|
Words:
Micah McGlocklin
How to be a mid player
The quarterback of paintball is the insert player. He's the glory hound controlling the field with his awareness and skill and getting the plaudits when he's hanging the flag. How can you be him? Well, here's everything you need to know to play the insert role and be that man…
The insert, or mid, position is to paintball what a stripper is to a strip club. It is the exciting job, everything happens at this position, all the other support players, be it front guys, back guys, DJs or bouncers, they're all secretly envious of the attention. But just like a stripper it is easy to make the job look bad, real bad, like your Grandma on Christmas after an all-day peach schnapps bender-bad. Just thinking about your Grandma gyrating around the Christmas tree, and up against the fire place with all those stockings hanging on it is enough to motivate me to write this article. So for the love of God, don't give your Grandma a reason to drink this Christmas, and take these lessons to heart; your team will be glad you do, even if secretly they are jealous of how good you look while they toil away at their less exciting jobs.
The mid player's job is a culmination of both the front and the back players' jobs. So for you to be a success, you should be well versed in exactly what that means. Let's take my job on the NPPL field in Huntington Beach, as a mid player. For all the games I start off in the back center. “But Micah,” You may say, cause that's my name, “I thought mid players started in the middle of the field, not on the back line, not on the front line, but rather somewhere in between.” Well, sometimes you would be right, but mostly you would be wrong, and you would be interrupting me, stop interrupting – were you raised in a barn? Anyhow, back to the example: as a mid player in the back I have many potential jobs. One game everything went to plan. Front guys made their spots, back guys made their spots; we got a few kills, so I was able to work my way up the field. Eventually I ended up next to the snake protecting our player in the snake so bad guys couldn't go stab him.
However, the next game didn't start so well. We lost a corner guy behind the snake. So I had to “insert” into the spot and become a back guy for the rest of the game. A few games later our snake guy was shot off the break, so immediately I had to turn my attention to getting into that snake, so I steadily moved up the field and “inserted” into the snake, becoming a front player. A few games later we lost a guy out of the center off the break. His job was to shut down the dorito side so we could move down it ourselves uncontested. So I changed lanes and blasted that side of the field, first from the back bunker, then from a mid bunker.
So really being an effective mid player is being an effective front player, or an effective back player, or an effective lock down player – really it is about being a jack of all trades. And that's really how you have to think of yourself on the paintball field. Be confident enough in your game to play all over the field, whatever the situation calls for
Though you can end up playing all types of positions as the case may call, there is a pretty vanilla explanation of your job as a mid/insert player.
Off the break is when you set yourself up for easy living later in the game. Your job is to shoot players off the break. On XSV sometimes our mid guys shoot people off the break while running to a mid spot, sometimes they shoot people off the break from a back spot, and then make a quick bump to that mid spot. Either way, the important thing is that your gun is up off the break, and you are able to keep your head up and figure out how the bad guys broke out. Remember, the front guys usually don't get a chance to see where the bad guys are off the break, so it is going to be your job to tell them what is going down. The back guys could see it, but they are farther away from those front guys. You are closer to them, and you need to be effective in communicating with them, not the big slow back guys
.
So you have gotten yourself to your first mid spot, by either running and shooting, or shooting off the break and bouncing up into that spot. On a normal field our mid guys usually have a job off locking down a zone, either locking down the snake, locking down the dorito side or locking down something else on the field. But it is not that easy. In addition to a lockdown job you need to relay communication all over the field. You need to tell your front guys where the bad guys are. You need to ask what your front guys need, whether it is to put someone in for them to move up the field, or to get them some more specific information. You need to find someone to fill those jobs that the front players are asking for. Can you do them yourself? Great. If not, find another mid player or back player to get that job done. Constantly relay information from front player to back player and vice versa. Isn't this simple? No wonder there are only a few hot strippers at the clubs – this is hard work.
Assuming your carefully conceived game plans you created in the start box mere seconds from starting the game is working like a girdle on your cat, you can start thinking about that next bump up the field. After getting a kill or three it is time to boogie up the field. But remember your first job of locking down a side and protecting front players. There is always a better spot to do that from farther up the field. Don't just pass information around; start using that stellar communication to get yourself up the field, to those better lockdown spots. Ask your front player which bad guys are covering the lanes you have to run through to the next spot, then work with them to put those guys in. Ask your back player where those key players are shooting, and tell them to send you as soon as the window is open. You always need to be working as a mid player. Never get complacent in your spot as long as you are winning the game; constantly keep the pressure up on the bad guys, and make them pay.
You have continued to lock down a side, you have relayed information back and forth like it was nobody’s business – it’s time to start cleaning up. As the “brains” of this operation it’s time to send your front guys to get nasty. Have them trade out with bad guys that are within striking distance. As soon as he gets his man you need to “insert” into his old front spot, and obviously now you are the front guy. From here it should just be an easy bump or two to finish off the game and get all the attention for being such a stud; good work, you ungrateful bastard.
After all it is still paintball, and usually as many things that can go wrong will go wrong. And it is your job as a mid/insert player to use your fingers to plug as many holes in the dyke that you can. And that can cover many, many things. If a corner guy is shot off the break you need to address that situation. Do you need someone out there, or was that spot just a filler for an extra body? If it was just a filler spot there really is no need to have another player fill it. Just simply let everyone on the field know that spot is dead, most importantly the players on that side of the field, as the loss will affect their play the most. Was that spot important enough to refill? Well, then use your freakishly large brain to figure out who best can cover the job. You can look around for someone else to do that job, but three out of four times the person to cover the spot is you. So hike up your dress, Nancy, and get your bad self out there. Now you are the back player. Your not a mid guy playing a back spot for a little while; you are truly an official back player now. And everything that is associated with that job is now your job: controlling lanes, scaring bad guys into their spots, communication everything you see on the field, coordinated your team's moves up the field. Your job is not to hang out until you see an opportunity to go flying up the field and bunker someone in a vain attempt to look like a superstar. Roll your gun, control your lanes, and shoot most of your paintballs until you even consider moving from the safety of the back line.
Other times you are going to lose front players early in the game, whether that is from them getting shot off the break, getting shot out of their bunker early, or getting bunkered. It is once again decision time. Was that spot that important? Or could you live without it and still win the game? Is the bad guy that just bunkered your guy a threat to your team winning? Your next move should be based on the answers to those questions. If you can live without the spot then screw that spot, and just play your game. If you can't live without it, become a front player like you were when you first started playing paintball, and get into that spot and be the best possible front guy you can be. If the bad guy in that spot is going to ruin your walk to the podium then he has to go – sacrifice yourself for the good of the team, stick your barrel in his ear and blow his head off. The angry bonus balls from his teammates will be well worth the win, don'tcha think?
The whole key to being a great mid/insert player is knowledge. Knowledge of where the bad guys are, what your front guys need, how to play back spots, how to play front spots. Once you have matured enough as a player to possess all this knowledge then yours is a paintball career that will continue to take you to the top of the league. But until you have effectively played for awhile as a front player, and honed your gun fighting skills to that of a stellar back player your mid/insert life will be as short lived as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. So put in your time at other positions, learn how to read a field, and a game while it is still going on, and then spring into life as the bad ass mid/insert player you know you can be. And please, keep Grams away from the peach schnapps come the holiday season.
|
Glory boy
