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Often heard of the word scrimmage while playing an eSports game with your acquaintances online and wondering what it means? Below we explain what exactly is scrimmage and what's its usage in eSports. What is Scrimmage? The use of the word scrimmage is most popularly applied to American football where it refers to the "action that takes between the teams from the moment the ball is snapped until it is declared dead." According to Dictionary.com, it can also refer to "a practice session or informal game, as that played between two units of the same team." In the context of eSports, the second definition is most fitting. Basically, a "scrim" in eSports is an unranked online match between several players or teams – usually as a means of practice. The usage of the word is mostly reserved for clan members in online first person shooter games (FPS). Scrimmage matches however are popular for almost all popular video games including Fortnite, Counter Strike Global Offensive, Overwatch, Rainbow 6, PUBG, Dota 2, League of Legends and Rocket League among others. That said, there are games like Fortnite, where scrims are tougher to organize than some of the other games. Interestingly, the makers of Fortnite, EPIC Games have said they are looking to work on a way to ensure players can find themselves scrimmage partners. If that comes through, it would make life easier for Fortnite players looking for competitive scrimmages. The other method is to use Discord servers for scrimmages by sharing a private key among players who are interested in it for Fortnite. Also Read: 20+ Ways to Find an eSports Job Online eSports Scholarships at American Universities What is a Pro Scrim? There isn't too much difference between a scrim or a pro scrim. Pro scrimmage matches are those scrims that involve professional players/eSports athletes, i.e. players who are practicing for the bigger prize. Usually, in these type of matches, athletes practice against one another usually before a big match or tournament to keep themselves prepared and ready. A pro scrim is typically on an invite-only basis because professional players do like to keep themselves prepped by playing against some of the other top players around instead of beginners or even intermediates. Professional teams use pro scrimmages and "boot-camps" to trial aspiring players and also test existing players' online gaming skills and endurance. Ways to Play Scrims Though the concept is the same for all games, how to actually get into a particular scrimmage will vary from game to game. In some online games like, for example, in CS:GO, getting into scrims is fairly easy. All that’s needed is to setup a community server or join another person’s server for the purpose of playing practice matches. Professional teams like Astralis and Fnatic often engage in competitive matchmaking with other teams when playing scrims. For other games however, the system of scrimmages are a bit more complicated. For battle royale games like Fortnite, the "Discord" system is used to coordinate with players. The Discord system are basically servers that allow Fortnite players to participate in amateur and pro scrims and solo and regular snipes. For the more professional servers, they are sometimes called Procords. Why Do eSports Players Scrim? One of the chief reasons why eSports players need to organize scrimmages is most gaming titles do not provide for opportunities to practice within the game. To explain this a bit more, a game typically is made of scores of components, twists and terrains and a player or a team might want to work on their weaknesses pertaining to a particular passage of play. Unfortunately, most developers do not provide that option. What do you do, for instance, if you are down a few gold, eight minutes into a game of League of Legends? The option to start the game at that stage isn't available and to be able to cover all such scenarios before going into a major tournament, a series of scrimmages makes for a lot of sense. Take the example of other, traditional sports like soccer, where one can improve one's dribbling or taking free kicks or even fitness without actually playing a practice match. On the other hand, the only way to do that in eSports is to take part in scrims. Also Read: The David Beckham Connection with eSports The "eSports is Not a Sport" Myth! Benefits of Scrims Scrimmages help both individual players and teams in a number of ways. The major benefit for players and teams is the ability to practice their skills in an unranked environment. Here, they are not forced to "play for real" and instead can use the opportunity to improve on their weaknesses and find out any chinks in their approaches and style of play. Players typical organize a series of scrims and at the end of every game, look at the game-play to understand if they faced any issues at any point and how to overcome those problems. Another benefit of playing in scrimmages is the ability to experiment and try out new approaches and ways of playing games. Instead of athletes sticking to the same routines, strategy and tactics, they can attempt to apply new methods of playing a game and see if the change is actually beneficial to their gameplay. A third benefit comes in the form of increasing a player's audience base. As professional games and tournaments are not always played on a regular basis, scrimmages help players to maintain their performance all while keeping their audiences hooked and active – which is especially true for eSports players who stream their gameplay in professional platforms like Twitch and YouTube. Future of Scrimmage Scrimmages are definitely a modern staple of eSports. The practice games help players to enhance their skills, try out new methods of gameplay and even engage with new and diverse players and experiences. They help to keep the eSports professional community active and also help audiences to stay hooked and seeking more streaming of their favourite players and games which will definitely propel scrimmages to greater heights in the days to come.