Cobblestone is known for more than just the Dragon Lore. One of the things it also is known for is that it is potentially a T-sided map, if the Ts play their cards right, but this article will discuss the possibilities you have to stop the Ts from running you over, and over, and over, and over...

Understanding the Layout

The layout of Cobblestone is not the same as the ones of maps like Dust 2 or Mirage. In fact, it is really unique in its design.

The first thing you will notice is that there are basically no fast rotates for the Ts. Yes, they can change the direction they are going, but they cannot fast rotate away from a fake they showed towards one site. If they are committing 3 people to a fake on the B-Site, they will have a hard time getting on A safely before the CTs rotate back to A. This is also the case because of the fast CT rotates, as you can see on the radar. This dynamic has changed a bit, since the introduction of the Threat-Smokes from Mid Plat in front of the B-Halls. Learning these smokes will enable the Ts a faster hit on A once the smokes are thrown towards B, so you must be aware of them when you think of rotating. You also need to give attention to the position of the Dropdown, as it gives the Ts potential to enter the connector and have free choice for a hit towards both sites, A and B, which makes the Dropdown a crucial part of the map to hold. Even though the first look at the layout of the map may deceive you into thinking that holding A is as difficult as B, this is not the case. Dropdown is so easy to hit that you will need 2 CTs holding it one way or another most of the time, and some teams even prefer the setup of 1 on A and 4 on B, 2 of them in Dropdown. This is because of the possibility of gathering info in front of A if you have no action, and the possibility to fall back towards the bombsite once action hits you.

Working A Alone

The favoured part of A to hit on a rush is A-Long. It gives them a lot of room to work with once the person holding it is eliminated or pushed back, so the first thing you should do is to go to the end of A-Long, where it changes into Sidewalk. And do not worry, you will be there first, even when they have their best and you your worst spawn. If you hear no steps or have no early aggression to deal with, you can think about what you should do next: Do you want to risk a peek out A-Long?

Given, it is not without danger, but there is so much to gain. If your CT side did struggle through the half, this should not be the first option you explore, but if you have been doing fine or it is the early stage of the half you can risk it, with a fitting popflash, of course. You could also throw it to your right, so you can peek out while it pops, if you think that the enemy is going to look away. If you have seen no one in front of A-Long, you should check Water, in case a T is trying to be smart and is trying to sneak up through Water. Be aware that someone could already be in Matrix (some call it Danger) and is already trying to flank you, gun in hand!

The Best Options to Play A Solo

Playing A solo is a hectic thing to do. You can get flanked every time you have not been careful enough or get overrun at any time. You need to be ready to fall back or trade favourable, and the best place to do that is probably in Matrix. Matrix allows you to watch either Water or Long passively while being relatively safe from the other angle.

You should also switch it up and peek out every now and then in sporadic, rather arbitrary patterns. If you cannot trade favourably, you should be ready to fall back. You can either chuck a smoke into Water and flash your way through, towards A, or you could smoke the first part of A-Long to fall back and hold from further back on A-Long. Once you have been countered, Matrix is not an option for the next few rounds, and you should mix it up, preferably play further back, maybe with an AWP on SWAT or the small hut on A-Site.

This allows you to view both angles at different times. Once you have spotted one or more, you should try to get the first shot and fall back further, maybe behind Hut on A, and try to get the guy who is coming from Long to try and get isolated 1v1s, which favour you. I do not think that I need to point out that you call for backup at this point, at least one person should help you from the Door, Vent or Balcony.

In General, When Holding A Alone

In general, you should put yourself in a position to trade favourably, which depends on the situation your team is in. Is it 5 versus 5, killing 2, getting traded and a quick rotation from your teammates should be enough to keep them from winning the round. If you are behind in numbers, you are definitely better off falling back and calling for backup. A-Site has a few good spots to hide and you will get in a better position to make a good play once they are close to or on site.

