Improve between matches: warm up, review your games, and keep a clear head.
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Core The foundation. Worth learning for everyone.
Bonus Extra credit once the core feels solid.
Impact: Huge, 5 of 5.Impact How much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty: BasicDifficulty: EasyDifficulty: MediumDifficulty: HardDifficulty: Very hardDifficulty How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Mindset + review16skills
Mindset + review
16 skills
Improve between matches: warm up, review your games, and keep a clear head.
4/5 · HighHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Easy2/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Before you play, pick one skill to work on, how you’ll practise it and how you’ll check it, instead of trying to fix everything at once.
Choose one skill from this tree, the drill or match habit you’ll use for it, and the check that shows how it went. Practice built around one clear goal with feedback on the result is what researchers call deliberate practice. It is linked to better performance in many activities, though a 2024 study of Counter-Strike and League of Legends players found no clear link, so treat it as a method, not a promise. Keep the same focus until your checks improve.
How to practice
Before each session, write one line: the skill, the drill or habit, and the check. Example: crosshair placement; hold head height at doorways; pause on three corners in a recording.
After each session, mark the line done, partly done or skipped. After a week, count the sessions that had a focus and the ones where you stuck to it.
Mindset + review
Warm-up routine
Core
Beginner
Impact
2/5 · SituationalHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Basic1/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Run the same warm-up before you queue, so your aim and movement feel normal and you can tell an off day from a bad game.
A warm-up gets your hands and eyes used to the game before the matches that count. Use the same steps each time, such as a Firing Range lap with some movement, tracking and a recoil spray, so one day compares with the next. We found no research that sets an ideal warm-up length for Apex, so stop when your checks feel normal rather than when a timer ends. Aim-trainer routines are covered in Aim.
How to practice
Write your warm-up as three or four steps, such as a movement lap, tracking a moving dummy and one recoil spray. Do the same steps before every session for a week.
After each warm-up, write one word: sharp, normal or off. At the end of the week, compare those words with how each session went.
4/5 · HighHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Watch your recordings with one question in mind to find mistakes you can’t see while playing. Most practice checks in this tree start here.
Making a usable recording is covered in Setup; this skill is what you do with it. Pick one question before you press play, such as “why did I take this fight?”, and pause at the moments that answer it instead of watching the whole match. In school PE studies, video feedback taught movement skills better than spoken feedback alone. For Apex decisions that is a reasonable bet rather than proof.
How to practice
Before you watch a recording, write one question. Pause at each moment that answers it and note the time and what you saw.
Review one match per session for a week. Count how many of your notes led to a change you can see in a later recording.
4/5 · HighHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Easy2/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Start each review with your deaths. Rewind to where you chose the fight or spot, and name what decided it: position, timing, greed, panic or aim.
Deaths are the easiest place to begin because the outcome is clear. Rewind to the moment you chose that fight or position, not just the last few seconds, and name the cause in one word. EA’s own habits guide asks whether greed, timing, position or panic killed you most. The word that comes up most over many deaths is a good next focus.
How to practice
For each death in a session’s recordings, write the time and one word: position, timing, greed, panic, aim or other. Count the words at the end.
Rewind each death to the moment you chose that fight or spot. Write what you knew then and one thing you could have done instead.
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Notice when frustration starts changing how you play, and act on it before one bad game turns into a bad session.
Tilt is frustration that builds after repeated mistakes, losses or a teammate’s errors, and it shows up as rushed choices and lost focus. Researchers describe it the same way and link it to weaker attention and performance. Learn your own signs, such as taking fights you would normally skip, blaming teammates or re-queuing straight away. If frustration from gaming stays with you long after you log off, it is worth talking to someone you trust.
How to practice
Write down three signs that you are tilted, such as pushing without a plan, blaming teammates or re-queuing instantly. After each session, tick the ones that happened.
In the recording of a bad game, find the first moment one of your signs appeared. Note what happened just before it.
Mindset + review / Tilt and focus
Breaks and stopping points
Core
Beginner
Impact
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Decide before you queue when you will take a break or stop, such as after two early deaths in a row, and stick to it when you want one more game.
Rules set in advance are easier to follow than choices made while frustrated. Write them as if-then plans: “If I die early twice in a row, then I take a break before queuing again.” General research shows if-then plans help people act on their intentions, including dropping something that isn’t working. In a study of top League of Legends players, longer breaks after losing streaks went with slightly better play afterwards.
How to practice
Before each session, write your if-then rules, such as “If I die early twice in a row, I take a break before the next game.” Keep them where you can see them.
After each session, note every time a rule was triggered and whether you followed it. Aim to follow it every time for a week.
Mindset + review / Tilt and focus
Staying calm with teammates
Core
Beginner
Impact
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
When things go wrong, skip the blame. Give one useful call instead, save the post-mortem for after the match, and mute rather than argue.
Blame in the middle of a match makes the next fight harder for everyone. In a League of Legends experiment, players paired with an insulting teammate performed worse, on their own and as a team. Talk about what went wrong after the match, keep it about the play, and own your part first. If a teammate keeps flaming, mute them and report real abuse; how to make clear calls is in Legends + team.
How to practice
For one session, tally every time you blamed a teammate during a match. Next session, replace each one with a useful call: where, how many, what to do.
In the recording of a match that went badly, listen to your voice chat. Count blame lines and useful calls, and compare with a match that went well.
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Set session goals about what you do, like checking the ring before you move, instead of results like wins or RP that also depend on lobbies and teammates.
