If you ask Counter-Strike pros how to get good at Counter-Strike, they will probably all say the same thing: play a lot. Spending a lot of time in game will improve your game sense and muscle memory, and will generally improve your knowledge of the game. But just grinding through a lot of matchmaking games won’t teach you everything there is to know. And putting yourself in a new situation during a game you want to win is a pretty bad idea. When in a game of matchmaking, knowing how to deal with a certain situation or knowing the best smokes can give you a great advantage over your opponent. In this guide, we will take a look at ways to practice and how to practice different mechanics in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Note that a lot these practicing methods can also be used when warming up before a match.

Recoil Mechanics and Spray Patterns

Knowing spray patterns comes from playing a lot. But there are ways to speed up the process of understanding spray patterns and recoil. The first method is playing Free For All deathmatch on community servers. These servers are usually better than the Valve deathmatch servers because they have quick respawns, more enemies and 128 tick server rates. Play deathmatch regularly and try and focus on one weapon at a time, for example the AK, to really get a spray pattern in your system. Secondly, the map Recoil Master is specially made to really get know a spray pattern. Spending half an hour trying out a couple of weapons will help you greatly. Reflex Training is a good map to practice shooting moving targets and how to control the spray while shooting at moving targets.







Smokes, Flashes and Molotov’s

The community has made some great maps to practice your smokes, flashes and molotovs. Dust 2 – Smoke Practice is a great example. When you load up the map, you will find yourself in an identical version of the standard map. The only difference is there are instructions for smokes and flashes on the map. Knowing these smokes and flashes will help you when doing executes onto a site with your team. Warning: some of these maps can mess up some of your binds, its not a big deal but it can get annoying. You can also load up a map, for example de_inferno, with bots and try to find some smokes and flashes yourself. Type in these commands into the console and go crazy. Try out new things and see if they work.







Site Retakes

Type ‘retakes’ in the ‘tags’ bar in the community server browser to find special retake servers. Here you need to defend or retake a site on a map of your choosing. You can try out new spots to defend a site from, or new strategies on how to retake a site as a CT.



Practicing the AWP

The AWP is probably the most iconic weapon in Counter-Strike and in the hands of a player who knows what to do with it, it can turn into a deadly tool. You can practice the AWP on a deathmatch server like we talked about earlier, but if you want to know the basics you’ll need a slower start. The map Aim Botz is great for practicing with the AWP. It puts you in the middle of an arena where you are surrounded with bots. Here you can take you time to really line up your shots and understand what you are doing wrong and right. Download the map and try out the different settings. Try and make it more difficult for yourself once you feel comfortable at a certain difficulty, so you’ll improve more. This map is also great for practicing headshots with the AK. There are also a lot of AWP only servers on the community server browser. These will also help with getting good at the AWP. The only disadvantage to this is that you will only play against AWPs and in a normal matchmaking game you will also need to face enemies with rifles.







Aim and Reaction Time

At the lower ranks in CS:GO you don’t have to be a strategic mastermind to win a game. Being able to win aim duels consistently can help you a lot. Training_aim_csgo2_dark is a map that lets you practice your aim by shooting at targets that appear on a wall. You can customize anything from speed to size of the targets, you can even make the targets move. NiP-player Friberg uses this map to warm up before matches. On the community server browser there are dedicated 1v1 servers. These servers run a special plugin that puts 30 players into different 1v1 arena’s. Doing this can help you understand your opponent and knowing how to effectively 1v1. Type ‘1v1’ in the ‘tags’ bar to find these servers.







Movement

Jumps Training is a map that lets you practice different strafe jumps and other jump tricks for different maps. You don’t really need to know these to become a good player, but they are useful to know if you want to get somewhere quick. Also note that some of the stages on this map are pretty hard to do, so beware.



These are some of the things I do to practice things in CS:GO. That doesn’t mean this is the best for you. Try out some new things for yourself and see what practice routine works the best for you. Good luck!

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