Counter-Strike: Global Offensiveis a highly competitive 5v5 team-based shooter where every player’s decisions can mean the difference between winning and losing. The best start for a new CS:GO player is to learn the game’s mechanics and to create good habits. Mastering these fundamentals can improve your win rate and give you the edge in online matches.

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Whether you are new to CS:GO or you arereturning from a break, keeping these tips and tricks in mind will help you enhance your team contribution. In CS:GO knowledge is power, strengthening your game awareness and building a strong foundation of fundamentals will set you up for success on your climb up the competitive ranks.

10Execute A Strategy With Your Team

During the buying phase, communicate with your team and make a plan. The team-based design of CS:GO means that your actions heavily impact your team. You shouldn’t only do what you want to do, but you should do what the team needs you to do.

If everyone on the team executes their part of an overall strategy, your team is stronger for it. The downtime before a round starts isn’t only for buying your loadout, it’s also time for establishing a strategy for the round. Particularly if the plan is to rush an area, the pre-round time is vital to get the team coordinated.

Four Counter-Strike Terrorists standing in Spawn

9Be Aware Of Everyone’s Economy And Buy As A Team

Managing your team’s economy is a significant part of winning rounds. Before you buy any weapons or utility, look at all of your teammate’s available resources. Just because you have enough money to buy a full loadout, doesn’t mean you should.

When a team has 5 players with full loadouts, it’s a formidable squad. When the team is only able to buy 2 rifles, it’s at a significantly lower power level and is far less likely to succeed. If you have enough money to buy weapons, but your team doesn’t, you should save that money for the next round.

Counter-strike Terrorist purchase weapons screen

8Share Your Vision By Making Callouts

Everyone is watching a different angle, and sharing your knowledge with the team can empower the squad. Your teammates don’t have the same intel as you do, they are watching other locations and are engaging enemies in other areas of the map. If you keep them up to date with the enemies you’ve spotted, areas that you’ve cleared, and the utility that you can see, it increases your teammates’ map awareness.

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The more information that you have should determine how you play. Do you need to watch your flank, is an area clear to rotate, should you cautiously move in or should you run? These questions can be answered through the team making frequent callouts.

7Use Your Utility To Gain The Advantage

Utility items are crucial for success in CS:GO, using them effectively can put your team in a position to win. Smokes, flashes, grenades, and incendiaries can block off territory, disrupt an area, and eliminate the enemy. If your Terrorist team on Mirage is pushing down Catwalk to the B site, well-timed smokes for Window and Connector will make that trek far less risky.

Then, if you flash out Bench and Market as well, your team should be able to plant the bomb and set up for defense. Strategies that make use of utility are incredibly difficult to stop and can win a round much easier than rushing or playing spread out.

The in-game mini-map in CSGO

6Be Aware Of The Sound Cues

Movement, weapons, and utility all generate audible cues that can alert your opponents. It’s important to be aware of the sound cues that you make, while also using enemy noises against them. Running, jumping, and falling from a high enough distance all make noise.

However, crouching, walking, and crouch-walking are silent. Firing a gun, reloading, zooming in with a scope, and switching between Automatic and Burst fire modes are all audible, but cycling through your equipped weapons is inaudible. When a grenade explodes or hits a surface it will make a noise, but throwing a grenade makes no noise.

CSGO Smoke and Incendiary on Nuke Outside

5Check Every Angle And Corner

When moving forward to clear a new area look for enemies in every new angle, and don’t cheat the corners.Call of Duty beginnersshould also take this tip to heart. Enemies rarely hide in the open, they are generally tucked into a corner hoping that you will run by without looking deep enough to spot them.

The safest way to navigate a map is to slowly and methodically check every angle. It’s never fun to get shot in the back because you rushed your reconnaissance, it’s even worse when you get your teammates killed because they thought you checked a corner that you passed.

CSGO Post-Game screen with the Loudfoot Award

4Make Every Life Count, Trade Kills

Even when you get eliminated, you receive valuable intelligence that you can share with your team. Your remaining teammates can take advantage of knowing how you died, and, in the best cases, they can kill your executioner.

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Someone needs to be the first player through the door, but that person also usually dies first. If a death results in learning the location of the enemy, that death can still help the team. Make sure to use every death as an opportunity by making valuable callouts of how you died and from where.

3Don’t Rotate Too Early, Anchor The Site

When you’re a Counter-Terrorist defending a bomb site alone, make sure someone sees the bomb on the other site before you abandon your location. Simply seeing an enemy or some utility doesn’t mean that the opponents are committing to a bomb site.

Sending one or two Terrorists to make some noise is an effective strategy to cause a Counter-Terrorist over-rotation. If no one anchors the site, an over-rotation can create a vulnerable location. Before leaving a bomb site empty, ensure that the opponents aren’t trying to misdirect your team.

2Learn The Maps And Your Smokes

Learning the intricacies of each map can increase your impact on games.Every map has unique strengths, preferred hiding locations, and blind spots. Prioritizing your movement to check high-traffic areas first will give you an edge in duels.

Throwing a smoke grenade from a secure location to create a safe passage to a better spot is a powerful advantage. If you know a likely spot for opponents to hide, use smoke to block their vision and gain a superior position. Memorizing smoke lineups is one of the few ways you can have an upper hand against any opponent.

1Crosshair Placement Is Paramount

Always placing your crosshair at head-level while moving around the map is the best way to improve as a beginner. Sometimes you only get one or two bullets out of your gun before the duel against an enemy is over.

It’s tempting to drop your crosshair placement while running between locations or when swinging to an area that you think is clear. But if two players catch each other by surprise, the player with their crosshair already placed at head level will likely win the duel. Make it a habit to always have your crosshair ready to make a headshot, and never let it roam around the screen aimlessly, even when you think you aren’t in a battle.

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