If you are close in numbers, let's say 4 Ts and 3 CTs, you should still wait for your teammates to arrive fully in order to retake. In order to do that you should fall back, preferably into Vent or go through the vent to get to Balcony.

How to Play A with a Teammate

The most important thing about playing A with a teammate is for you to have his back and for him to have yours. You need to rely on each other, fully concentrating on your task (either defending A-Long or Water) and a call should be made once the enemy can reach you. Do not be afraid of making suggestions for your setup, especially when you are being pressured and you feel like you both have a better chance to win the round by falling back. Your job on A is to delay or to play retake, not to go for hero plays every time you spot a number of enemies.

Covering More Ground While Staying Close

One possibility to hold A is to split the forces and still be close. This can be achieved by you when the A-Long player is staying close to the corner to Sidewalk and the Water/Mid player is staying in Matrix. This way you can cover both ways to A and still be close enough to trade and fall back. This is also suited for a more passive play. Let's say you get a lot of pressure and one way towards A is not safe, you can both fall back through the safe way. If you were to choose Long for this, one can concentrate on the entrance to A-Long, the other can aim towards Matrix. You can now choose what you want to do to hold A. You could stay behind A-Long and aim at Matrix, and everyone trying to come through A-Long will automatically walk into your crosshair.

The other one should play close to Wood and wait for someone coming up Ramp from Water. Be careful when you are playing Wood, you can easily get wallbanged! You can also go for a quick double peek down Ramp (with a fitting flash, of course). This will give you the ability to fall back even more, if needed.

Playing Separated

If you do not want to stay close, or you/your teammate has been countered in Matrix, you can play split up. One should, of course, play A-Long and one should play (by) Water. If you actually have been killed in Matrix just a few rounds ago, I would not encourage you to play inside of Water. If they managed to get you flashed inside Matrix, or they brute forced your death, it is likely that they are going to do the same to you inside of Water. Your best bet is to play just outside of Water.

Be careful! This position gets wallbanged quite often!

This way you can peek for someone coming through the door and still be able to dodge flashes easily. It is important for you to call if an enemy has passed through to Matrix and you can not commit to killing him, otherwise the Long player is going to have a hard time finding the frag. If your teammate is playing inside or just outside of Water, you can play on A-Long Hay, close to the boost to peek people coming from Sidewalk, or even get boosted. This will almost always grant you a trade, most likely a 2 for 1 trade. Again, think of your situation! If you are two men behind, trading 2 for 1 in an isolated space should not be your goal. This puts a lot of pressure on the last A player, who can get flanked easily at this point. It is always best to get a frag or good damage in on the enemy, and fall back. This allows your teammates to rotate, and ultimately to put the bombsite on lockdown. If you want to play further back, to be able to instantly rotate without danger, you can play at the end of A-Long.

This is also a good position if your Water player is holding from even further back, maybe with an AWP, on Hut, on SWAT, or in Ventroom. Your teammate should have your back, and you have the possibility to fall back easily.

Delaying is Key

At this point you may have noticed that I really stress the falling back part of playing A, especially A-Long. This has something to do with Cobblestone's layout that I did not mention before. Cobblestone has Bombsites that are really hard to retake, mainly because of the narrow chokepoints that can be smoked off and held easily. If you want to flank, you either need to get your running boots on fairly early or you will most likely be too late to win the round, so the points of contact during a retake are rather predictable. To correctly delay, you need to use your utility efficiently and on contact. Remember, a smoke will most likely not stop a 5-men hit, as they will have flashes in hand, so you need to flash them, too. A Molotov is more likely to stop or delay a rush or push, even though people will still run through it.

Playing B

There are many different setups you can play. All of them are defined by the number of players you have on B or the number of players left alive in the round. Unless you stack, A should never remain completely abandoned by your team, and there should be a clear tendency to have 2 people take care of Dropdown.

