mess me up the most at champion level. If you don't think you do any of this, check a replay or two of your very next games and watch them not as yourself but as an outsider. Narrate it like you're watching the RLCS. In that mindset, let's give the things to watch for in "outsider" caster language.

• "OsoMako takes over possession and starts going upfield. He hits it forward, opponent catches it, and begins their assault."
  
  This is a cardinal sin in champion+ level play, and one that EVERYONE breaks, but champions break it the least whereas everyone else breaks it all the time. Some call it "ping pong", but you really only have ONE excuse for forfeiting possession by hitting the ball forward to the opponent: you were saving your team from an immediate shot on your net. Most players don't even really consider the idea of sustained possessions, but it's real and it's something you need to focus on now rather than later in order to get better.
  
  Every touch you make, particularly in competitive, needs to be focused. If that touch you're making doesn't keep giving you the best chance at either A) maintaining possession of the ball, B) passing to a teammate, or C) taking a shot on net, then it was a bad touch and anything that happens afterward is directly YOUR FAULT. I don't care if your teammate's controller explodes into flames and he just had an aneurysm over in net trying to defend the shot that came after; because you caused that aneurysm and the preceding flames by passing it directly to the opponent.
  
  
  
• "OsoMako comes in like a meteor! Ooh and he completely misses [hits it sideways/backwards/who-knows-where]."
  
  If you ever miss the ball completely, you just cost the team a goal. Again, it doesn't matter if your teammate dies of heart failure and pukes all over his screen trying to defend the shot that comes after. It doesn't matter if the opponent suddenly became Markydooda and did something nasty to make you miss the ball. It doesn't matter that it was a hard bounce to read. What matters is that you didn't see the opponent about to do something nasty or read the ball properly, and you left your team in a bad position as a result. If you ever find yourself missing a shot, you need to practice that shot or not go for it. Many times the right play is to not engage in the play at all. Wait in an advantageous spot to see what happens, then clean up afterward.
  
  Missing a shot puts you out of the play completely for a long time, and is akin to giving the opponent a power play. If you can't make the shot most of the time, you don't go for it. That's how you keep from losing games. And again, when I say "make the shot", I mean following the criteria in the first example. If it isn't a pass, if it doesn't maintain possession, or if it isn't a shot, then it was a miss and you messed up.
  
  
  
• "Opposing team almost had that! OsoMako takes over possession on defense on his side of the field, he hits it into the side wall, waiting for his teammates to hit it ... oh and they get scored on. Opposing team has won!"
  
  When you're on your own side of the field, smacking the ball directly into the side wall without immediately following up on the touch is the same as handing the opposing team a W. If your teammates respect rotations at all, they will not be directly behind you waiting to take over after your little side wall touch. That ball belongs to you when you do that. So what are they doing? They're sitting back waiting to get passed to, or rather, they're actually waiting to get scored on because you just hung them out to dry by hanging a nice dead curveball right over the center of your side of the field. May the Rocket League Gods have mercy on their soul as they try to salvage something good out of the plate of excrement you just handed them.
  
  
  
• "OsoMako carries it into the opposing team's corner. He sees his teammate waiting in middle and passes -- oh but it's a weak touch! Opposing team slams it downfield past both OsoMako and his teammate. It's a 1v3 / open net!"
  
  If you're in the opposing team's corner and you pass over the middle, you better make sure that your pass is laser-focused on that teammate of yours. That doesn't mean hit a laser. Jesus Timmy what have I told you about hitting laser passes. Lasers only get pointed at your enemy, not your teammates. I mean laser-focused. They should lead the ball such that only your teammate can get to it first -- whether that's on the side of the field that you passed it from or the opposite. Again, trust your teammate to make the shot happen, but give him a chance. If you bait him into taking your pass, but make a poor pass, then you just hung your whole team out to dry once again.
  
  
  
• "OsoMako dribbles it upfield, he sees his teammate across the field and passes. Oh but the enemy catches it first. / Oh but it's slightly behind them. / Oh but it's too fast. / Oh but his teammate wasn't expecting it."
  
  Nope. Sorry, every single one of those outcomes was your fault. Your passes are exactly like your shots and need to follow the same rules previously mentioned. Except you need to be even more precise with a pass than with a shot, and you need to be sure that your teammate is expecting the pass. Car language means everything here and is something you'll learn over time, but it means you need to be reading your teammate perfectly while at the same time passing the ball perfectly. And you can't avoid passing if you want to win. No really, I don't care if on your last three passes to him your teammate managed to aerial all the way to the top of old Neo Tokyo while you're playing on Utopia Coliseum, you still pass to him and trust in your teammates. Because anybody who's worth their salt on the other side of the field will at least know how to block what's coming in one direction. You beat people by hitting them from multiple angles at once, or, you know, by working with your team as a unit to win.

But seriously! My teammates are BAD!

First of all, that's wishful thinking. It's almost certainly you, yet you're conveniently forgetting your own mistakes while emphasizing theirs in your head (see: Confirmation Bias[en.wikipedia.org]). But let's assume that your teammates are bad anyway. A bad teammate is always a liability, and may likely cost the game. This is a competitive game, and when one link in the chain is weak, that's probably where you'll break. There's a handful of things that you can do to alleviate the situation for both you and your teammate:

1. Figure out what they're bad at.
   
   Look for where that chain will break. Do things to shore them up on those weaknesses. Do they suck at wall touches? Hedge your bets and stay a medium distance between being available for a pass and catching his flubbed wall hit. Can you not trust them in a corner to make a good clear? Hold your position in net for as long as humanly possible before pushing in to help clear it. Are they bad at shot accuracy? Try to be in position to hit their rebound or to do a redirect whenever they're about to shoot, or at least to keep it in the opponent's side and maintain possession. A bad shot on net is still pressure that builds up against the opponent, so it's not all bad.
   
