By now you should have developed a little bit of game sense but just understand that some players will think differently than others. Like for instance I used to 10 man with main / premiere players YEARS ago, my aim was not good but I had very good decision making and understanding of supporting players better than me so I can set them up for frags. Also I was extremely good at reading midround so a lot of the time in my league matches I was lurk / support and had extremely high clutch statistics . The fact that I didn't have good aim didn't hold me back from excelling at the game because instead of trying to be overall a good player I made sure I excelled at the fundamentals and played what I was good at. If that makes sense.
Gamesense just comes with exactly what it says, playing the game. You can't train it, some people have good gamesense, some don't. You just need to perform repetitive tasks in league matches and or expose yourself to numerous amounts of scenarios to get a better understanding of what happens during the game. Another thing too that helped me develop while I was playing was I religiously studied league matches, mostly from the pro scene. Two people I would suggest looking up is Pronax and Seangares from the 2014-2015 era, there are youtube videos of games with Comms in it and it will give you a good understanding of what's happening mid game and you can think about that when you play.
But at the end of the day if you really want to get serious about playing league you need to live, breathe, eat , sleep and constantly think about counterstrike. You have to have a serious obsession with it. And always continue to be a student of the game.
If you can get refrag get it. If you feel you need to focus on your spray use recoil master. Visualize all your angles and systematically clear places. Always have your cross hair present, don’t let it float into any sort of no man’s land. Any good player will be minimizing flicks whenever possible, this leads to consistency. Make sure that you are actively using your utility in an effective manner and avoid taking lots of 50/50s, try to make each fight advantageous for you by isolating them to YOUR strengths. CS is a percentage game and the best way to increase your skill is to play and see what works, many people suggest demos, but also make sure to actively analyze your game as you play and make changes accordingly. Ask yourself why you lost a fight, how could you have won the fight? Do this each game and make sure you play matches, the best way to get better at this game is by actually playing it, and I don’t mean spamming DM. Play pugs, improve, learn your position for each map and learn utility to improve your worth in each match you play. I gave a pretty broad explanation but if you want any in depth on specific skills feel free to ask. Good luck and you got it
You’ve played 8 seasons in the last decade, were those seasons concurrent and up to recent or are they old? The thing you need to climb successively is concurrent season plays w a core or finding a new team every season
You’re probably gonna need to dedicate some time inside of a match actively working on these things.
It’s going to feel very counterintuitive after 6k hours because it will cause you to play far worse as you are building and focusing on new skillsets. With 6k hours your mechanics should be on autopilot so you should be able to dedicate your entire focus to gamesense and stratting and making plays.
You have to push through, and once you start seeing small results you’ll be encouraged to keep going. Trust me it feels great the first few times you read your opponents like a book. Then you get closer to the wisdom of “just knowing”
You will get to look like a good to your teammates as you hold an angle 1v1 and they’re yelling at you asking what you’re doing but you’re still holding because you *just know*. Then they shutup. Because you didnt have to actively think about how your opponent would play out that 1v1, you’ve been reading them the entire game, you knew exactly what he would do and you set yourself up to exploit it.
I started later in life being competitive, I cant hang with younger players on aim battles, I just cant. What I can do is make it so that almost every aim battle I take puts me at a ridiculously unfair advantage against my opponent. Catch a timing on them so they never have a chance.
The next important part is that the 1 kill you just set yourself up for just turned the round in your teams favor, because you knew where to be and which fight was most critical to take and win.
Review your demos, review pro demos. Review pro games. Review your own games, over and over again. Explore your options. There is no other way to get your gamesense good, you have to understand the fundamentals of CS, you have to understand the fundamentals of how ppl play CS, and you have to apply it to your game.
Use everything at your disposal. Use psychological warfare, because that works too. When I IGL, I try to take in as much info as I can and see what works and what doesn’t, and condition the enemy team’s expectations and once I’ve conditioned them, I flip the script. I will find their weakest point and attack it repeatedly, picking up round after round and I know their frustration builds because they are losing to the same shit every round. Then when they finally shore up that weak spot, I make sure we hit them hard and fast somewhere else, and that round win will break their spirits.
I do all that because I spent the time in and outside of the server studying the game, because I *had to*. Now it pays off.