How to Play Dropdown with a Teammate

First, we will talk about the possibilities you have, to play Dropdown with a teammate. You can categorize them into these three categories:

-Aggressive
-Half-half
-Defensive

Do not get fooled by the way I use these terms. When I talk about an "aggressive" Dropdown setup, I am not talking about boosting up Drop and hunting frags, so this may confuse you a bit at first, but it soon will be clear as to why I call it aggressive.

How to Play Dropdown Aggressively

When you play the Dropdown aggressively, you try to deny the Ts any kind of Dropdown control. Under normal circumstances, when the Ts play a pick-and-play style round, or play by a ground-gaining-method, there will be at least one guy trying to get into Drop, which allows them to have a variety of strategic plays in their hand. Be aware that it is fairly easy to take Dropdown and to trade favourably for the Ts.

The way the room is built allows the Ts to nade, smoke and molotov every possible spot that is actually inside of the Dropdown. A coordinated team can absolutely destroy any kind of aggressive defense inside of the Dropdown, but if you play aggressively and have a teammate with you, you should either set up a crossfire, or a kind of a bait-and-switch. If you do not know what a bait-and-switch is, allow me to explain it to you. A bait-and-switch setup is a special kind of setup used to lure a T inside of the line-of-fire of a second CT, which he did not see and should not be able to kill. Two CTs dancing around the same corner to take turns may also be referred to as a bait-and-switch. Now, that being said, to establish such a bait-and-switch, you should leave the baiter an easy escape passage, and this can be achieved, in this specific case, by letting him play at the arch. The baiter can wigglepeek every few seconds and gain information, and maybe use utility if he suspects that an attack is about to take place. The switcher should sit under the Drop, and wait for people to overpeek or drop down. When the baiter gets spotted, he should fall back and hold a rather passive angle until the trap snaps shut on the enemy.

If they do not show aggression after they pushed the arch player back, the chances are good that they take their time to take Dropdown. In this case, the baiter should start to bait again, by wigglepeeking and using utility, otherwise the switcher will get punished. When they drop, and the enemy gets be distracted by the switcher, the baiter should be able to repeek and kill at least one more enemy. Again, be aware of the flash and molotov possibility, this can render your position useless. A different kind of bait-and-switch would be to let the baiter sit close to the window. If he positions himself correctly, he can just see the right corner of the Drop. When someone tries to peek him, he should be able to get the kill. The enemy will start to drop and the switcher, who is again sitting below the Drop, should be able to get a few kills.

How to Play Dropdown Using a Crossfire

You can establish a crossfire by having one CT in the corner of the boxes close to the window. Here he, again, can only see the right corner of the Drop, and has his crosshair in position for a headshot. If the other CT positions himself similar to the first bait-and-switch setup, by standing inside of the arch, he can peek the left corner, while having a headshot lined up, once a T peeks into his crosshair. Be aware that your model could be sticking out, this depends on the weapon you have in your hand, as well as the exact positioning you choose. In this kind of crossfire, it is especially important to correctly use your utility. If one of you, or even both, get flashed, the person playing near the window should move under the Drop, looking at the wall, and the person playing the arch should fall back slightly and bounce a flash into the room, allowing the player under the Drop to peek, and re-establish the crossfire, or a different setup.

Playing Half-Half

To play half-half, one should play outside of the Dropdown and one should play inside of it. Peeking through Arch is considered inside, in this article. The most common example used is the Window-Arch example, in which one CT will play just outside of the window and keep his crosshair at the right corner of the Dropdown. He can either get a kill or damage in, and alert the other CT, who is playing Arch. This allows for you to possibly get a surprise kill, and then have reinforcements, if they try to take the Dropdown.

A lot of people know of the window-angle and will try to prefire it, or at least preaim it, so beware. Once you both got a kill, or tried to, you should both throw your molotovs inside of the chokepoints, for the Window-player it is in front of the window, inside of Dropdown. This will allow you to take a position further back, and maybe allows you to go all-in on the B-Site and call over an A player. You can also play half-half by having one CT either playing close to the window or under the Drop, and one waiting behind the arch, ready to raise some hell.

