What is CS:GO?
When playing CS:GO competitively, the game will match players with opponents of a similar skill level. Every player who has won 10 competitive matches is assigned a rank, and then matched against other players of the same or similar rank. CS:GO rankings range from Silver 1 (lowest) to Global Elite (highest).
How does CS:GO work?
The game pits two teams of five players against each other, with each team having to complete certain objectives to win. One team takes on the role of the Terrorists (Ts), while the other team are the Counter-Terrorists (CTs). There are several game modes available, but professional esports matches are always played in five-on-five Competitive mode (5on5). In this mode, the attacking Ts must plant and detonate a bomb in a specific location — site A or B — or take out all five of the CTs to win a round. The CTs must defuse the bomb when it is planted, or take out all five of the Ts to win the round. Each match comprises of 30 rounds in total, with rounds lasting a maximum of one minute and 55 seconds. The first team to win 16 rounds wins in the match. CS:GO also incorporates an in-game currency system, which rewards players for winning rounds, killing enemies and successfully using certain weapons.
Players can then spend their dollars on new guns and grenades between rounds, increasing their chances of winning later rounds.
Weapon Kill Awards
The ‘kill award’ that you receive for eliminating an enemy will depend on which weapon you are using at the time. See the list below for more details on the Competitive kill awards:
Weapon — Award Per Kill ($)
- Knife — $1500
- Pistol (excluding CZ75-Auto) — $300
- CZ75-Auto — $100
- SMG (excluding P90) — $600
- P90 — $300
- Shotgun — $900
- Assault Rifles & Auto Snipers — $300
- AWP — $100
- Grenade — $300
- Zeus x27 — $0
To explain things simply, a team’s economy is concerned with the amount of money that all players on the team have gathered collectively in order to buy new weapons and utilites.
Economy Explained
This value is in a constant state of flux between rounds, and depends on how much the team has spent on weapons and armour, the kill awards that have been received per elimination (based on each weapon), the status of bomb planting / defusions, and who won the round in question. All team members have their own pot of money that shifts and changes based on the events detailed above, and how you choose to manage your money has a significant impact on the rest of the team’s purchasing plans. For this reason you’ll find that players will want to work together to purchase and swap items. If your AWP ace can’t afford that weapon but you can, you can pick it up for them and swap with a gun that they can afford to purchase for you. It’s just another side to the close teamwork and cooperation that’s required to succeed in CS:GO. The maximum amount of money each player on a team can have is limited at $16,000.
Weapon Pricing
Each weapon is priced differently based on the strength. Snipers are priced around $4500–5000. Snipers are very effective in a situation when a player is holding an angle or bomb site. Snipers are also a high risk high reward weapon, if you hit your shot it is a one shot kill but if you miss your first shots it can be hard to recover especially in close gun battles. Assault Rifles are priced $2000–3000, AR’s are very effective for players in close and mid range gun battles but have high recoil so you must control your spray. SMG’s are one of the weaker gun categories, they are very good in close gun fights but are very weak long range. Pistols in the buy menu range from $200–700. Typically, must players do not spend money on secondary weapons such as pistol until their economy is higher as primary weapons are far more effective. Pistols are priced lower because they are much weaker guns. It is also very important to buy armor which is $1000 so you take reduced damage from bullets and grenades. The last category you can buy is utility such as molotov's, smoke grenades, flash bangs, grenades, and decoy grenades. Utility is very useful as you can blind the other players temporarily with flash bangs, deal damage with grenades, prevent other players from entering an area with molotov’s, and smoke grenades are useful in blocking an area so an enemy is unable to see you.
An integral part of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, utility is a very important factor in the current meta and can decide between victory and defeat. There are way too few people out there who know how to actually use their utility, and some of them do not even buy them at all.
Flashbangs
The flashbang, or flash, has the primary use of blinding your opponent. If people look directly at it, teammate or not, the person who looked at it will be blinded for a period of time, defined by how close the flash popped and how directly the person looked at it. Therefore, the further away the flashbang pops, the less effective the blinding effect will be. Flashes are especially useful if you want to peek against an enemy who is on his way to attack you. When you hear his footsteps and time your flash well, you will get at least one guaranteed kill.
