With Ranked Play on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 becoming more and more popular with average players, finding ways to improve your game and win more often is a constant question. How do CDL pros strategize throughout matches, and what plays are they making that find the most success?

We spoke with Eli "Standy" Bentz to discuss the basics of Control and how to be more dominant in each round. He gives you the breakdown of how the game mode is played, what types of setups you and your teammates should be running and how to secure the win.

What do you think about going into a round of Control? How do you start that match and then progressively, as you get through each round - you lose a round or win a round- how's that strategy play out from start to finish?

From the start of control, you have two points, you have an A and B point, and the majority of the time, one point is much easier to get than the other point. So I think for ranked play, at least for most people to play, you want to start control on offense going for that easy point first, whether that's, for example, on Asilo, that's usually the A point, on Hotel it's usually the A point, on Expo it's the B point. 

So those are the easy points initially, and you just want to cap the first point. After that, just keep hitting the team pushes to the hardpoint. But on defense, you just want to prioritize not allowing them to get the hard point, basically. On Asilo, it’s B, on Expo it's A and on Hotel is B. Like the game mode says - it’s Control - So just hold map control, get kills and make sure you don't go four dead at once. You can never go four dead all at once in Control. That's bad news. So play your life. 

The best part is you want to set up a team push, whether that's let’s all hit through the base and trade out kills, let's wrap this. But I think it just comes into play like whatever you're doing, just try to use teamwork and make sure if you die, someone else is getting the kill. You're making progressions toward map control and getting the point. I'm that guy that loves taking routes. I'll hit a long route, flank, get a kill, spawn tap that guy then get on the point for my boys.

How do you approach a round with randoms on your team?

If I play with randoms, some randoms, you can tell they're pretty skilled, and some of them maybe aren't as skilled. So some matches, I'm going in like, OK, I got to do it, I gotta go off. I just try to do my best to carry the team for a dub. Sometimes, based on their ranks, I feel like if they're in the top 250, they're pretty good players compared to if you're a pro, obviously. I look to make sure we have two ARs out, two SMGs, two trophies, and two Dead Silence. That's just  the basics. This is going to help you win.