This week Mirage is on the chopping block, as we breakdown a range of Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist strategies on a map characterised by its Middle, which offers many opportunities for success to whichever side can control it. We will take a look at various strategies that can be employed and show you the smokes, flashes and Molotovs to execute the strategies with videos throughout the article. The viewmodel used in the videos is the classic viewmodel.





The Counter-Terrorist Side

On the Terrorist pistol, it is very common to run some variation of an A execute or a B contact strategy. The strongest pistol to counter these strategies is to run a “retake A” set-up, with your strongest pistol player holding CT Spawn on A. His job is to get one or two kills as the Terrorist side executes on A before falling back passively in CT Spawn and waiting to retake the A bombsite with his teammates. He should be careful, as it is very common for multiple Terrorists to rush CT Spawn during an execute in order to overwhelm the player holding there and take control of this area of the map. Your weakest pistol player should buy a smoke and a defuse kit, for defusing the bomb in a smoke while his teammates retake the bombsite, before heading to Sniper’s Nest. His job is to spot the top of Middle and utilise the window frame to cover his body, while fighting at long range. However, it is more likely that he will attempt to kill Terrorists as they execute on the A Bombsite or perform a retake on B. Both players near A should aim to stay alive for as long as possible rather than getting kills if the Terrorists attack A. The last three players buy armour and head to the B Bombsite, with one player by the Short Pillar, one player around the site itself and one player on the van spotting down into the B Apartments. If he is feeling confident, he can even walk push up the B Appartments if he sees no one in the first twenty seconds of the round.

When playing an anti-eco on the Counter-Terrorist side, it is very easy for the Counter-Terrorists to become isolated and rushed down by Tec-9s. As such, an extra effort should be made to play in pairs on either bombsite and play long range angles. I suggest you have a Famas or M4 hold the B Apartments from around the B Short Pillar and a player armed with an SMG like the UMP or MP9 on the B Bombsite. The rifler should try to stay alive for as long as possible if the Terrorists rush, whereas the SMG player should aim to be mobile and dynamic while getting as many kills as possible. On the A Bombsite, I suggest the rifler holds from CT Spawn as it is easy to stay alive in this position and the SMG player can play on site, using the Default Box to isolate the avenues of attack from the Terrorists. The final player should take a rifle into Middle. However, he should avoid the Scout. The Scout is a poor gun to retake with and would not be able to deal with a Middle rush by the Terrorists and as such it should be avoided in anti-eco situations.

On gun rounds, it is highly important to fight for control of Middle. You cannot let your Middle player be isolated. Your B Short player should be aggressive towards Ladder Room and help hold Middle. This is commonly your team’s entry fragger or player with the best aim. On top of this, you need a player in Connector applying pressure towards the top of Middle, especially at the start of the round. This is often your team’s strongest all-round player. They can also peek towards Underpass or just hold it passively from Connector if there is limited presence towards the top of Middle from the Terrorists. Finally, you have your Bombsite Anchors. Their job is to not rotate unless the bomb is seen at the other bombsite. If possible, they should try to get advanced information about an attack on their bombsite, such as by pushing B Apartments or being flashed into A Ramp. If the Terrorists do decide to push the Anchor’s bombsite, while they are alone on the site their job is to stay alive for as long as possible and guarantee at least one, if not two, kills on the attacking Terrorists. On the B Bombsite, a safe way to get information about an incoming attack is to simply jump spot the B Apartments.



A more aggressive way to get advanced information on B is to push the B Apartments and take Kitchen control. I recommend doing this on a round where the Counter-Terrorist side has a weak economy and the player pushing can buy an UMP. In fact, I believe the UMP is even more useful than an M4 when executing such a push, because all the angles are close range, so being able to “run-and-gun” while suffering a smaller damage penalty is perfect. The B Short player requires a rifle and a smoke, whereas the B Anchor will require a smoke, a flash, a HE grenade and an incendiary. The B Short player will jump out of the window and smoke the back of B Apartments before heading to Short Pillar and holding for a rush. When he is no longer required on B, he should push up Short and play around Ladder or Middle. The B Anchor should run to beneath the van and jump spot a couple times, if he sees nobody, then he should throw a Molotov for the couch, before jump spotting one last time. Again, if he sees nobody, he can call for the B Short player to rotate towards Middle, before jumping on top of the van and throwing his HE grenade and flash as shown. These will heavily tag anyone in Kitchen, as well as forcing any Terrorists in Kitchen to turn their back away from the flash, giving you an opportunity to kill them. The flash will also blind anyone pushing through the smoke, deterring them from a potentially surprising play. If you get the feeling that somebody is going to retake Kitchen control for the Terrorists, you can simply resmoke the back of B Apartments. You can also bait the Terrorists in by smoking behind you, in order to suggest that you are no longer in Kitchen but instead playing back on the B Bombsite.



The Terrorist Side

An extremely strong and often unexpected pistol strategy is to push Underpass. This is a strategy that “Karrigan” often runs on the Terrorist pistol round of Mirage. Three players buy armour and go to the B Apartments. Being as quiet as possible, they walk towards Underpass and when they reach the wet patch on the floor, they call for the utility to be thrown and rush towards the A Site through Underpass. When they rush through Connector, they do not need to worry about B Short and plant the bomb for B Short. One player will buy a smoke and two flashes, before heading to Top Mid and flashing Middle early in the round. When called to do so, they throw their smoke before rushing up Catwalk towards Short and bank their last flashbang off the B sign as shown. He then holds B Short from around the bricks. Your weakest pistol player buys a smoke and a Tec-9, before heading to the B Apartments with the 3 armoured teammates. I suggest that he drops the Tec-9 to your team’s strongest pistol player and, when called to do so, throws his smoke before running Underpass with his teammates.



