Introduction

Sometime when you’re playing CS no matter what you do you just can’t seem to win any aim duels. The best way to counteract those off days is to give yourself every advantage over your opponent so that you’re not forced to out aim them. One of the key strategies to achieve this is to limit vision, in comes the crux of every CS strategy the smoke grenade. Using a smoke or a combination of smokes can force people out into the open, stop them from pushing early in a round, give you the initial advantage if they decide to push through it or in the very best case scenario force people off a site entirely giving you the plant and valuable time to set up. So without further ado here are 5 of my top smokes across all of competitive CS.

1. Dust II Long

Dust II is the most popular CS map, everyone has played it at least once, and long A can be one of the most contentious positions on the map as T and CT players strive to take it early in the round. As a terrorist you have two positions to worry about early in a round if you decide to initiate a long take, long corner and pit. With this simple smoke you essentially eliminate the corner position forcing that player out into the open or to fall back to site giving you control over the start of long. Simply move towards bedroom aiming your crosshair over the right-hand door and perform a walking throw once you reach the point where the tiles end and the sand begins.

This will cause the smoke to land right on the corner of long and doesn’t generally have to be thrown perfectly to smoke the corner off. Coupled with a solo flash or a flash from a teammate you’ll have long control in no time, this is especially successful as a quick play with a long spawn and is useful if the CT side have been AWPing corner.

If you want to be a little cheeky you can even use the smoke as a means to pop flash yourself into long in a rush, the CT side on site won’t see the flash coming until it’s too late.

2. Mid to B Dust II

Seeing as I called it the most popular map I might as well chuck another smoke down here for interests sake. Too often I see B takes on dust failing because of the main entrance to B site being a choke point where teams get sprayed down mercilessly. However if you can split onto the B site it can become a nightmare for the CT players to hold effectively with 3 different angles needing to be covered by 2 or potentially 1 player. This smoke is really simple, stand right in the corner of X-box and short wall and aim at the window, this will totally smoke off CT spawn and anyone trying to defend from A.

That may or may not be a HE grenade

This smoke is almost a necessity as without it you will be sitting ducks for anyone holding that angle as you run up the long and dangerous B ramp. It might be worth keeping a player at mid doors as you are susceptible for a push through the smoke, if he decides to do that and you’re lying in wait at worst you might lose one player. It is also worth clearing mid early in the round as it is common to have an AWP holding on B ramp or a player being sneaky next to mid doors.

3. A Main and B main Cache

Alright so I lied there are going to be more than 5 smokes, at least I’m giving you some defensive options here! These smokes are really easy to learn and are essential to stop rushes which can be damaging to any CT side on Cache. Let’s start alphabetically, quite often I see people free throwing a smoke at A main that leaves huge gaps on either side that a smart T player can exploit so this is a quick and easy smoke that will completely cover A main and give you time to get anywhere on site. As your running to A stop and line yourself up right on the outside corner of truck and aim for the corner of the sickle and throw.

Even I'm not always perfect

Now to the B site, the problem I see here is people literally covering the entrance into B which actually helps the T’s allowing them to easily cross to checkers making parts of your defensive strategy particularly headshot redundant. If you line yourself up as shown below and perform a running throw it will land deeper into B main giving you access to headshot, checkers and the box near vent forcing the T’s to check or waste utility on these spots.

4. Mid Mirage

Don’t worry, we’re back to a single smoke from now on and this one is on Mirage. If you watch any professional CS you’ll know that Mid is a pivotal position on Mirage, the team which controls it generally has a greater chance of success winning the round. You’ll also know that it can be difficult to even get into mid because with a good spawn a CT AWPer can get in position before you arrive in mid cutting off your access to the cover available. This is a simple smoke that will allow you to cross to the cover and make it difficult for the CT side to hold mid from snipers nest without at the very least being traded. For this one you want to line yourself up in the corner of the doorway like so and aim above the corner of the building.

Be careful because I’ve been picked more than once crossing by an AWPer firing blindly through the smoke, you’ll be unlucky and slightly salty but if successful you have numerous options for taking over mirage.





5. A execute Mirage

So I lied again this is going to be 3 smokes, you came for 5 and you got 8 you should be happy! Don’t ask me how or why but for some reason everyone knows this smoke pattern to some degree but you won’t see me complaining. The Mirage A execute involves smoking off CT, Jungle and stairs essentially isolating anyone playing at palace and triple box from CT, mid and those rotating from B. Best case scenario you’re playing against a passive CT stairs A hold and you get the site for free, worst case you get rushed by all 5 of them while xXPWNAGEXx is lining up his CT smoke that involves a mild form of calculus. Here are what I find to be the easiest ways to smoke the various positions to try and limit that eventuality.

Let's start with jungle, move to the second window and line yourself up in the centre, aim at the little crack in the bricks and go above the wall to throw.

Second let's look at stairs, jump up onto the first step and sit right in the corner. You want to aim in the centre of all this stuff, between the wall and the scaffolding, it’ll bounce right off tetris and onto the stair.

Finally the most difficult smoke the CT smoke. Line up between these two bricks next to the door, aim for the wall between the two jutting components on top and line up with the top of the sun performing a walking throw. This one takes a bit of practice to get right so do it a few times in a test server to get it just right. These are very similar smokes that TheWarOwl uses in his video of his top 5 smokes so if you want a visual representation of how to perform them I suggest checking that out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEQvZudvz5Q&t=209s.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the top “5” smokes I tend to use when playing competitive CS, I hope you learnt something new and bring these into your own game. With the final mirage smokes many people do know them so I recommend learning at least one of those if not 2 off by heart to fill a gap because the A site can be very difficult to take without them. As with anything in CS communication is key, if your teammate is smoking something off make sure you don’t waste your own utility and if they aren’t buying smokes make sure you fill that gap in your team’s arsenal.

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