What is "aimless deathmatching"?

Aimless deathmatching is actually a common problem that you will see many players actually doing. You wake up in the morning, you want to play CS:GO, so of course you warm up. You hop onto a deathmatch server, finish a game or two, and hop onto competitive. However, that deathmatch didn't really improve much of your play in that competitive match if you're doing it wrong, and you're going to want to learn how to identify when you're actually training muscle memory, movement and spraying, and when you're actually just running around and killing people like it's the good old days of Call of Duty team deathmatch.

Before I start this guide, I'm going to quickly explain what aimless deathmatching is. If you follow the example above or hop on deathmatch first thing before a competitive, run around and kill people, hoping it improves your muscle memory, then you're aimlessly deathmatching. Whilst you're correct, you will be improving your muscle memory, you'll be doing it very slowly. You're not becoming pro just by practicing deathmatch aimlessly for 2 hours a day, you're actually just slowing the process down, and it could be a lot quicker if you follow the tips and tricks in this guide before you hop on a deathmatch server again.

So... what areas should I be looking at to be improving?

Raw Aim, Snapping, Tap Headshots

This is what you will find most people usually wish to improve on, and with reason too! Just the thought of being able to run out into any battle and just snap to the enemy players heads like you were some kind of god, making any Overwatcher question your plays. But that doesn't happen (too often...) does it? So of course making the best of what you can do is what this is about. Maps like aim_map (shown above) or aim_redline provide you with a bunch of obstacles and other objects of cover you would find within a normal demolition or hostage rescue map. This is so you can make use of the cover like you would within these maps, and also to teach you how to work against any players using these to their advantage. These kind of maps will provide you with a kind of 1v1 scenario depending on the situation, and this will lead you to the simple case of "frag or be fragged" - and the best way to outfrag is with headshots. Hop onto an aim deathmatch server, and practice snapping to peoples heads. Don't adjust your sensitivity unless you feel it is completely off, because every time you adjust your sensitivity or DPI, you have to readjust your entire arm's muscle memory. The last thing you want to do is basically throw away all the practice and work you put into your previous time aim training, just for what might possibly only be a temporary solution. Another thing with these maps is that they will greatly improve your awareness when you're on bigger maps such as aim_p2000, with a larger scale and huge brick wall cover.

The other solution to this as some pro players tend to do, is to play a custom community server gamemode called "Headshot Mod" or "HSMod" for short. This mod is just like your normal community deathmatch where you pick your guns and run around killing people, however you have no choice to kill people other than to shoot them in the head. Any shot on the body is not registered, and your opponent will have a better opportunity of killing you. While you can end up aimlessly running around deathmatching on these kind of servers, they will be improving your play however at the same time, as you can't get lucky last hits from other players damage or bonus weapon points such as on Valve's own deathmatch. You have you, your frags, and a whole lot of people all fighting to be #1, including yourself. Whilst on these servers, you will be building your muscle memory to snap towards other player's heads, and you will also develop some good habits of going for headshots more often than not. This means that if you're in a lower skill group, it's definitely worth spending some time on an Aim / HSMod server to home in on your aim skills.

Spraydowns and Spray Transitioning

While some people can just hop into a server of any type and practice a quick spray at the wall, this doesn't work for everyone. Some people want to be able to transition between players whilst spraying to get those awesome spraydowns you see in the highly skilled players. To practice this, you should hop onto a default community deathmatch server and purposely not aim for heads, or if there's multiple enemies, kill the one and keep spraying to the other player until you hit them. There's no way to actually say how to learn how to spray transition other than trial and error. Eventually you'll know from just timings and once again muscle memory where to place your crosshair to get headshot after headshot after headshot.

Another good thing to do is to develop a second nature for being able to pick up any gun on the battlefield and being able to spray it just like you're able to spray an AK47 and M4 variant. This means that you should be able to pick up an SG553 or AUG for example, and be able to use it just like any other gun you know. Why? Because not all players will purchase an AK47 on T side, some people prefer the scope. While you may find that kind of play with a weapon foreign or weird, working around that and learning the spray patterns for those guns will make you always one step ahead, because if your teammate dies whilst you don't have a gun or you find an enemy with a gun that you don't know how to use, you could end up just trading and losing your weapon. Moving your mouse about spraying and praying isn't always the best solution, so it's definitely worth picking these up and practicing these sprays once in a while on a deathmatch server such as a community normal one like I mentioned. "Select your primary weapon: SG553". Sure, you'll be called a noob or something vulgar possibly for using such a "terrible" gun, but that's showing you the benefit of learning these weapons, and also, maybe you'll find a new favorite for when you hop into competitive, and you'll fork over that extra $300 for the SG.

Practicing Your Movement with Deathmatch

Deathmatch isn't only just for aiming you know! You can practice certain movements and tricks even on Valve's own deathmatch servers. It's right, you can learn how and when to peek a corner, such as jiggle peeking for example. Sure, it's easy to hop onto an empty server and jump around corners and seeing you can stop your velocity and land the shots, but can you actually do it against people? And do you know how many times you should jiggle peek before you'll get picked? Or even how to prefire someone who's constantly jiggle peeking you? Another thing you could learn about is a movement method (recommended for more advanced players) called stutter stepping. This involves you stepping left and right quickly like when firing a pistol in a firefight or when trying to jiggle peek, except really close together, and ALSO spraying your gun at the same time. The quick stepping, which makes it harder for the enemy to hit and easier for you to push an angle, also makes it so it seems like you're able to run and spray, as your velocity is around the 0 mark a good portion of the time, allowing the spray to be as accurate as possible. You can look up videos about this to see it explained in more detail or used practically. These are the things you have to ask about your movement in CS:GO, and you need to know how to improve them.

If there's any site or tips and tricks you would like me to cover, feel free to send me a tweet at @J4271B with what you want covering, or to give me any feedback you wish. Thanks for reading!

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