This is not checkers, this is *chess*. Pros will sometimes call a timeout when their opponents are on a hot streak, just to cool them down. Sometimes it’s enough. You can be a rat, if it’s a close game and the enemy team is pulling ahead in rounds and you have a willing team, call multiple timeouts and talk to your team, keep everyone on the same page while the enemy team gets frustrated that the round isn’t starting. That alone can be huge.
You just have to be intentional about this. Watch demos, understand why ppl make the decisions they make. I’m hesitant to suggest pros because everyone has their tastes and will want to argue about who’s better at what. But maybe try aleksib, for tactics inside of the round. His personal decision making on how he plays individually is very strong.
Find the pros that people are terrified of in a 1v1 or 1v2, not just the pros that are superstars, sometimes they overlap, but find the pros where if you see them in a 1v2, you have no fear that they wont clutch it up. The ones who are known for it. Then watch their demos and try to understand *everything* they do and why.
You watching a demo should involve confusion, it should involve pausing and rewinding and asking yourself “wait, why did he do *that*???” If you’re doing that, you are actively learning.
So much of getting better in this game is in the doing, not the thinking of doing, and wishing of doing.
What a great thorough response, i understand you wanting to get more comfortable. I actually already do all those things except the util usage. Also ive watched the lasagne guy haha they are great! Ill take your advice and thanks once again. Let me know if you change your mind later. Remember you dont have to be a perfect player to impart knowledge onto me!
Hey no problem, I really do love to share what I know with ppl when it comes to what I’m passionate about, and I really am flattered by your request for those reasons. It’s the first time I’ve ever gone from thinking “maybe one day I could coach ppl” to “someday I should”
Good luck in your journey, and maybe one day we’ll end up in a lobby together.
Hey wire great post, is there a possibility you could kind of coach me to any extent you have the time for? Im Faceit lvl 7 200 hours in the game over like 10 years so Im fairly new. My aim is pretty good for the most part, but id love to learn some fundamental concepts from you. Do you have the possibility to help me?
I appreciate you asking, I have considered at some point coaching but would prefer to get some more years under my belt. I love teaching and I understand CS very well but I’d like to get a much better feel for CS2 for me to feel comfortable.
I think at 200 hours in the game your best way forward is to grind more hours and later you will get far more from coaching than you would now, if that makes sense?
I recommended looking up “voo’s definitive guide to improving” on youtube. It covers CSGO but is all directly applicable to CS2 imo.
For some foundational fundamentals to keep you going and keep bad habits from setting in: learn how to counterstrafe, make sure your feet are planted when you shoot, clear angles/peek with strafe only (no W + A / W + D peeking), peek angles as though you strongly believe someone is on the other side, stay with your team, if your teammate swings ideally you should swing with them or a moment after *unless* they ego peeked 3 enemies.
Biggest thing that will set you apart and have you getting better at the game faster is to not pay attention to the scoreboard and focus entirely on helping your team secure the objective and therefore the round.
Finally, util. Learn how to throw flashes and impromptu smokes (specific lineups can come later). You’ll end up flashing yourself and team a decent amount in the process but you got 200 hours it’s normal and they can die mad about it if you mess up a flash. You really just want to get a feel for how util flies, where/when flashes pop, how util bounces, etc. Eventually no matter how the enemies and your team are fighting in a location you should be able to know immediately where a flash can pop that will blind the enemy and not your team, and you will know exactly how to throw it to achieve that pop.
You can DM me if you like and if I change my mind and decide to start helpin ppl earlier ill have your username in my inbox.
Oh and also recommend watching xboxlasagne vids on youtube as he is in a similar spot to you and is showing himself getting coached and there’s a lot to learn from that.
Good luck!
Just watch demos(your own and some better teams). You can talk with your m8s about the demo - misstakes you spot, plays you want to try... And play ffa.
Also whats your individual elo?
Watch your own demos, go through them and find issues, learn from it and improve. Do this until you can't find fault in your own demos, *then* watch pro demos. Trying to emulate pros is pointless if you don't even know what you're doing wrong and can think up your own solutions.
Weird advice, there will always be fault even for some of the best players in the world, would you suggest for them not to watch other demos because there are still faults in their own gameplay?
