It’s hard to surprise a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive veteran with any tactic or trick. With hundreds of played matches under their belt, they’ve seen it all: from quick B rushes to sophisticated stunts involving four fakes in one round. The CS.MONEY Blog rummaged through the eSports archives to find five curious and memorable tactics for your rounds.
5 AWPs by Fnatic
Let’s start with the classics. Before the wall upgrade on Dust 2, you could basically watch the entire map right from the T spawn, all the way to the CTs’ passage to B. The only problem for the Ts was the double doors, which did a pretty good job of protecting against bullets from almost every weapon in the game.
Only sniper rifles could do serious damage — or even kill — through the double doors. As a result, attacking players would often buy 5 sniper rifles in the last round and fire away at the passage. While this tactic was used by many clubs, we’ll note the Swedish squad Fnatic’s particular love of the AWP in the last round. They resorted to the 5 AWP style not only on Dust 2, but also, for example, on Cobblestone.
Now, this tactic isn’t easily feasible, with almost all maps now offering less open space than before. Cobblestone and Train were replaced by Vertigo and Ancient, and the afore-mentioned mid on Dust 2 was “blocked,” rendering the AWP fever rather challenging.
Crouching attack
Another “classic” tactic from Fnatic, even though they used it a lot less often compared to the previous one. The idea is the definition of simple: in the pistol round, everyone gets Dual Berettas and moves around the map in a crouch. If something along these lines was possible in the shooter from Riot Games, any team that would dare to pull that off would probably get punished for unsportsmanlike conduct. Nevertheless, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a game from Valve. Consequently, the team punishes itself by losing the round.
Interestingly, the vast majority of teams have abandoned these “troll rounds” by now. And while the R8 Revolver rounds by Jesper JW Wecksell can theoretically fall into this category, that’s pretty far-fetched. Apparently, the competition has grown already so intense that there’s not much room for kidding around.
Doubly incendiary
The emergence of incendiary grenades in the Counter-Strike series caused a wave of resentment in the community. At the time, many pros noted that this utility would not only turn the CTs’s life into a nightmare but also make it impossible to hold almost any site. However, time has shown that those concerns were exaggerated. Even now, when teams have learned to throw grenades in batches at once, situations like that are extremely rare.
For instance, Team Acer used the tactic of setting the entire point to fire in order to plant C4. Below is a video of a round where the Swedish players managed to clear A Site from all CTs and even score two frags using an impressive five Molotovs. Note that such tricks can be pulled off not only on Cache but on other maps as well. Team EnVyUs adapted this idea to capture B Site on the map Inferno. It turned out quite spectacular and effective!
Cloud track
Using smoke nades, teams usually try to create a kind of wall. For example, a team will often separate the connector on Mirage from the C4 site, or close off the approach from the defense spawn to A Site on Train. Alternative throws are used much less frequently.
An example of an alternative throw was shown by the Luminosity lineup in the MLG Columbus semifinals. Luminosity demonstrated a rather underwhelming beginning on the second map, Cache. To remedy the situation, the guys decided to pull off an interesting trick: to use their opponent’s throws against them.
The trick is straightforward: the Luminosity players waited until Liquid blocked the passage from main with smoke. After that, they threw two smokes and created a pass from squeaky to the corner of A Site. The plan worked out as intended, and the appearance of TACO caught the CTs unawares. A most interesting tactical decision.
Human turrets by Team Liquid
The last trick on our today’s list belongs to Team Liquid, who performed it at PGL Major Stockholm 2021. In their match versus Entropiq, the American squad lost the upper hand and had to play an eco-round. Luckily, Liquid had a plan up their sleeve for this scenario. To take their opponent by surprise, four players took positions at A Site.
And they didn’t just stand in cover — rather, the opposite: all four players first climbed the fence, and then on top of each other, forming two towers of two. The trap failed because the Entropiq players simply didn’t enter through the ramp, but let’s give the guys credit where credit is due: it’s a fascinating idea. Even with standard pistols, four players can quickly put down one or even two opponents.
As you can see, even after hundreds and thousands of hours in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, you can still come across some uncommon tactics. However, most of them will require a couple of compliant teammates, or better yet, friends. You have those, right?
