Offspawn

01Planning your jump before the cup

Your spot is fixed for the whole cup, and the bus path never changes it. If the bus flies far from your spot, you keep your glider open longer to cover the distance. The spot only changes if it goes badly there over several games.

1. Know your jump for every bus path

Before the cup, work out where you jump for every possible bus path, the point that gives you the shortest flight to your spot. Use a drop calculator site for it instead of guessing in the bus. You decide nothing in the bus. You play the drop you prepared for.

2. Stay in the bus as long as you can

The bus is faster than your glider. If you jump early, you spend more time in the air and land later, and that is exactly how you get outdropped offspawn.

3. Being down first matters

Two seconds are enough. In that time you can already have a weapon and your aim on him, while he has just landed and has to deal with the pressure. If he lands first and hits you before you are even down, that is a bad landing on your side.

4. Landing first does not decide it

Even if you are down first, he can still find the better weapon for offspawn, so offspawn is often a 50/50. More on that below.

02Planning your loot route

Your loot route is part of your gameplan. It is set before every cup, and you do not improvise it in game.

Before the cup

• Chests: plan the route for your POI with the chest spawns on fortnite.gg. You want the fastest way through, not a fixed pattern.
• Farm route: also plan what gives you quick mats around your spot. Pickaxe everything once and write down what gives how much. Ideally your metal comes from the loot route or straight from your spot, unless your plan is to farm it outstorm in the midgame (see Gameplan and spot).
• Time: loot route and farm route together have to fit into the time you have until you leave. Practice it in customs, not in tournaments.

In game

Your loot route is your spot, maybe plus a split next to it. Once you move into the zone, it is no longer your loot route, and after it there are no more chests. The midgame starts, and you rotate and play for position. Maybe an uncontested split comes along where you take one more chest. A good gameplan means you know the chests on your loot route and your rotations after it.

03When your loot route goes wrong

Even a good loot route does not always go to plan.

• There is always risk: people can see you, key you or have already looted parts of your route because they landed there. Outstorm, the risk is lower, but it never goes away.
• Loot and farm together: offspawn, you loot and farm mats at the same time. Only right after you land do you loot first.
• Someone lands on your spot: if you fight over it, you both loot a bit here and there, and you cannot run your route as strictly as you planned. Improvise, loot everything that is still there, then go into the rotations you planned for after your spot.
• You fought instead of looting: the kills have to replace the chests you did not open. Pick up the mats and heals after every kill. That is your loot route now.
• How long you stay: that depends on your loot route. In a city you can stay longer. If you are stuck on your spot and find nothing more, either fight the player who is there with you or loot the other splits around it.

04Offspawn is often a 50/50

You land on the weapon spawn, he lands on the one next to it. Then it comes down to who gets the better weapon, who has the better aim and who has the better cover angle. Losing that is not automatically a mistake. Everyone dies offspawn sometimes. Offspawn means fighting with little loot, and you cannot always have full shield or good mats there.

Seven out of seven is not luck

If you die offspawn in 7 out of 7 games, it is not the 50/50 anymore. Then there are mistakes somewhere in your play.

Check if it really was a 50/50

When I review an offspawn death, I look at how it happened.

• Same chest: you both landed on it, and who got the weapon was random. Not much you could do.
• Hit before you were down: he landed earlier and damaged you before you touched the ground. That is a bad landing, see above.
• More mats when the fight started: you both looted first and he had clearly more. You looted worse.
• More chests: he opened way more chests than you. He outdropped you for the better part of the spot.

The good play

Take the 50/50 when you know you have more HP than him. Getting shield out of a chest right before the fight is luck.

05Your offspawn strat

Decide before the cup what you do when someone contests your spot. Offspawn gives you no time to decide.

1. One plan for one enemy, one for two

For each case, pick one: fight right away, let him come (box up and wait for your entry), or quick loot and disengage. With two enemies, also decide if you let them fight each other first.

2. When you key

Right after landing you basically never key (the exceptions are in Take or leave). After that, key with entry or when you think you outlooted him. Quick loot until you have a pump, a second weapon and shield, then key, so more of the spot is left for you and the third party risk is lower. With three on the spot, do not key first, because the third one keeps looting and third parties you. How the last game of a cup changes this is in Take or leave.

3. Know your ammo

Spamming builds for pressure is fine, but know your ammo first. After a weak offspawn loot, do not start a fight yourself if your main weapon's ammo cannot carry it. With little pistol ammo you open two walls and you are empty. In the midgame you usually have enough ammo for a fight like that.

4. Gold for Shockwaves

If you rotate early with Shockwaves, take gold offspawn and buy more at a vending, so you have some left for the endgame. If there is a vending on your spot or in your gameplan, go early, but after your loot, because later in the game most vendings are out of Shockwaves.

5. Camping a chest

If you know someone close will probably go for an unlooted chest, camp it. Do not sit behind a rock watching players when no play is worth it.