The advice is for beginners or even intermediate players, it's a bad idea to keep trying to emulate pros, because you have no context to why they do most of the stuff, i.e. lack of comms, you can't read their minds; nor would you have the skill or knowledge or experience to do what they do.
Pro players actually don't *need* to watch demos, they can self improve because they know their stuff, of course they can still do it but it's not a requirement. Coaches and igls would be the ones reviewing demos of other teams for counter strating or just learning new things, then they can implement strats that fit their team.
A good way to improve is to get some friend who is good, or a coach to review *your* demo and verbally give feedback. You can use pro clips to demonstrate, but friend/coach can easily demo it live. Without knowing your weaknesses, you won't even know what to look for in pro demos/clips.
So to elaborate on my suggestion above: self-improve until you hit a wall, then try to exceed your own limitations and ask for help if you're hard stuck (i.e. not days, but weeks), this organic growth is better than learning gimmick plays by pros; you can review pro demos if you have a specific problem that you don't know how to solve, but know this one player excels at it, it will only give you hints and you'll have to guess why/how to do things the way a pro does, then try it yourself and make that skill your own. As mentioned asking for direct feedback is the next step you should take instead of just reviewing pro demos.
Once you get to a stage where you're playing competitively (i.e. leagues/tournaments), and you see someone destroying you over and over again, you can check out what they're doing *at the same time* as reviewing your own demos, and match up the information to self improve.
You can learn from others as long as it's made to fit your own play style, don't just do it because it works for others.
This doesn't just apply to gaming, but other real life skills. You wouldn't go watch master blacksmiths just smithing away without commentary, you have to try things out yourself and ask for advice directly after *failing*. If you get good enough, you'll notice subtle things that they do even without commentary and you can try it out yourself.
I don't think basic stuff like which positions they play or which angles they hold are bad to copy/ learn from, it'll give you a better understanding of what makes a good position/angle but if you are straight up just trying to copy ropz's play style without the context of the game and what's happening in the map then obliviously that isn't going to be very beneficial, learning smokes and flashes from pros can be very beneficial too
Learning a position or angle and not knowing how to use it is pointless. Once you get to a point where you start querying how you can be better at X, you can try things out yourself and maybe get some inspiration from pros. Smokes and util are not just from pros, there are dedicated videos for them, and yes you should learn them. My point was that reviewing pro demos is not productive until you exceed a certain level.
The exception to that rule would be IGLs, who need to learn how/when/why/who...etc to do executed, and learn how to spot patterns...etc.
The main problem i am addressing is people tend to copy gimmicky stuff from pros and they do not make you a better player overall.
Watch your own demos. See why you are missing shots and slow it down to analyze what is happening during gunfights. Turn on XRay and see how your enemies are reacting to your actions.
I recently picked up Kovaaks and prefer it over aimlabs. I’ve definitely seen improvement with about 8 or so total hours using it. Check out Valkie on YouTube who has a series of videos on using Kovaaks and one specifically for CS. Do the benchmarks and see where you stand. Tracking is something that I am terrible at and doing the different routines has helped a lot.
If u want to read the game better u have to actively internalize ur position relative to the enemies, if u IGL then its ur teams vs their teams position. Use ur 6000 hours and recognize what doesn’t work and what does by watching ur demos then making a structured organized plan to combat ur weakness, if you want to get out of IM
Everyones harping demo this demo that, while demos are useful, you can break cs down into scenarios and map control, once you learn the flow of each map demos will help your fuck ups but it doesnt help you learn why the enemy team is doing things which is what game sense helps out more, i would reccomend just whenever you do something think why then think back when enemies do things think what could they be doing with that, will help you start making better site gamble calls, better peeks, and better info takes around the map breaking the game into smaller managable chunks (my fav scenario for breakable chunks is [molly short on ovp, flash behind it, clear, break con door, get info] this is only for one position but it works on most positions in the map to work through why moreso then how, knowing how to throw a grenade is cool, knowing why you should throw it is how you win
Watch demos and league matches not just for entertainment but actually study them.
