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CSGO Smokes

9/24/2023

Valves five on five first-person shooter is layered with all sorts of tactical utility and strategic environments. The game naturally lends itself a slower and more thought out style of play than other FPS games out there. 

 

The fact that the only game mode played is a two bombsite search and destroy means that there has been ample time for teams and players to learn the finicky parts of the game's mechanics, and develop ways of pushing out, and defending sites. 

 

Generally speaking, defenders in these types of engagements have a natural advantage. They get to sit holding an angle, waiting for the enemy to engage, whereas the attackers need to push up to make that engagement first, usually into the crosshairs of one or more enemies. That's where grenades come in. 

 

Grenades can be used by both defenders and attackers to great effect, but generally speaking, attackers get more use out of them than defenders. When you're pushing a site, there are a million and one spots you can get shot from, so you need a way to cut that number down. Incendiaries and Molotov's do the job fine, but nothing does it quite so well as a smoke grenade. 

 

Smoke grenades are a tactical that detonate a few seconds after impact. When it explodes, it expands into a large cloud of smoke, which players can't see through. This cloud is quite large in size, so this grenade certainly shouldn't be overlooked. 

 

There are plenty of applications for it, but by far, the most useful is a coordinated team effort when pushing out a site. Take Mirage, for example. When attacking A site, you have to worry about Palace, Jungle, Steps, Firebox, Ticketbooth, Short, and Ninja. That is way too many spots for one team to check. 

 

However, Mirage, like every other competitive map, has a few grenade spots that you can learn and take advantage of. From behind ramp, before you even have to engage anybody, it's possible to smoke off Ticketbooth, Steps, Short and Jungle, and any spots on-site, including Firebox.

 

Combine all this with good use of Molotov's, and you've got yourself an easy way to take over a bomb site. 

 

You don't just have to use smokes offensively like that, though. A lot of teams opt to use them to fake out the enemy. What that means, is throwing grenades as if you were preparing to hit a site, and making noise, in an attempt to get the enemy team to rotate over to it. Once they do, your bomb carrier pushes onto the now empty bomb site for a free plant. It's a high risk, high reward strategy. 

 

You can either send your bomb carrier alone, and have the whole team pull off the fake, or vice versa.

 

Regardless of how you use them, smoke grenades shouldn't be overlooked. Even on defense, you can smoke off entry points so that your enemy has to push into the site blind, or wait for the smoke to vanish. Strategic uses of smoke grenades win games.