AWPer is probably the most recognizable role in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It appears to be the backbone as well as the role of many star players of the pro teams, and our own player Ricardo "fox" Pacheco has created his own style of playing the powerful weapon. Today we will take a look at his style by looking at three of his characteristics that you can easily adapt to take your AWPing to the next level.

Risk Management

A lot of playing Counter-Strike comes down to evaluating the risk involved with a play or move and comparing it with its potential payoff. This is not different for fox and his playstyle. fox is different in a sense in which he takes more risks in single rounds to increase the payoff his team gets throughout the whole game. This has to do with establishing himself as an aggressive AWPer while leaving room to mix his positioning and plays up.

You're probably asking yourself, "Well, OK, playing CS is about taking evaluated risks. But how do I evaluate risk?" Good question!

Pros, like fox, often make important decisions in a few seconds or often even less time. To get to this point, you first need to actively think about in-game situations as often as possible. During practice games, while reviewing demos, and so on. This will help you to get to know many situations and their consequences and will eventually embed the decision-making process into your mind, which will cause your decision-making process to work reflexively. More about this process can be read here.

Three Simple Principles to AWP More Like fox

Timings

Based on his previous experience and the research fox has done, he knows which spawns on which side grant him a good chance to catch the other side off-guard with his peek, often taking small risks that have a big potential payoff by opening up the round with a kill.

Getting early and rather low-risk kills can be crucial in a matchmaking or PUG setting if you play solo or in a loose team. Knowing the timings and spawns will allow you to maximise your potential payoff while keeping the risk low. Adapting this trait into your own playstyle will guarantee you a positive development in just a few weeks.

Like I have hinted at above, fox plays to ensure maximum payoff throughout the whole game, not just during single rounds. By being a nuisance all around the map, abusing good timings to take an early kill will either slow down the opposition and take time off the clock or will make them rush their play, which will cause them to make mistakes. If they are unsure when, how and where you will strike next, they will start to play to not to lose and not to win.





Off-Angles

Playing off-angles is misunderstood, as people often choose random and bad positions to play Off-Angles from. fox has figured out which off-angles work from experience and analysing his and other people's play to ensure that he will almost always have a piece of cover to jump behind if he is fast enough in case his shot has failed.

If you choose your off-angles wisely, you will almost be guaranteed to catch your opponent off-guard. Doing this sporadically will allow you to keep your enemy on his toes, as it will have him either run into every trap you set or take longer to clear out positions he would normally skip and, as everyone should know, playing the clock is crucial when on the CT side or while fending off the retake as T. Be sure to be confident in your positioning once you have chosen it, as you will need to concentrate on your crosshair to catch your opponent early, as you otherwise might get stuck outside of cover.

This is going to take a lot of trial and error, but it is worth it if you can establish yourself to be a menace potentially everywhere on the map. Be sure to not to get cocky and take off-angles every round, as people will adapt to you and eventually just flash you if you are always far away from the bombsites.





Prescoping

Due to the AWP only being accurate when you are scoping with it you need to be able to prescope corners in order to maximise your potential of getting a kill. fox has taken this to the next level, and not even all the pros have caught up yet. Often praised by commentators if they catch it, prescoping corners and popular angles when you are clearing out an area or you are entrying will help you to keep your presence a secret.

When you scope outside of the audible-range from the enemy, you can progress throughout the map without making any noise, not hinting at your opponent where you are. Sounds, like using the scope, will alert the enemy of your position and allow him to quickly formulate a plan to outplay you, like widepeeking suddenly or flashing. By eliminating this risk, you are multiplying your chances of getting rid of the lurk or disturbing the enemies' set-up.

This is a skill you can actually train like pure aiming. To improve your prescope abilities, play prefire maps like the maps from the Steam user Yesber. These will allow you to stuff a lot of prefire and prescope training into a short amount of time. If you do this a few times a month and do it consistently, you will soon see improvement in your game.





Keep It Cool

I know that it is tempting to just start up Matchmaking and try all of these out instantly, but you really shouldn't do that. There are times and places where you can safely overpeek from time to time without getting shouted at, but Matchmaking isn't one of those places. Be sure to refine these traits in games with friends and outside of games before you jump into it with randoms, who may not know what you're trying to do. Also, be sure to switch it up if it just doesn't work for you at all.