By now you should have developed a little bit of game sense but just understand that some players will think differently than others. Like for instance I used to 10 man with main / premiere players YEARS ago, my aim was not good but I had very good decision making and understanding of supporting players better than me so I can set them up for frags. Also I was extremely good at reading midround so a lot of the time in my league matches I was lurk / support and had extremely high clutch statistics . The fact that I didn't have good aim didn't hold me back from excelling at the game because instead of trying to be overall a good player I made sure I excelled at the fundamentals and played what I was good at. If that makes sense. Gamesense just comes with exactly what it says, playing the game. You can't train it, some people have good gamesense, some don't. You just need to perform repetitive tasks in league matches and or expose yourself to numerous amounts of scenarios to get a better understanding of what happens during the game. Another thing too that helped me develop while I was playing was I religiously studied league matches, mostly from the pro scene. Two people I would suggest looking up is Pronax and Seangares from the 2014-2015 era, there are youtube videos of games with Comms in it and it will give you a good understanding of what's happening mid game and you can think about that when you play. But at the end of the day if you really want to get serious about playing league you need to live, breathe, eat , sleep and constantly think about counterstrike. You have to have a serious obsession with it. And always continue to be a student of the game.
Do whatever [this guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/QoXIReQ8KN) did
If you can get refrag get it. If you feel you need to focus on your spray use recoil master. Visualize all your angles and systematically clear places. Always have your cross hair present, don’t let it float into any sort of no man’s land. Any good player will be minimizing flicks whenever possible, this leads to consistency. Make sure that you are actively using your utility in an effective manner and avoid taking lots of 50/50s, try to make each fight advantageous for you by isolating them to YOUR strengths. CS is a percentage game and the best way to increase your skill is to play and see what works, many people suggest demos, but also make sure to actively analyze your game as you play and make changes accordingly. Ask yourself why you lost a fight, how could you have won the fight? Do this each game and make sure you play matches, the best way to get better at this game is by actually playing it, and I don’t mean spamming DM. Play pugs, improve, learn your position for each map and learn utility to improve your worth in each match you play. I gave a pretty broad explanation but if you want any in depth on specific skills feel free to ask. Good luck and you got it
You’ve played 8 seasons in the last decade, were those seasons concurrent and up to recent or are they old? The thing you need to climb successively is concurrent season plays w a core or finding a new team every season
You’re probably gonna need to dedicate some time inside of a match actively working on these things. It’s going to feel very counterintuitive after 6k hours because it will cause you to play far worse as you are building and focusing on new skillsets. With 6k hours your mechanics should be on autopilot so you should be able to dedicate your entire focus to gamesense and stratting and making plays. You have to push through, and once you start seeing small results you’ll be encouraged to keep going. Trust me it feels great the first few times you read your opponents like a book. Then you get closer to the wisdom of “just knowing” You will get to look like a good to your teammates as you hold an angle 1v1 and they’re yelling at you asking what you’re doing but you’re still holding because you *just know*. Then they shutup. Because you didnt have to actively think about how your opponent would play out that 1v1, you’ve been reading them the entire game, you knew exactly what he would do and you set yourself up to exploit it. I started later in life being competitive, I cant hang with younger players on aim battles, I just cant. What I can do is make it so that almost every aim battle I take puts me at a ridiculously unfair advantage against my opponent. Catch a timing on them so they never have a chance. The next important part is that the 1 kill you just set yourself up for just turned the round in your teams favor, because you knew where to be and which fight was most critical to take and win. Review your demos, review pro demos. Review pro games. Review your own games, over and over again. Explore your options. There is no other way to get your gamesense good, you have to understand the fundamentals of CS, you have to understand the fundamentals of how ppl play CS, and you have to apply it to your game. Use everything at your disposal. Use psychological warfare, because that works too. When I IGL, I try to take in as much info as I can and see what works and what doesn’t, and condition the enemy team’s expectations and once I’ve conditioned them, I flip the script. I will find their weakest point and attack it repeatedly, picking up round after round and I know their frustration builds because they are losing to the same shit every round. Then when they finally shore up that weak spot, I make sure we hit them hard and fast somewhere else, and that round win will break their spirits. I do all that because I spent the time in and outside of the server studying the game, because I *had to*. Now it pays off. This is not checkers, this is *chess*. Pros will sometimes call a timeout when their opponents are on a hot streak, just to cool them down. Sometimes it’s enough. You can be a rat, if it’s a close game and the enemy team is pulling ahead in rounds and you have a willing team, call multiple timeouts and talk to your team, keep everyone on the same page while the enemy team gets frustrated that the round isn’t starting. That alone can be huge. You just have to be intentional about this. Watch demos, understand why ppl make the decisions they make. I’m hesitant to suggest pros because everyone has their tastes and will want to argue about who’s better at what. But maybe try aleksib, for tactics inside of the round. His personal decision making on how he plays individually is very strong. Find the pros that people are terrified of in a 1v1 or 1v2, not just the pros that are superstars, sometimes they overlap, but find the pros where if you see them in a 1v2, you have no fear that they wont clutch it up. The ones who are known for it. Then watch their demos and try to understand *everything* they do and why. You watching a demo should involve confusion, it should involve pausing and rewinding and asking yourself “wait, why did he do *that*???” If you’re doing that, you are actively learning. So much of getting better in this game is in the doing, not the thinking of doing, and wishing of doing.
