The Top 5 Main Misconceptions About Competitive Splatoon

Article originally posted on the Splatoon Stronghold website.

The Top 5 Main Misconceptions About Competitive Splatoon

The competitive scene for Splatoon 3 is a bustling community filled with vast amounts of information on the game, whether that be the current meta, the skills required to get better at Splatoon, or information on current or upcoming tournaments and LANs. Often however, it is the things people think to be true about competitive Splatoon that cause them to turn away from it, leading them to believe there are too many roadblocks to entry, making it feel impossible to start. Here, we aim to discuss and dispel the most common misconceptions about competitive Splatoon to show you that it's not as hard as you may think to jump into the competitive scene.

1. You have to be good at Splatoon to get into competitive

A belief that many budding players may hold is the idea that in order to become a competitive player, you have to already be a very good Splatoon player. Players commonly associate achieving a high X power or strong tournament results with being a competitive Splatoon player.

This makes sense to many, as with many things in life people believe they have to be good at it before they can start trying to be at the top level for this activity. However, the competitive Splatoon scene is very different. There is no specific entry requirement or certain rank you have to be to start. Taking on Splatoon with a competitive mindset simply means wanting to dedicate time to improve your skills and become a better player, working towards certain goals. Many believe that they can’t enter the scene because the main areas of competitive Splatoon they see are the top level tournaments and LANs which (whilst being fun to watch and intriguing people about the scene helping growth majorly) can lead to people believing this level of skill and co-ordination in a team environment is average for competitive players. However most competitive teams are not at this level of skill, but yet are still competitive players through their desire to improve and focus on personal growth.

You do not need to already have high-level results or high X-powers to start getting into competitive Splatoon; having the game is already enough.

2. Competitive Splatoon is boring

By putting the word ‘competitive’ in front of a video game designed for enjoyment, it can feel as if people are trying to take the ‘fun’ aspect of the game out, and are only focussing on parts that people see as more ‘boring’.

However, the objective of Splatoon’s competitive scene is not to focus purely on skill, but on what individual players want to do. One of the main drives for competitive players is the enjoyment they get out of the scene, whether this be through meeting new players, forming teams, scrimming, seeing yourself improve, or simply having fun with friends and teammates as a result of becoming a competitive player. As with almost all video game communities, their main purpose is not to deter new members by making the game boring, but to invite new members in by opening up new ways to see the game and new people to share your enjoyment of the game with.

If you truly believe playing the game from a competitive perspective to be boring, we encourage you to try to shift your viewpoint away from competition being about winning, and toward being a way to constantly grow and make new friends.

3. To be a competitive Splatoon player, you have to play the meta

One of the main points of discussion in the competitive scene is the meta. The meta itself refers to the pool of weapons that people believe are consistently the best options to pick in order to win high-level matches more often. The ‘best’ weapons and strategies at any point in the game are constantly changing, allowing for new team compositions to be built and tried in high-level tournaments. The meta is a great way for all players of varying skill levels to see how the game is shaping at the highest level, but this can lead to some misconceptions about what weapons people believe they should play if they want to be taken as a serious competitive player.

While the balance of the game affects everyone who plays, this doesn’t mean you have to play only the weapons that are seen as the best at any particular time. Most of the time, the competitive players that are affected greatly by the meta are only the higher level ones where there is less room for a lack of weapon power. In truth, the best weapons in the game are not a rigid selection of weapons that stay completely unchanged until the next patch, but an organic mix of options that varies based on the player, their style of play, and who they're playing with. Just because a weapon isn’t considered meta does not mean that it isn’t worth playing. Some players are going to be better at niche, off-meta picks and that's okay. What people see as meta should be considered, but it shouldn’t be viewed as a checklist for all teams to build off of, rather something that changes and shifts as people learn more about the game and continue to improve and experiment.

4. Mechanical skill defines how good a player is

The main part of competitive play that people tend to zoom in on when talking about improvement is mechanical skill. Mechanical skill refers to your physical ability to control your character, hit your shots, and execute your ideas to win games. These factors are important components that determine your performance in-game, and improving them is important if you want to improve your gameplay as a whole, but there are many other skills that are just as important, or arguably more important than mechanical skill. These skills are those such as team coordination, positioning, callouts, and changing your playstyles to meet the specific demands at certain points in a match.

Team coordination is essential for playing the game at its highest potential. Paired with giving good callouts, team coordination allows players to have a better understanding as to what is going on at certain points in the game. For example, using all of your special weapons as a team at once may not be the best idea as even if you retake, you may not have enough utilities to hold the objective. Callouts can also help prevent individual players from making mistakes or helping them visualise what is happening in areas on the map that they can’t see.

Positioning is arguably one of the most important factors that separate low-level and high-level players. Good positioning allows players to take more advantageous fights, utilise special weapons more effectively, and retreat more safely to maintain pressure when the other team attempts to retake the objective.

This synergises importantly with the concept of flexible roles in-game.
Though some weapons can be called ‘anchors’, ‘slayers’, ‘skirmishers’, or ‘supports’, it is important to keep in mind that specific weapons will most likely not fit their role completely in one game. For example, your supportive Splash-o-matic may serve as an anchor when they’re using their Crab Tank or are the only one alive on the team so they can give super jumps in. They also may become an aggressive slayer by pushing in when their team has the advantage, and go back to supporting after this. Keeping your role flexible is vital to maintain the pressure on the opponent and to create more opportunities for your team.

While mechanical skill is a very important part of playing Splatoon, other skills such as positioning and team coordination play a part in improving your gameplay.

5. The goal of being a competitive player is to be the best

In this article we have talked heavily about one motivator for getting into competitive Splatoon being improvement. This is one of the most common reasons as to why people get into competitive, but people often conflate wanting to be better with wanting to be the best. It takes a lot of dedication and practice to become a true master at anything, let alone Splatoon. But it is important to remember that you can find value in the act of improving itself, or in many other aspects of the game. For some, competing is purely fun, for others it's a way to create content. Some strive to be the best there can be while others focus on growing the community. There is no set goal that everyone has, and there doesn’t have to be.

The key idea underpinning the competitive Splatoon scene is enjoyment, so as long as your motivation is healthy, feel free to start! Just grab your friends and your favourite weapons and give competitive a go! If you don’t have friends that play Splatoon, there are many welcoming communities where you can find people in the scene to grow and play with (the Splatoon Stronghold’s a great place to start!).

Original Posting Date: August 31, 2025

Written by: Kitamura