The majority of the edge CTs hold over the Terrorist side is due to defender’s advantage. With strong teamwork, a group of knowledgeable Counter-Terrorists can coordinate with one another to create a strong positional advantage. Bait and switch setups and crossfires are two examples of this, where CTs can work together in such a manner that distorts, twists, and shifts the focus of the Terrorists so that it is confusing and chaotic to deal with the numerous Counter-Terrorists at once. Furthermore, many bombsites possess angles that cannot be cleared one at a time, in which case a Terrorist player must expose himself to one angle in order to check certain others in some situations.

Because of this, teams that are able to nullify the opposing CT setups as effectively as possible are the ones with strong Terrorist sides. On the Terrorist side, isolating angles can be handled two ways – tactically, in which a team uses their utility to nullify certain angles allowing for the majority of players’ focus to be directed towards the remaining potentially dangerous positions, and individually, where players use their knowledge of the map and movement in order to check angles methodically while keeping their side and backs safe.

An in-depth guide from Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo on set smokes for de_mirage that expands upon the philosophy behind set smokes as well as the Terrorist side strategies built around them.



Oftentimes in professional play, a smoke will be used to cancel out many possible angles to allow the Terrorist side to better clear a set of positions without worry of being shot in the back. Such examples of this are smoking either side of Middle on Inferno, smoking Window and either Connector or Catwalk on Mirage, or smoking CT Spawn on Dust 2 to perform a Mid to B. Using a smoke, or a set of smokes, is the most effective way of nullifying many possible angles at once, which is the reason that smokes are so important to a Terrorist side. But each team can only acquire a maximum of five smokes, and oftentimes not every angle can be covered with the limited capacity of smokes the Terrorist side is granted, or utility will have been wasted earlier in the round limiting your use of smokes and flashes, which is why strong movement is key. Learning set smokes can be an easy way to greatly improve your T side performance, and you’ll find that it will have a surprisingly profound impact upon how often you win matches. You can create your own set smokes by going into an offline server and using a few console commands*1, see bottom of article, or you could find hundreds of set smoke tutorials on Youtube, allowing you to learn, and use, many new set smokes the very same day.

A more difficult skill to acquire, however, is good movement that allows players to weave around the map, checking angles as safely and efficiently as possible. Once you’ve played enough, you’ll realize that your player movement will often fall into different patterns depending upon what you are trying to accomplish that you’ll follow the majority of the time. This is because, over time, you’ll be punished for making mistakes and eventually you’ll begin to optimize your play to minimize the chances to be caught in bad positions as much as possible. Focusing on this skill on its own, however, is an entirely different task. The best way to do so is to identify possible places that a Counter-Terrorist defends from on a given map, and develop a way of moving about the map that allows you to expose yourself to as few of those angles at any given moment as possible.



These movement concepts, as well as many others, are covered in this video.



Some things to note when doing so:

If your back is against a wall while you are checking angles, you are less likely to be shot in the side since CTs have to overextend into a dangerous position in order to shoot you.

Also, to maximize your peeker’s advantage, try to peek each corner as far behind as possible from cover, meaning that the farther away you are from the wall, box, barrel, etc. that is obstructing your vision when you peek a corner, the less time your opponent will have to shoot at you without you being able to see him.*2, see bottom of article for more information



Find your own way of ideally weaving back and forth through the map, leaving no common spots un-checked, and checking as many angles as can be done safely. Oftentimes there isn’t an ideal way to check every angle, as the construction of the map does not allow for this, so acknowledge this fact when creating movement routes. You can also look for “point of view” demos of pro games and see how professionals handle their Terrorist side player movement, which can be found on Youtube or HLTV.org.

Completely different from checking angles when taking control of portions of the map or a bombsite, however, is how T Side angle isolation applies to clutching, which is an entirely separate beast in its own right. Certain movement patterns and decisions better lend themselves to certain situations, so there can be no “teach-all” guide to decision-making in an after-plant in this sense, but here are some useful techniques to keep in mind:

If your team is at a player disadvantage, it makes sense to make an aggressive play and isolate a player in order to even out the numbers, then play the bomb more traditionally (holding angles, playing from a spot the bomb is planted for, and holding crossfires).

However doing so correctly will require some split-second thinking, as you only want to expose yourself to one enemy at a given time so that you can take one on one engagements which are far more favorable.



An example of Michael "shroud" Grzesiek using an aggressive peek to isolate a CT in a bombsite hold.



Utility is extremely useful in after-plant situations since the Counter-Terrorists are only given 40 seconds, (in matchmaking or Valve Majors) or 35 seconds in general professional play, to retake the bombsite, and using a smoke to block one of only a few routes of access for the CTs to retake from can either force them to spend time rotating to another entrance, make them push through where you will have a sizable advantage over them, or wait until the smoke clears when they have very little time remaining to kill the terrorists defending the bomb and defuse it.

Any sort of isolation, like many other facets of Counter-Strike, is not an exact science. It takes a sizable amount of decision-making skill that can only come through practice. While it’s often difficult to specifically work on isolation in an offline environment, especially in how it pertains to after-plant and other niche situations, knowing that these concepts exist during your general gameplay will help you improve upon them as you go. When you mistakes, you’ll begin to internalize them, and use the concepts behind isolation as a means to correct issues in your play so that they don’t happen again.

*1 Pick any map that you want from the “offline with bots” tab, and select harmless bots. The following binds a key to toggle noclip, which makes checking your smokes and flashes a lot easier and quicker.

Bind (Insert key to bind here) “noclip”

Feel free to save this to a config file to be executed easily:

sv_cheats 1;

bot_kick;

sv_infinite_ammo 1;

mp_roundtime_defuse 1000000000;

sv_show_grenade_trajectory 1;

mp_restartgame 1;

give weapon_molotov;

give weapon_flashbang;

give weapon_smokegrenade;

*2 This is a complicated concept that heavily relies upon the fact that your first-person viewpoint that you see and aim with is placed between the model’s two eyes. So, if your shoulder is sticking out behind cover, but your head isn’t, you won’t be able to see an opponent while the opponent can still see your shoulder. The closer you are to a wall or cover when peeking, the more time your shoulder and other parts of your model can be seen before you even have the opportunity to identify, aim at, and shoot your opponent.

Are you into fantasy leagues? Then check out AlphaDraft and put together your allstar lineup!