How to Control 'Control'

General information

To begin with, let's look into a few things regarding the main concepts around Control itself, before we go into the intricate details surrounding the gamemode:

-Control is an objective based gamemode of 6v6, with 3 different zones. Capturing 2 or more of these zones will increase the amount of points gained per kill. 

-Controlling 3 zones at once will initiate a powerplay, where you get 3 points per kill. 

-When you reach 150 points, gain a 60-point advantage (no earlier than 90-30) or have a point advantage when the time limit of 10 minutes is reached, your team wins. 

-If there is a tie at the 10-minute mark, there is 30 seconds of overtime, the team who has the most points after overtime will win, if not it will end in a tie. 

Specific Details

Now that the basics are out of the way, let's talk about some specific details that not everyone may know:

-The capturing of a zone takes 10 seconds with 1 guardian on it. This time is reduced by 1 second per every additional guardian, making the fastest possible time to capture a zone 5 seconds. 

-No matter how many guardians stand on a zone, only 1 point will be given per capture. 

-Regardless of having a zone or not, a team will always get at least 1 point per kill. So even if you get a powerplay, the opposing team will get still get 1 point per kill. 

-Spawn points are determined by your team's position and have nothing to do with what zones you control. 

-Winning Control requires a balance between controlling zones and killing enemy guardians; you cannot have one without the other, regardless of how good you may be.

Here, I will go though a few concepts that can be used in order to gain an advantage over your enemies. 

Targeted Zone Captuing

There is 1 major flaw to this; it cannot be used in every map. Burnout is perfect considering its size, map simplicity and symmetry. Other maps however, such as Bannerfall, make this tactic completely obsolete. Bannerfall is a long map; there is no easy way to get from A to C and B puts you in an extremely vulnerable position. This is where other concepts can come into play, zone chasing being the best option, although still quite hard to pull off successfully. 

Zone Chasing

Zone chasing is a very aggresive form of teamplay where you continously push the enemies, capping zones as you go. This will give you the highest uptime of advantage/powerplay. Ironically enough Burnout is another really good map for such a tactic, however, I feel that we should change it up a bit. Alter of Flame is a very good example of using zone chasing to your advantage. For this instance, if you spawn A, your plan is to capture A, B and C, whilst killing as many guardians as you can along the way. You capture C, triggering a spawn swap, then rinse and repeat going from C to A. It is important that you get continious team wipes as even 1 player left alive can be given enough time to cap a zone and disturb the cycle. Not everyone has to cap the zones, however, it is just as important to not move pre-empetively as to not force enemies to spawn closer to B. 

This tactic can be used in much larger maps; maps in which targeted zone capturing will fail. However, that doesn't mean it's a perfect system. It requires the most co-ordination and skill in order to get the best results. 

Counter-Capping

Counter capping is a concept of retaliation, as your enemy captures a zone, you capture a zone. This is however different to just capturing any zone; it's using player numbers to gain a positional advantage over your enemies. This is a universal rule per se. It doesn't matter what map you load into, you will always be able to use this concept. Here's a non-specific example. You start the game off at A, the enemy at C. Instead of staying at A, you would run directly to B and start capturing it. By the time the enemy gets to you, your team will have a positional advantage over the enemy. Having B incentivises the enemy to push B, which can by punished very easily. 

The start of the map isn't the only way that counter capping can be used. In a mid-game/end-game sense, you would use counter capping to stay on top of your enemies for as long as possible, without over-extending. For example, the enemy team has A and B. They switched spawns with you and are currently capturing C. In this case, you would have 3 people capture A, with the other 3 pushing and capturing B. This may give the enemy team uptime on a powerplay, but you have the positional advantage because you took A and B. 

The most efficient usage is determanistic of how the enemy team captures zones. To use this tactic efficiently, you would keep 3 people A/C and send 3 people to B. On the other hand, if you wanted to use this tactic with the highest chance of success, you would only have 1 person on A/C, whilst sending 5 to B. Theoretically you could get B nearly in time with the enemy capturing their spawn zone (the capture time for B would be 6 seconds, so it's very dependant on the enemies commitment to their spawn zone).

This is a simple, near universal rule that has a big impact on map control and gaining a positional advantage over your opponents. The main drawbacks are determined by you and your opponent's teamplay and confidence in getting out of a bad position. There shouldn't be a single map where you cannot attempt to use this tactic, although it will shine on some more than others. 

With this list, it should simplify what maps have the best layout in order to use these tactics to their fullest. Some maps are genuinely better than others, so some may have more or less tactics tied to them. 

Targeted Zone Capturing - Cauldron, Distant Shore, Endless Vale, Javelin-4, Legion's Gulch, Pacifica, Retribution, Solitude, The Burnout, The Dead Cliffs. 

Zone Chasing - Alter of Flame, Anomoly, Bannerfall, Cauldron, Convergence, Javelin-4, Meltdown, Radiant Cliffs, Retribution, Rusted Lands, Solitude, The Burnout, The Fortress, Twilight Gap, Vostok, Wormhaven. 

Counter Capturing - Alter of Flame, Anomoly, Cauldron, Endless Vale, Exodus Blue, Javelin-4, Legion's Gulch, Meltdown, Midtown, Pacifica, Radiant Cliffs, Retribution, Rusted Lands, Solitude, The Burnout, The Fortress, Twilight Gap, Vostok, Widows Court, Wormhaven.

Even though some maps have been sunset/removed from rotation, I will be listing as many as I can, given that the map allows for usage of the tactics above.