CS:GO, Strategy and Team Play

Your success in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be determined by three factors: skill, strategy and team play. When it comes to skill you will have to grind out your reflexes, crosshair placement and spray control. This can only be achieved through play time and practice. After grinding your skill to a 'high level' you will have learned many basic strategies which have proven good in matchmaking but when you go up as a 5 on 5 team (clan), these strategies might not be sufficient to overcome your opponents.

Part 1: Synergy

Good synergy is the heart and soul of a successful team. Synergy between all five members of the team gives a significant edge over your opponents as executions become timed to perfection and most of the time in cases where one of the team mates does not get the frag, you have a mate ready to re-frag to keep the game even. When a team's synergy is optimal there is little friction between failed strategies and lost rounds, which could otherwise lead to tilts in the team. Synergy is especially important when executing set strategies that require timing, e.g. flash-ins, timed smokes, or pop flashes. Synergy means you know each other's weaknesses and strengths and play off them using the strengths to your advantage as much as possible and minimising the weaknesses.

Part 2: Team Play

Team play, like synergy, is essential for a team to play well. Good team play is when each player knows exactly what they are doing and what their role is in the team. It needs correct communication, knowing your job and synthesising even further to achieve maximum synergy within the team. Team play, however, is the actual execution of the knowledge that creates the synergy within the team. No team mate is unaware of what he or she has to do, they have full control and understanding of who smokes which spots and who pop flashes whom and where to plant along with the post-plant positions. The pinnacle of game sense and team play is if a called strategy goes south (fails) but due to the understanding of the game and the team play and synergy between the players, they can hold off and salvage a positive outcome of a given scenario. E.g. same angles are not held, information flows fast, call outs are precise and crossfires/baiting is set up to win the round.

Part 3: Strategy

Synergy and team play will only get you so far. The team might be good at playing with each other but what is the use if nobody has an idea of what kind of an execution you are going for or which strategy should be used for that specific round. That is where the in-game leader comes in, (s)he is the brain of the team. The leader will call out the more advanced strategies based on the current economical situation of the team or the opponents', their play style or based off mid-round information gathered by the team. After the information has been gathered, the in-game leader calls it and the boulder is set into motion and team play kicks in. As mentioned previously everybody knows their set smokes and angles to check and clear. Synergy will be the element of how smoothly the execution goes.

Conclusion

A team has to function like a well-oiled machine until it works as flawlessly as possible. Danish CS:GO teams are a prime example of true team play where pop flashes, smokes and assistance is well executed in a natural play style. Other teams prefer different approaches but in the end it all boils down to the core which is if a team can function smoothly and as unit. Sometimes it is better to cut off a stronger player in order to achieve greater synergy as synergy in the long run is more beneficial than a player who does not fit the team no matter how good he is.

Anthony "Alphad115" Fedorov