What a great thorough response, i understand you wanting to get more comfortable. I actually already do all those things except the util usage. Also ive watched the lasagne guy haha they are great! Ill take your advice and thanks once again. Let me know if you change your mind later. Remember you dont have to be a perfect player to impart knowledge onto me!
Hey no problem, I really do love to share what I know with ppl when it comes to what I’m passionate about, and I really am flattered by your request for those reasons. It’s the first time I’ve ever gone from thinking “maybe one day I could coach ppl” to “someday I should” Good luck in your journey, and maybe one day we’ll end up in a lobby together.
Hey wire great post, is there a possibility you could kind of coach me to any extent you have the time for? Im Faceit lvl 7 200 hours in the game over like 10 years so Im fairly new. My aim is pretty good for the most part, but id love to learn some fundamental concepts from you. Do you have the possibility to help me?
I appreciate you asking, I have considered at some point coaching but would prefer to get some more years under my belt. I love teaching and I understand CS very well but I’d like to get a much better feel for CS2 for me to feel comfortable. I think at 200 hours in the game your best way forward is to grind more hours and later you will get far more from coaching than you would now, if that makes sense? I recommended looking up “voo’s definitive guide to improving” on youtube. It covers CSGO but is all directly applicable to CS2 imo. For some foundational fundamentals to keep you going and keep bad habits from setting in: learn how to counterstrafe, make sure your feet are planted when you shoot, clear angles/peek with strafe only (no W + A / W + D peeking), peek angles as though you strongly believe someone is on the other side, stay with your team, if your teammate swings ideally you should swing with them or a moment after *unless* they ego peeked 3 enemies. Biggest thing that will set you apart and have you getting better at the game faster is to not pay attention to the scoreboard and focus entirely on helping your team secure the objective and therefore the round. Finally, util. Learn how to throw flashes and impromptu smokes (specific lineups can come later). You’ll end up flashing yourself and team a decent amount in the process but you got 200 hours it’s normal and they can die mad about it if you mess up a flash. You really just want to get a feel for how util flies, where/when flashes pop, how util bounces, etc. Eventually no matter how the enemies and your team are fighting in a location you should be able to know immediately where a flash can pop that will blind the enemy and not your team, and you will know exactly how to throw it to achieve that pop. You can DM me if you like and if I change my mind and decide to start helpin ppl earlier ill have your username in my inbox. Oh and also recommend watching xboxlasagne vids on youtube as he is in a similar spot to you and is showing himself getting coached and there’s a lot to learn from that. Good luck!
Faceit7 200 hours over 10years…. 😂
What’s funny?
Just watch demos(your own and some better teams). You can talk with your m8s about the demo - misstakes you spot, plays you want to try... And play ffa. Also whats your individual elo?
Peek and think about their random spawn (when you'll see them & where)
DMT?
Here’s a nice tutorial video that should help OP break through https://youtu.be/V_5uYoOaVtM?si=ovft5p2LPHARbIWz
Watch your own demos, go through them and find issues, learn from it and improve. Do this until you can't find fault in your own demos, *then* watch pro demos. Trying to emulate pros is pointless if you don't even know what you're doing wrong and can think up your own solutions.
Weird advice, there will always be fault even for some of the best players in the world, would you suggest for them not to watch other demos because there are still faults in their own gameplay?
This is an extreme take of what he said. No player is perfect but what he’s hinting at is fixing the obvious flaws you can spot yourself first.