A common anti-eco round is a slow Mid to B split with a smoke for Window and the back of Connector. However, an even more reliable anti-eco strategy is to do an A contact play. Initially, two players head towards B, one player holds the top of Middle passively from outside of the B Apartments and the final two players head towards A, where they hold for a Ramp or Palace push. The two players who headed towards the B Apartments clear out Underpass with a flashbang before pushing any players off of Van and out of the close angles around Balcony. When this is done, they call for the two A players to smoke Jungle and Stairs and flash a couple times to fake an A execute. After smoking, everyone rotates towards the A Ramp, while the A players hold Ramp, expecting an inquisitive Counter-Terrorist to push as the Terrorist smokes on A fade. Once everyone has regrouped at A Ramp, four players simply push out A Ramp and explode upon making contact. The final player should lineup a CT Spawn smoke, which is to be thrown when the other four players make contact. He can then watch their behind from an off-angle.

As Terrorists, it is highly important to regularly challenge for Middle, due to the amount of strategical options it makes available to you as Terrorists. It also makes the Counter-Terrorists holding on the bombsites feel very uncomfortable, as they can be flanked from Middle and gives your team a chance to pick off Counter-Terrorists. Therefore, your default should be built around controlling Middle. Your lurker should head towards A, where he has lots of options to try to pick off unsuspecting Counter-Terrorists from Ramp and from Palace. One player should smoke Top Middle, before heading towards the B Apartments and making presence there, as well as holding off any Counter-Terrorist pushes. One player should rush to Underpass and can peek Connector off of flashes from Top Mid. The final two players should head towards Top Mid, throwing a Molotov for Connector and flashing off of the boxes to blind any Counter-Terrorists pushing before smoking Window and the back of Connector. They can assist the Underpass player in taking Connector by flashing for him and peeking with him. However, they should also aim to take Catwalk, Ladder Room, and, if possible, Window Room control as well. The two Top Mid players should have great chemistry and look to play aggressively around the map control gained by this routine to get picks. Often one of these players is an AWPer, who can peek into A and B from Middle.



One common strategy on Mirage is a standard A execute with smokes for Jungle, CT Spawn and Stairs. However, the Danish team Heroic adds their own interesting twist to this strategy. To begin with, Heroic’s two entry fraggers both only buy armour, a weapon, and one of them buys a smoke for Top Middle at the start of the round. Often one of these two players will elect for an UMP over an AK47, due to the high chance of him dieing within the first few seconds of the strategy, where the second player will bait the UMP and trade frag with his AK47. These two players then go and stand inside of the Counter-Terrorist A Ramp smoke and wait for the rest of the team to be ready. When everyone is ready, these two players jump out of the smoke off of an initial flashbang and rush the A site before the smokes have even gone over the wall, with the UMP player sporadically running, jumping and shooting to draw the attention of the Counter-Terrorists. The rest of the team line up a standard A execute, before one of them throws a single flashbang to help their entry fraggers. These three support players then throw their smokes as soon as possible after the initial flashbang and rush out Ramp to help their teammates. While doing so, they can even throw flashbangs high into the air, which will not blind their teammates, but may partially blind any wide peeking Counter-Terrorists.



Another strong execute the Terroists can run on Mirage is a B execute. To begin with, you run your default taking some control of Middle. It it important that they limit the Counter-Terrorists' vision by smoking off Window and applying some pressure towards Connector. This will force one of the Counter-Terrorists away from the B site and towards Short and Ladder Room to prevent a B split. You then leave one player in Middle who acts as an active lurk and continually forces the Counter-Terrorists to pay attention to him, while the rest of his team silently group up in the B Apartments. When they are ready, they throw their smokes and flashes with the intention of isolating the B Site and Short players from each other. Then, the first two players jump out of the B Apartments window and entry frag on to the B Site, while the other two players push towards and off of Balcony on to the B Site. If the entries go the way of the Terrorist side, it is even advisable for the last player in B Apartments to just stay there and not commit to the site with his team. He can watch for a quick flank through Underpass and play with the intention of delaying any Counter-Terrorist looking to defuse during a successful retake.



In Conclusion

Mirage is a very interesting map, because even relatively loose teams can have good structure on the map due to how often it is played in PUGs. However, having the ability to brute force control of Middle and throw unusual executes at the enemy team is going to win you rounds and really throw the Counter-Terrorist side out of step. Don't rush into executes, especially in practice, but rather let your team's skill and ability to take map control shine through. Use the executes as a way to save rounds that already look lost, or give you that initial success in a Terrorist round after losing many before it. And you should apply the same mentality to your Counter-Terrorist side as well. Punish the Terrorists for doing the age old "A Smokes" by taking aggressive stances at B and fight hard for the Mid control that the Terrorists so badly rely upon. Below is a Youtube playlist with all of the videos from above.

Hopefully, through implementing these strategies with your teams, you will see success and improvement when playing Mirage. Tune in next week to learn about the strategy behind Cobblestone.

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