   Whatever you do, don't use their flaws as an excuse to lose. You're only using that information to know when you need to be there for them. Your teammates aren't perfect, just like you. You have to be there to help them out just like you hope for them to be there to help you out. This is what you'd want to do with any teammate, catch onto their weaknesses and help with them.
   
   
   
2. Slow things down a bit.
   
   Sometimes your teammate isn't as bad as you think, but you've been going breakneck with the enemy, and your teammate hasn't had time to efficiently gather boost. If you don't have a good supply of boost, it's way harder to make proper challenges and be involved correctly in the play. So give him a bit more time to work with. This will also let you survey the field and avoid the issue of just slamming the ball upfield that I talked about. Also, the more often you break the pace of the game, the more often you'll score. Think about it this way. If your opponent has been used to going breakneck the whole game, and you suddenly slow it down right before you commit to that 50/50 he's barreling into, you just faked him out and he's out of the play. Then you can focus down on the remaining defenders and take them out too.
   
   Even if it's not a fake, suddenly slowing it down can mess up their rotations. Your teammates will naturally not want to "go offsides" for the most part (though in a 3v3, going offsides is a terrific way to catch the opponent off guard and get goals), so they'll wait and gather a bit of boost while you figure out what to do. But if you've been given the time to make a play, use it. Don't always succumb to the tempo of the game.
   
   
   
3. Always respect your opponent and keep playing to your best ability.
   
   This sounds obvious, but when everybody on both sides of the pitch is playing like garbage, it's easy to start playing like garbage alongside them. Don't give in. You're all around the same rank, so it's very likely that some of you are just having a bad start. Given enough time, anyone and everyone in the game can make tremendous plays. So don't give in to thinking that you're better than everyone. Think to yourself, "what can/would I do that'd be the most devastating to the opposing team here/there?" and either prepare for it or do it. I can't count the number of times I've written someone off in a game, then gotten flicked over to put that game into overtime and lose. The same goes for your teammate -- he's your teammate because he's similar in rank to you, regardless of whether you think he should be, so don't write him off. Keep trusting him and keep making plays with him that you think he might be able to make with you.
   
   
   
4. When you're the weak link, be the strongest weak link you can.
   
   Even if you know that your teammates are carrying the load, and you've got 60 points to their 6000 combined, just keep setting them up so they can do their thing and cover their back. A win's a win, so do whatever it takes to keep that going, even if you're the fall guy who backflips the second an open net shows for you. Whatever, just keep pushing and playing your best. (Playing your best != playing your fastest)

Keep thinking strategically about what you're doing and take all the time you're given to make things happen. That's all I've got for now. Best of luck improving. And remember, it's your fault! :D

[chez]

As a gc this is something that comes up a lot. We lose a game by one, and people start going off in chat blaming their teammates while they afk for over half the match. Not everyone has good days every day, but we should be aware of what to look out for in our teammates in the first minute of the match. Very well written guide, everyone needs to see this.

[Walliam]

Nice guide, and you are true to your word, played with you in some casual matches and you have the same kind of mentality.

Team mates are one of the most frustrating aspects but the only one who's going to make you better is you.

[Ghöstly]

I do both, I complain becuase well my team is trash which is 100% a fact and I can tell because i've played long enough! Second I do focus on my probelms and I do fix them, which does help but it still is a fact that a majority of my teams are complete trash, if you were to play solo standard it is next to impossible same reason squishy the rlcs player didnt do a road to GC on solo standard in modern time.

[Ghöstly]

Big facts right here yes it is my team, yes I can do better, but getting better with things like trust of hitting the ball or trust of rotation is an actually thing that if doesnt happen will result in you not being able to learn from mistakes as you can't even get to the point of a pass happening. In my opinion this guide is right and wrong, you cant take 5000 players and sum up everyones case doesnt work like that in any situation you cannot generalize a large group with a statement 90% of the time, unless you're stating a hard cold fact like for example if 5000 groups of humans all have toes. All I gotta say. hmu if you want more of my opinion

[Black Jesus]

But what if your teammate doesn't know the concept of rotating and constantly either:
-Comes up from behind during your attack and knocks the ball away/directly towards them/god knows where or
-Constantly up your tailpipe, basically giving your car a colonoscopy when you're defending against their challenge

[The Captain]

It is a solid guide. Tbh, I'm plat 1 and plat 2 constantly. Every game I get into theres around 3 things that happen to me. I am a 2's player, so L's are on me or not. For the 1st problem I have at this level, I have teammates who give up only down 2 or 3 goals. I play through the end of the match, but they AFK when I don't accept the ff. My 2nd issue, I carry 90% of the time, but my team can't carry their own weight, so I lose by 1, after my teammate ends with 0 assists, 0 goals, and barely touching the ball at all. And the 3rd issue is that I will often find a duo of opponents smurfing, so 1 will be a dia, and other a silver, despite the silver playing at dia level. So Psyonix needs to fix mm'ing. Overall, I often play my best, and I've heard that Plat is the hardest to get out of. My biggest issue is teammates. Whether it be the toxic community giving up after 3 goals and blaming it on me, or the many times Psyonix has screwed me with matchmaking against a smurf.

[Protonix]

[H]

Hexed

[W]

6 Keys

[Felicitandyuri]

Reported.

[SmirreBumBum]

well done maybe all the (my teammates are noobs) saying players wake up after reading this

[CharmingRax]

my god thats a nice guide..
i didnt even read it :D
by looking at the outside..
you got an A mister.