How to Play Defensively, and Not Lose Control of the Situation

Playing aggressively or half-half is very dangerous, especially since there is a good possibility that the Ts will molotov your positions, so you need to know how to set up a defensive play. This kind of play will see two CTs outside of Dropdown, both holding one chokepoint in an advantageous position. One, obviously, will need to stay in connector so he can wait for the Ts to show themselves in the window, or even drop out of it, by standing close to the door towards A, or by playing behind the pillar and peeking the window. Taz popularized the way of playing it passively right under the window or inside of the door towards B, and all are suited for passive play, while some grant more fallback possibility than others. The defensive play inside of B can allow you to only have 3 people on B while not leaving one chokepoint really open. You can play right next to quad, close to B-Long, in order to have a clear view into Dropdown, and to be able to turn around and help out on B-Long. Be careful, just turning around leaves you vulnerable to anyone going fast out of Dropdown, so you should hide behind Quad to not get shot in the back, once you hold B-Long.

Also popular is this spot on the B-Site itself.

This position allows you to reinforce both, Dropdown and B-Long. You can also dance around the fountain, to gain extra cover. You can easily deploy smokes and other grenades to stop pushes from the Dropdown. It is also possible to play at the rock, but this will not grant B-Long so much help until the Ts start taking the Bombsite itself, but you can fall back through the door if needed.

How to Play B-Long

B-Long is not as crucial as Dropdown for the Ts to control, but it is still the most contested area of the map, especially since the Ts can easily take it without taking much risk. This has to do with the fact that the Ts will, at almost all times, be able to reach B-Long before the CTs can, which makes the use of utility essential for safely taking B-Long control.

How to Take Titanic Control

Trying to get full B-Long control early is a dream scenario with rarely any success, but if you want to take Titanic, and you reckon that the Ts will try to take B-Long away from you early on, you need to learn to delay them. To delay them, throwing grenades, like molotovs and flashbangs, is your best bet.

Fitting Flashbangs are easily thrown when you bounce them off these crates.

They will bounce right towards the Ts, but be aware that this flash is easily avoided, even though it gives you that window of opportunity to peek into Ts who are either blinded, or turned away. A few strong positions are below broken wall, between Dropdown and B-Long (Quad), on site, Chicken, the new-ish stairs and Titanic. If you want to be sure that there will be no hard aggression towards B-Long, after you have established safety against a possible rush, you can smoke B-Long to get everyone to their intended positions, or take peeks. If you play alone, I strongly recommend a position that is fit for delaying any kind of push. Positions fit for this are the stairs, as well as the corner below the broken wall.

Both will grant you a frag almost every time, and both have easy fall back positions, especially with a flash. This is not comparable to the fall back possibilities of A-Long, but changing your position up slightly will slow down the push, and you can get one CT who played Dropdown over onto the B-Site. If you have a molotov or a smoke left, it is now time to deploy at least one of them.

How to Play B-Long Further Back

Alternatively, if you have an AWP, your favoured positions should be on site or Chicken. Chicken is often smoked or gets a molotov thrown into it, so be aware of that. Also, if you take such a far away position, it is best to not to contest B-Long early, as you do not want to fight close range with the AWP. Simply go straight to your desired position, and be ready to take the first shot. Depending on the situation, you should then smoke off the path to Titanic. If they are already out onto Titanic, you should flash yourself out to safely peek again.

How to Play B-Long with a Teammate

There are, again, multiple options to hold said position. You can position both close, half-half, or both further back. This highly depends on the pace the opponent sets. Is he fast out of B-Long rather often? Then your best bet would be to sit further back at Quad, possibly the corner towards the door. Your teammate should stand on the other corner of Quad, the corner towards B-Site. If they arrive at Titanic you can get an easy frag, and if they drop from the broken wall they can either take the fight with the Quad-Dropdown player, who has cover, or run into the AWP at the other side of Quad.