A result goal, such as a win or a new rank, depends on your lobby, your teammates and luck. A process goal names something you do in every fight or rotation, so you can meet it even in a lost game. A review of sports studies found process goals were linked with much larger performance gains than result goals; it covered traditional sports, not Apex. Use results to check your direction over weeks, not to grade a single session.
How to practice
Rewrite one result goal as a process goal you can count in a match, such as “name my way out before every fight”. Use it for a whole session.
After the session, count in your notes or recording how often you met the process goal. Rate the session by that count, not by wins or RP.
Mindset + review / One focus per session
Tracking your progress
Core
Intermediate
Impact
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Easy2/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Write down the same few checks after every session, so you judge progress on weeks of notes instead of how the last game felt.
It is easy to judge a whole week by the last game or one big moment. A short written log of the same checks (your focus, whether you met it, and one number you care about) shows trends over weeks. A large review of goal research, outside gaming, found that monitoring progress helped people reach their goals, more so when they wrote it down. Compare like with like: the same mode and the same check.
How to practice
Keep a log for two weeks: date, mode, focus, whether you met it (yes, partly, no) and one number such as damage or placement. Fill it in before you close the game.
At the end of each week, compare your log with the week before. Write one sentence on what improved and one on what didn’t.
Mindset + review / Reviewing your own games
Turning reviews into practice
Core
Intermediate
Impact
4/5 · HighHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
End every review with one takeaway, make it your next session’s focus, and check the next recording to see whether it changed.
A review only helps if something changes in the next match. Keep the takeaway small enough to see on video, such as “heal behind cover, not in the open”, and use it as your next focus. Then look for it in your next recording. Fixing one mistake often makes the next one visible, which is a normal part of improving.
How to practice
After each review, write one takeaway as an action you will take, small enough to see on video. Make it the focus of your next session.
In your next recording, count the chances to use your takeaway and how many you took. Keep it as your focus until most go right.
Mindset + review / Reviewing your own games
Learning from better players
Core
Intermediate
Impact
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Watch stronger players with one question, such as when they rotate or how they reset a fight, then test one idea in your own games.
Streams and videos from stronger players show choices you might not think of. Pick one question, pause when it comes up, and ask why they chose that move with what they knew at the time. Then try the idea yourself and check it in your recording. Research on learning by watching others is mostly about movement skills, so for game decisions this is coach advice.
How to practice
Watch one match from a stronger player with one question. Write down three moments that answer it and what they did each time.
Try one of those ideas in your next session. In the recording, note whether you used it and what happened.
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Get a second view from a coach, teammate or friend. Ask about specific moments, write down what you hear, and turn one point into your next focus.
Other people notice habits you miss, but feedback works best when it is about the play, not about you. Ask about specific moments with a time, note the answer, and try one point before explaining or arguing. Feedback research finds it can help or hurt: it tends to help when it keeps attention on the task. Expect some advice to conflict; test it in your recordings rather than taking it on trust.
How to practice
Before a review with someone else, list two or three moments with their times and one question each. Write their answer next to each one.
Pick one piece of feedback as your next focus. After a week, tell the person what you tried and show them a clip of it.
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
After a lost fight or a teammate’s knock, use the same quick reset, such as one breath and a short cue phrase, before your next decision.
Frustration from one fight easily spills into the next decision. A reset is a few seconds you repeat every time: breathe out, say a short cue to yourself such as “next fight” or “check cover”, then look at the map and your health before you move. Sports studies link practised self-talk with better performance, mostly in traditional sports. Practise the reset in calm games so it is there in tense ones.
How to practice
Pick a reset and a cue phrase. Next session, use it after every lost fight or knock and keep a tally of how often you remembered.
In recordings, look at the 20 seconds after a lost fight, with and without your reset. Note whether your next move looked rushed.
Mindset + review
Ranked mindset
Core
Intermediate
Impact
3/5 · SolidHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Medium3/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Judge your ranked play over many games, not one. Queue fresh, play to your plan, and let a single bad placement go.
One ranked game says little, because lobbies, teammates and third parties vary so much in a battle royale. Judge your climb over a set of games, by whether you kept to your plan and process goals. Queue when you are fresh and stop when your rules say so. Ranked rules and points change by season, and in-match ranked choices are in Game sense.
How to practice
Before a ranked session, write your plan: the most games you will play, your process goal and your stop rule. Afterwards, note whether you kept each one.
Mark each of your last ten ranked games as fresh or tilted. Compare the points you gained or lost in each group.
2/5 · SituationalHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Easy2/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
Try new skills where mistakes cost little, such as the Firing Range or unranked matches, and bring them into ranked once they work.
Ranked makes experiments feel expensive, so new habits often get dropped at the first mistake. Practise a new skill in the Firing Range or unranked matches first, check it in your recordings, then take it into ranked. Which modes are available changes by season, so check what is live.
How to practice
For each new focus, note where you practised it (Firing Range, unranked or ranked) and the date you first used it in ranked.
Before taking a skill into ranked, check two unranked recordings where you used it. Note how often it worked.
2/5 · SituationalHow much it changes your results. More bars and greener means a bigger payoff.
Difficulty
Hard4/5How hard it is to learn and pull off in a real fight.
In big moments, like a final circle or a game that could rank you up, keep making the calls you would make in an ordinary match.
Pressure tends to push play one of two ways: rushing into fights or freezing until the choice is made for you. Use the same reset and checks you use all game, and ask what you would do if nothing were at stake. A review of esports studies found emotions affect performance and that players often lack good ways to manage them. The late-game decisions themselves are covered in Game sense.
How to practice
In recordings of your last few final circles, compare your choices with an early-game fight. Note any moments you rushed or froze.
Before the last two rings, say your reset cue and your plan out loud. Check the recording to see whether you followed the plan.