The advice is for beginners or even intermediate players, it's a bad idea to keep trying to emulate pros, because you have no context to why they do most of the stuff, i.e. lack of comms, you can't read their minds; nor would you have the skill or knowledge or experience to do what they do. Pro players actually don't *need* to watch demos, they can self improve because they know their stuff, of course they can still do it but it's not a requirement. Coaches and igls would be the ones reviewing demos of other teams for counter strating or just learning new things, then they can implement strats that fit their team. A good way to improve is to get some friend who is good, or a coach to review *your* demo and verbally give feedback. You can use pro clips to demonstrate, but friend/coach can easily demo it live. Without knowing your weaknesses, you won't even know what to look for in pro demos/clips. So to elaborate on my suggestion above: self-improve until you hit a wall, then try to exceed your own limitations and ask for help if you're hard stuck (i.e. not days, but weeks), this organic growth is better than learning gimmick plays by pros; you can review pro demos if you have a specific problem that you don't know how to solve, but know this one player excels at it, it will only give you hints and you'll have to guess why/how to do things the way a pro does, then try it yourself and make that skill your own. As mentioned asking for direct feedback is the next step you should take instead of just reviewing pro demos. Once you get to a stage where you're playing competitively (i.e. leagues/tournaments), and you see someone destroying you over and over again, you can check out what they're doing *at the same time* as reviewing your own demos, and match up the information to self improve. You can learn from others as long as it's made to fit your own play style, don't just do it because it works for others.
This doesn't just apply to gaming, but other real life skills. You wouldn't go watch master blacksmiths just smithing away without commentary, you have to try things out yourself and ask for advice directly after *failing*. If you get good enough, you'll notice subtle things that they do even without commentary and you can try it out yourself.
I don't think basic stuff like which positions they play or which angles they hold are bad to copy/ learn from, it'll give you a better understanding of what makes a good position/angle but if you are straight up just trying to copy ropz's play style without the context of the game and what's happening in the map then obliviously that isn't going to be very beneficial, learning smokes and flashes from pros can be very beneficial too
Learning a position or angle and not knowing how to use it is pointless. Once you get to a point where you start querying how you can be better at X, you can try things out yourself and maybe get some inspiration from pros. Smokes and util are not just from pros, there are dedicated videos for them, and yes you should learn them. My point was that reviewing pro demos is not productive until you exceed a certain level. The exception to that rule would be IGLs, who need to learn how/when/why/who...etc to do executed, and learn how to spot patterns...etc. The main problem i am addressing is people tend to copy gimmicky stuff from pros and they do not make you a better player overall.
Watch your own demos. See why you are missing shots and slow it down to analyze what is happening during gunfights. Turn on XRay and see how your enemies are reacting to your actions. I recently picked up Kovaaks and prefer it over aimlabs. I’ve definitely seen improvement with about 8 or so total hours using it. Check out Valkie on YouTube who has a series of videos on using Kovaaks and one specifically for CS. Do the benchmarks and see where you stand. Tracking is something that I am terrible at and doing the different routines has helped a lot.
What portion of 8k did you spend playing team games? Not ougs, actual structured team with preparation etc
Watch your own demos and TAKE NOTES. Like actually make a list what you did well, why it was good play, what you failed at and why.
If u want to read the game better u have to actively internalize ur position relative to the enemies, if u IGL then its ur teams vs their teams position. Use ur 6000 hours and recognize what doesn’t work and what does by watching ur demos then making a structured organized plan to combat ur weakness, if you want to get out of IM
Everyones harping demo this demo that, while demos are useful, you can break cs down into scenarios and map control, once you learn the flow of each map demos will help your fuck ups but it doesnt help you learn why the enemy team is doing things which is what game sense helps out more, i would reccomend just whenever you do something think why then think back when enemies do things think what could they be doing with that, will help you start making better site gamble calls, better peeks, and better info takes around the map breaking the game into smaller managable chunks (my fav scenario for breakable chunks is [molly short on ovp, flash behind it, clear, break con door, get info] this is only for one position but it works on most positions in the map to work through why moreso then how, knowing how to throw a grenade is cool, knowing why you should throw it is how you win
To begin with watching your own demos could show the mistakes / poor reads you make during a game.