Utility can make or break the game. A perfectly placed Flashbang or a calculated Molotov can be the difference between winning or losing a round, as a single one can impact the strategy of the entire opposing team. But we have to be honest – the game has been out for quite some time and everyone knows how to avoid the most common utility usage. If you know what you’re doing, you’re almost invulnerable to grenades, unless your opponents really know how to use them to the utmost potential. That’s the potential I’ll help you explore with this article. Most of the tips you’ll read below are especially useful to Flashbangs but can be used with every type of grenade.

Five Ways to Throw Utility

The most important aspect on throwing utility that still shocks me at how many players are not aware of it is that there are five different types of throws. If you’re reading this, you surely know about the most common ones – the left click and the right click – the first being the one with the most strength, the second being the opposite, an underthrow. But there are 3 more:

- If you click on both buttons and release them at the same time, you’ll make a throw with exactly half the strength of the left click.

- If you click on both buttons and release the left one first quickly followed by the right, you’ll do an underthrow that will land exactly between the right click throw and the middle one (with both buttons);

- If you click on both buttons and release the right one first quickly followed by the left, you’ll do a throw that will land exactly between the left click throw and middle one.

Although it may look easy, it’s easy to forget that you have so many options available to you during the chaos of the match. That’s why you should take your time in a practice server to understand where the best positions are for each different types of throws.





Use All Five Ways to be Less Predictable

In the introduction of the article, I wrote that if you know what you’re doing and your opponent just throws default utility, it’s almost impossible for you to be affected by them (at least from Flashbangs), because the delay between seeing the grenade appear in your screen and actually exploding is usually enough for you to turn around, minimizing its effects. That’s what you don’t want to happen when you throw your own utility – so you need to get creative. Regarding Flashbangs, there’s one simple but important rule: you must minimize the amount of time the grenade appears on your opponent’s screen. If done well, they won’t even see it coming before getting fully blind.

Sure, it looks like an easy thing to do, but that’s the beauty of it: it isn’t. And that’s exactly why knowing what you’re doing can put you in an advantage. If you throw a Flashbang that immediately goes off after appearing from behind the wall, it’s guaranteed that your opponents won’t be able to react, allowing you to catch them off-guard and with hands covering their eyes. Since all maps are different and have different corners and spots, you may need to adjust your positions and throws – that’s where all the different types of throws come into play. Choosing the right one for the maximum effect is crucial and it can be a daunting task knowing exactly where a Flashbang or a Smoke Grenade will land at first with so many options available to you.

CS:GO is a game with a really high skill-ceiling and all these small aspects are what separates the good players from the great ones – knowing what tools you have at your disposal and using them on the fly for maximum effectiveness. Practicing before taking these throws to matches is essential, as a misplaced grenade can not only have no effect on the opposing team, but can also damage your team, whether that is by flashing them, smoking their spots, or even landing an HE Grenade on their feet.

These throws can also be useful in situations where you’re playing as a CT in a more advanced position, trying to catch the Terrorists off-guard. If they are close and you do a right click throw to smoke out your position, it might be enough for them to know you’re right up there, given the way the Smoke Grenade landed. You can use other type of throw to simulate that the Smoke Grenade is actually coming from far away – or you can ask a teammate to smoke out your position, but that’s a whole different story that I’m not covering in this article.





Some More Advanced Tricks

After being familiarized with the different types of throws, you can start getting creative with them. If you do them while running forward, backwards, jumping on even strafing, they will always behave differently. Running forward or jumping will make them go way further, while going backwards have the opposite effect, allowing for some interesting pop-flashes or precise HE throws. Strafe throws are on another level of skill: it takes some training to really understand how they behave and the curve they do. To be honest, in my opinion these are not really useful, unless you’re trying to impress your teammates. You have better options in almost all situations.

Another really useful throw you can do is right clicking while running backwards, as that will make the grenade follow your trajectory, making it land behind you, while you’re safe from enemy flashbangs that may come from the place you’re flashing (this one is particularly useful while trying to reach Long on Dust2 in the beginning of the round as a CT – you’re safe from the usual Flashbangs thrown above Double Doors and if thrown right and at the precise timing, it will fully blind your opponents coming out of the door, making them retreat and giving you control of Long without risking losing an unfair engagement).

Decoy!

Also, don’t forget your decoy grenades. They may not be particularly useful when used normally, but you can adapt their use. When low on money, it can serve as a fake flashbang, but you’ll have to play faster. In this case, you want to do exactly the opposite of what I’ve been telling you so far: you want to make sure your opponents see the grenade, so that they turn their backs to it, allowing you to catch them off-guard. If you’re really feeling it, you can also do it with a real flashbang, but you need to peek and shoot in the short time window between them seeing the Flashbang in the air and it exploding. In my honest opinion, this is really useful in some situations, but you should avoid overusing it, as it is a play that comes with a high risk and can put your team in a disadvantageous position.

Being a tactical team game, you need to think of the best ways to surprise your opponents – and it all can start with a well-placed grenade. Get out there, learn and adapt each type of throw to your own style and have fun!

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