To win in CS2, it’s not enough to just hit headshots. Grenades are key if you want a better chance to win rounds. Skilled players know lots of lineups, but the game won’t hold your hand and teach you how to throw them. Today, the CS.MONEY Blog explains where to find CS2 grenade line-ups for maps in the competitive pool.
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Why are utility grenades important in CS2?
Let us start with a super basic question. Without nades, Counter-Strike would completely lose the tactical vibe we all love. The game would just be boring: you push as an attacker, an enemy AWP catches you, and boom, the round is over.
At lower ranks, that’s pretty much how people play. It’s balanced out by the fact that players don’t aim that well. At higher levels, though, grenade usage is what really shows the difference between teams. Players come up with smart lineups to catch opponents off guard. Over time, some smokes become must-know basics. But where can you learn them?
Where to learn CS2 grenade line-ups?
There are a few different ways to answer this:
- Official Valve guides
- Grenade guides from the Steam Workshop
- Pro matches
- Tutorials and guides
Official Valve guides
CS2 recently added a built-in way to practice your grenade throws. Here is what you need to do:
- Go to the Play menu
- Select the Practice tab
- Choose Competitive mode right below it
- On the left, turn on Guides and select Official map guide
- Make sure Infinite Warmup and Grenade Camera are turned on
- Load up the map you want
Once you are on the map, an official guide will pop up whenever you pull out a smoke. You can even use this same guide in regular Competitive mode (not Premier) during the first five rounds of each half.
The best thing about practice mode is that you can see exactly where your smokes land and figure out what you are doing wrong. The biggest downside is that the smokes they show are super basic, and there are only a few of them. There is no real variety, and it skips all the tricky details. So, if you are already a decent player, you might want to check out other options.
Steam Workshop grenade guides
When you are picking a guide, the game also lets you open the Steam Workshop. You can find all kinds of guides for different maps there, and they are usually way more detailed. The only bad part is that you have to figure out for yourself if a guide is actually good or not. On the plus side, they often cover flashbangs and HE grenades too, not just smokes.
Also, before these built-in guides existed, community creators made special custom maps just for practicing line-ups in the Steam Workshop. Those are still worth checking out, though the new guide system makes things a lot easier now.
Tutorials and guides
Another way to level up your game knowledge is by checking out community guides outside of CS2. This could be YouTube videos or separate articles. By the way, CS.MONEY has a bunch of super helpful articles covering the most important grenades for different maps. But our Blog is not just for CS2 grenade line-ups, as we also break down a lot of the core mechanics of CS2 and share all the coolest stuff happening around Counter-Strike.
- Dust 2 guide: Key utility grenades
- Nades 101: best smokes on Ancient
- All Key Grenades for Nuke in CS2
Pro matches
Finally, watching pro matches is a great way to learn effective lineups. The best players are always looking for an edge and often create new smoke lineups. The only downside is a big one: during matches, players won’t explain how they threw a grenade. You have to watch their crosshair placement and movement closely to figure it out.
However, YouTubers and bloggers usually analyze pro matches pretty quickly and break down the craziest smokes in detail, which basically brings us back to the Tutorials and guides section.
Wanting to get better at the game is awesome, but the most important thing is to just have fun playing. You can find some sick skins to upgrade your CS2 loadout at super low prices over at CS.MONEY!