HE Grenades
The HE (High-Explosive) grenade is a grenade which will explode after a certain amount of time has passed after throwing them, and has a maximum damage output of 57 against armored players, and 98 against unarmored players. Therefore, a HE grenade can be lethal against eco-rushes, because a direct impact of the grenade on a player can leave them at 2 health. You can use HEs to stop rushes and to punish overaggression of the Ts. When people are running through a narrow corridor, such Banana on Inferno, a few HEs can completely destroy all 5 players, or at least get them down to low HP which should secure you the round. When you are on the offensive side of the in-game conflict, the use of the HE only shifts slightly. You should still use them to prenade known spots, especially corners which are favoured by the AWPers, to get free damage in. It also makes sense to nadestack certain parts of a bombsite when you try to take one, in order to deny the CT who is possibly hiding in that spot any chance of a frag.
Smoke Grenades
The smoke grenade became synonymous with CT-side holds of bombsites. They are a crucial part of the defense in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and rightfully so. They only pop once they’ve stopped moving, so you are able to throw them as far as the map allows you to, which allows for both sides to smoke off certain passageways or doorframes that are a crucial part for the other to have vision through.
Counter Terrorist Strategy For Smokes
The CTs should adjust their usage of smokes to the way the Ts act. If they normally attack within the first few seconds of a round, with a lot of rushes, it is good to smoke of crucial chokepoints. They, at least, have to use part of their utility to get through the smoke safely, but a good amount of rushes get stopped dead by a good smoke. It is important to know that you should deny map control with your smokes, and not enable it. If you only smoke the doorframe of B-Main on Cache, the Ts will easily be able to push into Ventroom. You should instead smoke further into B-Main to stop them from getting into Ventroom without taking damage.
Terrorist Strategy For Smokes
The first thing that comes to mind is to use them in a way that makes taking map control, or a bombsite, easier. The most popular examples here are the Dust 2 Corner and the Long Cross smokes. These allow you to cancel out popular and strong positions for the CTs, and to force them to either take a huge risk or to fall back and wait for the smokes to clear. You can also smoke off chokepoints that the CTs like to exploit, such as the top of Banana on Inferno, if the CTs have been rather successful taking full Banana control. If they see a smoke that completely denies information for the CTs, they will think twice about pushing through it.
Molotov Grenades
This grenade explodes after a certain amount of time has passed after you have thrown it. If it explodes on, or close to, the ground (or any other flat surface) it will cover a good amount of space in flames. Everyone standing in those flames with 100 HP has roughly three and a half seconds left to get out of it before they die. I should mention that you can put out any flames caused by an incendiary or a molotov with a smoke grenade, which may allow the CTs to survive longer than intended.
Counter Terrorist Strategy
As a CT, you can use the molotovs to delay and stop a push, and to deny map control in certain cases. If the attack is taking place, getting damage in with an incendiary placed in one of the chokepoints can win you the round. Alternatively, if the Ts are already on the bombsite, you can use the incendiary to stop the plant, and to buy time this way. You should be careful as a CT when you try to use the incendiary grenade. They cost $600 on the CT side, and only burn for close to six and a half seconds. Throwing them at the wrong time or to the wrong location will cause you to throw away that money.
Terrorist Strategy
The molotov truly is multi-faceted on the T side. You use them to stop overly-aggressive CTs, when the CT side has successfully pushed you multiple times. The molotov can, obviously, help you gain map control, either by denying an important and offensive position for the CTs, or by clearing out corners when you progress through the map.
Decoy Grenade
The decoy truly is the outcast of the grenade family. It is often ridiculed by casuals and pros alike, and probably rightfully so. I do not need to split the uses of this grenade by fraction, simply because there are not many. It is only truly useful in a handful of situations. You can use them to mask your rush, and to confuse your enemy by doing so. It could be possible for you to throw a good amount of decoys towards one side of the map, let them make noise and then push out. The CTs will be late to call for backup, as they will only know about your push once you are already knocking on their door. Alternatively, to vary, you can play a fake by throwing decoys to one side of the map and going to the different side. Another way to use them is to cause confusion in the middle of a heated fight. This is, pretty much like the first way of using the decoys, unlikely to work. You can either sit in a different corner than the decoy, or sit on the decoy. Both can confuse the enemy in certain situations. In general, I would not advise you to rely on both uses.
Closing Thoughts
CS:GO can sound like a confusing/complex game but with a little bit of practice it is fairly easy to get a solid understanding of the mechanics. An excellent way to improve your gameplay is to watch how high level or even better, professional players and try to mimic what they do in game and learn why they make the decisions they do.
