If you wish to get better at any competitive video game, the best way to do that is by playing a lot of scrims, but what is a scrim? You will often see professional players in games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, and Valorant talk about scrimmaging against other professionals which have resulted in a rise of people being interested in scrimmaging.

What Is a Scrim?

The word scrim comes from the word scrimmage, which is an alteration of a skirmish. It was originally used by medieval soldiers to describe a match where they can train against each other without risking killing each other. A scrim is also known as a practice match or a friendly game. It is a game where one team plays against another team of a similar level. Scrimming is one of the best ways for a team to practice their skills and try out new strategies before joining a tournament. The biggest advantage of a scrim over a PUG (Pick up games, like matchmaking in CS:GO) is that both teams are playing seriously and coordinated, aka both teams are trying to improve.

What Is a Pro Scrim?

There is no real difference between a normal scrim and a pro scrim, other than the skill level. Most professional players have reached a skill level where they can’t get better by just practicing their aim and playing PUGs, to get better they must actively be playing against opponents that are just as coordinated as themself. It is very popular for professional teams to scrim a lot while they are bootcamping before a big tournament.

How Do I Join a Scrim?

To play a scrim you must have a team to play with. Most games have Discord servers dedicated to finding scrimmage matches. There are also a lot of different websites where you can find players to scrim against like Pracc, Esport-Scrim, and Fornite-Scrims.

Scrimming in CS:GO

In CS:GO scrims are often played on private servers hosted by one of the teams. My preferred way to find scrims is by queuing up on ESEA. ESEA will find you another team to play against and give you a server to play on. If you are not interested in paying for ESEA, then you can check out Pracc or Esportal.

Scrimming in Other Games; Like League of Legends and Fortnite

The term scrim is not reserved for a particular game, so it is possible to find scrims for pretty much every single competitive video game that you want. Depending on how popular the game is it can be a bit harder to find though.

Fortnite Scrims

In Battle Royale games like Fortnite, it is very common for players to play scrims instead of normal matches because scrims offer a higher level of play. There is a lot of different Discord servers revolving around Fortnite scrims, you can find a list of the biggest ones here or use fortnitescrims.net to schedule scrimmage matches.

League of Legends Scrims

Playing scrimmage matches is a nice way to practice in League of Legends as a team because Flex queue is a bit iffy. You can find League of Legends scrims here.

Valorant Scrims

Riot Games’ new game Valorant is quickly rising in popularity and if you wish to become among the best players in Valorant once it hits the mainstream then you need to start playing scrims. You can find a lot of Valorant scrims on this Discord.

Overwatch Scrims

It is very easy to find scrims in Overwatch, just go into the custom matches finder and search for a scrim. If you are looking to schedule a scrim at a later time you can find scrims on Pracc