Adapting your Counter-Terrorist set-up against the playstyle of your opponent is crucial. If your set-up prioritizes control of CT mid and the Terrorists hit A often, you won't find much success. There are a variety of ways to position you and your allies to defend the bombsites.

First, we have to decide on weaponry. Generally, as a Counter-Terrorist team your team will have 4 Rifles and 1 AWP, although this can be adapted with 2 AWPs or even sticking to 5 Rifles. Deciding which of these to choose depends entirely on playstyle and current economy. AWPs are adaptable and can be played on any bombsite, holding any angle; but are weak in retakes and Anti-Eco rounds.

The default set-up for most teams is putting 2 on A, 1 boosted in CT mid and 2 holding B bombsite. Generally, your AWPer will be the second person on A; Holding short from car and being able to rotate quickly into long in order to support your first player on A (who will be holding long from pit after being set-up by your AWPer at the start of the round). One of your B players will boost the player into CT mid and the other will throw pre-emptive grenades into the B tunnels, to deny a rush. This is a “catch-all” approach that deals with most things decently and is only slightly weak to an A split.

The weakness of this set-up is an A split, where 3 terrorists push A long or short, and the other 2 push A short or long. In order to beat this in your default, you need to have your AWPer abandon Car and fully control long with your player in Pit and then retake A site after all your B players have rotated. Denying the Terrorists A long control while also looking for “picks” into A site means that the Terrorists can only control A short with 3-4 people, giving you a strong position for a retake.

Diagram of set-up;



Left: At the start of the round. Middle: After 20 seconds Right: If they split A site

Key: AWPer(Green), Rifler(Blue)

The second set-up prioritizes A site control, abandoning CT mid or dropping a player from B. Generally, you will still have the AWP on car, as it is the most powerful single position for the AWP on Dust 2 regardless of set-up. You'll set up one person into pit and then play one rifler on A site boxes themselves, it is crucial that the player on A site boxes does not peek directly into short but instead watches the cross from catwalk onto the site itself. If the player on A boxes peeks into a short he can get picked from an angle that isn't viewable from the Car player and a re-frag is borderline impossible.

The two remaining players will have to watch B and mid. There are a variety of ways to do it, my personal favourite is putting both players on B and having the car player peer into CT mid occasionally to check if CT is smoked off. Otherwise the two B players focus on tunnels and build their set-up around a B rush.

The weakness for this default is a B split via mid. If CT mid is smoked off, the 2 B players must either push B tunnels and remove one arm of the attack or put both players into CT mid on a suicide mission to try and deny the terrorist control of CT mid so that your A players can safely rotate. As a B split is happening, all 3 A players should either fully commit as 3 into short or long to flank the players pushing down mid. You must go as 3, going as 2 leaves one player on his own allowing him to be fragged without a trade frag.

Diagram of set-up;



Left: At the start of the round. Middle: After 20 seconds Right: If they split B site

Key: AWPer(Green), Rifler(Blue)

In order to counteract the weaknesses of these set-ups you can purchase 2 AWPs. The AWPers will have to play different sites; car on A and back platform on B are the positions of choice for the majority of AWPers. These positions give you the longest sightlines to protect both bombsites and also give you close rifle support if you get rushed down.

The default way to set up a double AWP is akin to the 3 A set-up described earlier, with one player in pit, one AWP on car watching up A short and one player on A boxes with 2 players in B. However, after the AWPer in B is set up on back platform, the rifler can hold mid alone from outside B until any contact happens from upper tunnels.

Diagram of set-up;



Left: At the start of the round. Right: After 20 seconds

Key: AWPer(Green), Rifler(Blue)

Alternatively, you could fully commit to mid control with your B Awper, this is more similar to the 2 A, 2 B, 1 Mid set-up described at the start of the article. You put one player at B throwing pre-emptive grenades to stop a rush as your AWPer peers into top mid to watch for anyone up short, you can then have one player either play close mid to stop anyone from lower tunnels killing your AWPer or push up catwalk to look into lower tunnels. You can then put 2 players (your secondary AWP and rifler) onto A long, rotating your secondary AWPer to car if x-box gets smoked off or your mid AWP is otherwise compromised.

Diagram of set-up;



Left: At the start of the round. Right: If the mid AWPer is compromised

Key: AWPer(Green), Rifler(Blue)

In general, having an adaptive Counter-Terrorist set-up is crucial, and these are only templates for you to mould your own strategies and defaults, picking one of these to counter a specific enemy team will help a lot, but adapting it yourself to your own players' strength and weaknesses will strengthen your teams defensive play significantly. Counter-Terrorist play is based off of reads and proper usage of utility, having read this guide you now have half of that knowledge in your play book.

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