IF you feel like you can safely take Titanic control, you should. If you do not have an AWP, I would favour the positions on, or close to, Titanic itself. One could enter Titanic and sit in the Corner, while one could stand on the stairs. This will be a great crossfire, in which you can both regulate when and how you peek out. In this case, when you feel the pressure, you can coordinate your peeks or your retreat and get the most out of your positions. Be aware that the Ts can molotov you both. Alternatively, if you feel like it, you can play bait-and-switch. The Stairs player could make noise, and look for the contact with a T coming out of B-Halls. If they come down Long even further, he can fall back with a flashbang of himself. They will concentrate on him, and not on the corner in which the second CT is hiding.

If you do not feel safe on site, you can play bait-and-switch by placing one CT on the stairs, and one below the broken wall. If you make noise on stairs, you can bait them to carelessly walk into the crosshair of the broken-wall player.

IF You Have an AWP, Playing Half-Half is Your Best Bet

As I said before, the AWPer should play further back if he does not want to take temporary control of B-Long. If you have the blessing of having two CTs available for B-Long, you should play to your strength by having one close-by, at best completely undetected from the Ts, and the AWP holding the first point of contact from, let us say, Chicken. If the AWP gets the first kill, the other CT can peek out and get the second kill, by killing the closest T, who will be looking for the AWP. You should be able to completely split their attention, which will stop most pushes dead in its tracks for a few seconds, which is perfect for your team to adjust, and send help towards B.

CT Aggression on Cobblestone

It is often criticised that Cobblestone does not bear enough possibilities for the CTs to successfully exert aggression. Even though one may agree with the sentiment that it does not bear enough possibilities, there still are ways to be aggressive on CT side, and be successful.

A-Site is a Good Fit for Aggression

The entrance ways to A-Site are the perfect fit to exert some kind of aggressive peeks, so much so that I even mentioned it in the paragraph of holding A-Long. With a good popflash, or a smartly placed smoke, you can easily peek beyond the corner of A-Long and the door of Water. If you find the area in front of these two parts of the map to be completely empty, you should flank, or at least rotate to B. You need to be careful, as some overly-smart Ts might be trying to get a drop on you, either from T-Spawn, the Sniper Tower, which is also called Rapunzel by some, and on the top of Snake.

This window will grant great vision down upon the lower part of the T-Ramp, and will help the Ts spot CT aggression early and safely, so be aware.

Aggression from B

Even though the attempted aggressions from B need way more dedication than the aggressions on A, playing it out smartly may win you some strongly needed rounds. The first one is the Dropdown-Boost. In order to do this, one needs to crouch on top of the palette below the Drop, and the other CT needs to jump on his head. Once on top of each other, the CT on the head of the crouching CT should jump, and the lower CT should let go of his crouch key, in order to make no noise once the CT on top lands on his head once again. This is important, since you do not want to give away that you are boosting. Now the CT on top can jump up the Drop. This kind of B aggression is especially fit for ecos, since you have nothing to lose, and a successful boost, which is catching the Ts off guard, can win you the whole round.

The Highly Contested Area of B-Long

As I already mentioned, B-Long is the most contested area of Cobblestone. To exert aggression from there, you need to get a good hold on Titanic. An AWP is especially fit for this part. It can aim down B-Long and deny any kind of aggression on B-Long. Now you can start to smoke of the B-Halls entrance towards B-Long, in order to gain full control of Long. From there on out, you probably should not go further until you hear that there is action on A, and even then, it is extremely risky. But who am I to tell you to not to go into the B-Halls, the part of the map where every T has to pass through to fast rotate, right?

A Few Closing Words About Cobblestone

Cobblestone is a map where you should think about dedicating one player to the connector area. He could hold Dropdown from the outside of the window, and rotate into the door, once there is action on A. Once the push hits somewhere, you need to slow it down as much as possible, or get favourable numbers for the retake, as retaking in an even-number situation is extremely hard on Cobblestone. Also, there are multiple kinds of CT holds that I did not cover, the possibilities are not limited to my ideas.

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