I like to dabble in competitive matches – I’ll pluck up the courage occasionally to play one but only after a little warm-up first. I’ll then only play one as, otherwise, I find the stress of them gets to me quite quickly.

However, my warm-up and then one-game method appears to be working and, this season, I’m doing far better than before. And it may be helped by the fact that I’m using 4v4 Team Deathmatch for that warm-up match.

4v4 TDM is one of the arcade options – it’s available at the moment but only for a week. At some point it will cycle back again. And the gameplay is simple – 2 teams of 4 players and it’s the first team to 30 kills.

And, for me, it’s the perfect game. Here is what it has going for it…

1. It’s more relaxed. There’s no stress of Comp but, equally, no nagging about not having enough tanks or healers
2. With only 4 players on your side, chances are that you’ll end up with lots of endorsements – it’s not unusual to get at least 3, 1 from each team-mate
3. As its an Arcade game, you get a loot box for every 3 wins (up to a maximum of 3 – these reset weekly) – this is on top of your usual XP increase
4. The games are usually close but also quick – you rarely get rage quits as the game can be lost in the dying moments. Equally, they’re quick so, if you lose, have another go!

My current win ratio is probably 3 for every 4 matches. Using this as a Comp warm-up is great as the games are quick and fast, really testing your reflexes. Once you’re doing well with this, I’ll switch to my Comp and, well, my ratio is much higher than that too.