thesupremecommanderUltimately, I'm left questioning my decision to enter Open. I don't think I was ready as either a team player or team manager, and I don't know if I'll ever be truly ready.
As someone that has created a lot of teams over the last few years of playing this game, I can tell you this is a pretty normal feeling. Scheduling is going to be your biggest challenge as a team leader, and its not something that a lot of people talk about. The fact that UGC and CEVO have (had) very limited scheduling options is bullshit to me, because once you get to ESEA its a relatively new thing. getting 12 people in the same server at the same time can be trying sometimes, but even talking to your teammates before the season about their availability should be an important conversation to have before the season starts. its something you learn after awhile of managing a team.
example: We really wanted to play with Lambert but he had almost 0 time to scrim or even play matches sometimes just because of real life commitments, so eventually we just had to learn how to play without him. He is a great dude and a great player, but sometimes for the good of the team it might be better to work with someone who has better availability just so all the scrim time and practice actually matters.
and on that subject there are a few sort of "ground rules" for scrimming for teams that want to improve playing together. This has probably been said before and I'm sure there are people that are going to disagree with me, but whatever:
-4 nights a week minimum, including match days where you try to scrim at least once before the match. typically, when i was on playground tactics we would play sunday through thursday.
-make some time at the beginning of the week to do a map review with your team, talking about very generic situations, hold positions, etc. stay away from complex strategies and very situational plays, because those are usually a waste of time and there isn't a practical way to practice them.
-playing with one ringer is ok, playing with 2 ringers is probably a waste of time, and any more than that you should just not scrim.
-demo reviews/mentoring is all well and good but there aren't many people willing to take the time to do that anymore. a few invite players are pretty chill about it, but in IM I don't really think there are that many people with the capacity to teach. I have a pretty hard time with it, not everyone thinks about this game the same way. demo reviews can be good with your team, but they are very time consuming and its not always the best use of your time, contrary to popular belief. at the beginning of the season they might be more important, but as the season goes on it becomes less vital to do these kind of things.
I realize this is way longer than I intended to post. I hope this helps or reassures you with your decision making.