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Editor’s note: It was just announced that Ninja got his own skin in Fortnite. That’s a huge deal and as one of the biggest names in all of esports, Tyler deserves it. Congrats to him. It’s available on the store tomorrow for three days if you want to pick it up and it looks pretty dope. It’s part of a series called The Icon Series which is going to include other creators like Loserfruit and TheGrefg. It retroactively includes the Marshmello skin too, I believe.
The Inner Game of Fortnite – The Game Before The Game
As I’ve gotten better at Fortnite, I’ve tried to look at every aspect of my game to look for minor ways I can improve. One realization I had a few months ago was that I wasn’t using the load in screen at all. The load in screen is the screen before you get in the Bus, where you wait for the room to fill with as close to 100 other players as possible. You generally get 30 seconds to a minute in there to farm some mats, build some structures that someone will chop down, or get in a shotgun battle with someone else waiting to get started.
I started thinking: “what if I didn’t use that time to do three corner edits before the game started? What if I used it as a time to make a plan?”
Here’s the process I run through on that screen:
I don’t move my character. My hands are usually in my lap. I use this time to mentally prep for the next game.
What am I practicing? What are my goals this session? Is it to implement a drill as part of my game? Is it just to win? Is it high elims? Is it some training restriction like not using a shotgun the whole game? (more on that in a later edition)
Take some deep breaths. I don’t touch my phone and I focus on the game. I give it my sole focus rather than diverting my attention to kill time somewhere else before Fortnite starts.
Where is the Bus route? Where are my drop spots? Where do I want to land? Where will I likely rotate through?
Finally, what have I learned this session that I want to make sure not to repeat going into this game?
Most of human performance is mental. Your body knows what to do, your hands have done it thousands of times before. Where we lose is often due to a weak mental game. That’s why I talk about our mind so much in this newsletter.
Use that load in screen to get your head right. Then go destroy the competition.
Sub-Skill Drills – Harpoon That Wall
This one is simple and you don’t really need to practice it in Creative or Team Rumble: grab a harpoon gun and use it to shoot out opponents’ walls before going for the elim.
In Chapter 1 when we had the Heavy Sniper or the Deagle, the meta was shooting out a wall in one shot, immediately switching guns, and taking your next shot. That’s largely gone in Chapter 2 so far but we can blow out walls in one shot with the harpoon gun.
So grab a harpoon, shoot out a wall or two, switch to your shotgun or AR (remember, the harpoon has range!) and aim high.
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See you Friday.