Welcome back to the Weekend Warmup.

For anyone that’s played as a duo in 2X, you might have hit “drift compatible” moments where everything comes together and you act as one unit in perfect synergy. I’ve had them at multiple skill levels, so I wondered if these moments are natural and random, or if they can be practiced and summoned on command. We asked players with a ton of duo experience— Inzem, Saki Sakura, Diaphone, Avataryaya, and 2WINz Haru and Toshi —to break down the mindset, communication, and strategies required to thrive as a duo.

2XSolo

Let’s start with a biggie: Can two strong solo players automatically become a great duo?

“Unless there's synergy, no, not really,” Saki Sakura explains. “You can be the smartest and strongest solo player in the world, but that's not going to lead into strength. Players can have different or opposing ideas and you need synergy to make it all cohesive.”

Inzem backs this up, noting that while mechanical skill helps, building a duo requires entirely different muscles. “Things like optimized team comps, synergy between players, attitudes to be able to practice properly without getting annoyed at each other, and… communication skills all play a HUGE factor. These are skills that have to be studied and built over time.”

How to communicate

Good comms require intention and clarity. Avataryaya points out that competitive players can keep comms clear with quick abbreviations, like yelling “A” for assist or “T” for tag. “One important thing for commentary is giving a heads up when you want your duo to burst a combo, or laying down a strategy while in downtime like cinematic supers. Communication with intent is better than saying nothing.”

Diaphone believes the opposite, that the highest ceiling of duo play involves not talking. "This is going to sound crazy, but the goal of a duo is being able to get by with as little comms as possible,” Diaphone says. “You’re only calling out the really important s—– like round starts, or ‘This guy does wakeup attack a lot, make sure you’re hedging’.”

There’s always an IRL risk of talking between rounds and giving away your next move, so Diaphone explored code words for key strats; it didn’t work apparently, but it was funny.

Active assists

Duos take turns as the point champ, but also manage a shared mental stack. One of the biggest unseen advantages of duos is delegating game state tracking to the off-screen player. "In solo play, you’d normally have to visually confirm things yourself, like how many bars of ultimate both teams have or the cooldown on assist," note the 2WINz. "In duo, the assist player can verbally relay that information so the point player can focus entirely on the opponent’s character."

Inzem agrees. “Things like baiting burst or having your teammate keep track of game state things for you so you can focus on playing is really nice!” he remarks. He also notes the additional strain his opponents inherit just by virtue of facing two brains at once: “Having to switch between two different strong players who have different decision making… can make a big difference!”

The perfect pair

How do you know if you’ve found the right duo? The 2WINz put it down to what each player wants out of the experience. “We think it’s important that both players share the same goals and level of motivation,” they claim. “If one person is extremely motivated while the other isn’t (or vice versa), it can lead to frustration.” It’s a recipe for disaster if one player wants Ws, and one just wants to mash.

Managing salt intake

So when things go wrong, how do you keep from being at each other’s throats? Saki Sakura and Avataryaya, a stalwart duo, have different takes. Avataryaya adopts a growth mentality: “We both have one health bar each. If my team loses, it’s also my fault. Adopt this mindset: we don’t take Ls, we take lessons and always go next.”

Saki Sakura emphasises emotional intelligence, remembering that duo play is ultimately about the experience. Sometimes, that means sharing the burden in losses. Her favorite 2XKO memory? “My duo threw our game so he could eat his chocolate pancakes and for the content. Chat witnessed it.”

On the flip side, the 2WINz prove that a little friction is just part of the process. "In our case, we don’t hold back and just blame each other (laughs). We often argue and sometimes it gets out of control and turns into a fight. But it can’t be helped since it comes from our mutual desire to play better."

Parting advice

If you’re looking for some inspiration for your weekend grind, we asked each player for advice for aspiring duos. Here’s what they had to say:

• 2WINz Haru and Toshi: “Above all, play together as much as possible! The more you play together, the more you understand what your partner wants to do in each moment, and your improvisation and mental sync will improve.”

• Diaphone: “Play more duos! Playing with others can start to give you a sense of what you’re supposed to do, and you can start getting perspective on how other people work. I encourage you to reach out to your community, locals, or online brackets to find people, and eventually you’ll find someone you really like duoing with.”

• Inzem: “You should… focus on improving yourself in and out of game, having another player to sit down in the lab with and share advanced tech, optimize your team, and even working on things like communication all are advantages of having a teammate that’s working towards the same goal as you.”

• Avataryaya: “The biggest advice I would give to [aspiring] duos is to make sure that you’re having fun. I know that could be cheesy but having a duo partner that gets down over losses can stop your growth.”

• Saki Sakura: “Take advantage of having that duo helping you grow as a player and remember that at the end of the day, you're carrying them. Just like how I carry Avataryaya.”

[NEW] Local Spotlight

Along with our locals rewards program (more to come on this soon), we’re going to do more to bring support and visibility to the IRL communities that drive the FGC. Every week, in partnership with Chipotle, TOs will receive IRL rewards to distribute to top-placing 2XKO players at locals across the US. We’ll pick a new local cada semana to distribute Chipotle entrée cards for their next few events. First up is Iron Grid out of New Jersey.

Local Spotlight: Iron Grid (New Jersey)

Direct from the organizers: “Iron Grid started out as a small monthly with about 15 college students and their gaming laptops. It's grown into something so beautiful. We like to call it a unicorn, we've never seen so many communities come hang out under one roof. For a local que empezó con Tekken 7 y Uni-Clr (de ahí el nombre Iron Grid). We saw our first boom in attendance with the release of Guilty Gear Strive. Now, we see players from not just New Jersey, but the entire east coast taking the time to come out to our event every month and we couldn't be more grateful.”

Next Iron Grid events:

• April 4th - 218 Central Ave, Newark, NJ 07103, USA

• May 9th - 218 Central Ave, Newark, NJ 07103, USA

Upcoming Dates

• Mar 19: Aureate Megabundle and skins return

• Mar 26: Crime City Megabundle and skins return

• Mar 27: Texas Showdown (2XKO Competitive Series Challenger event) begins

• Mar 28: Viennality XL (2XKO Competitive Series Challenger event) begins

Closing Thoughts

Wanted to try something different for the Weekend Warmup this time; thank you so much to all the creators and pros who shared their insight. I’m going on a quick break next week, but there’s lots more to come. Right now, the devs are putting the finishing touches on Akali and Patch 1.1.5, and we’ll hopefully have a date to share next week. If anything changes, JulezJP has you covered. Catch y’all later!

—@draggles