So you've grown tired of no one ever playing any sort of supportive role on your team. You want to fill this hole, but don't have any idea how. Thankfully I'm here today to explain how to hold a site alone, how to use grenades to help teammates, and other essential elements of playing as a support player.

General Rules

First of all, if you have the advantage, don’t get aggressive and lose your team the advantage by peeking. Unless, of course, you have a teammate with you who will be able to get a return kill. If you have the same number of players alive on both sides, then a trade kill will always favors the T side, as the CTs will have to spread their forces thin. Try to queue with at least one friend at all times, and play the same areas as them. You’ll develop excellent team synergy, which will help your team tremendously. Try to play the same area every game. For example, try to always either play A site or B site of a map on CT side, this way you will improve your hold on the site over time. Lastly, and this can not be stressed enough, DO NOT TRY TO BE A HERO. You have four other teammates who can help you win the round. Don’t try to win the game by yourself.

CT Side

CT side is easier to play support as your team has a defensive advantage, and there are many ways you can take advantage of that. One of the easiest ways to play your CT sides well is to play as a sight “anchor”. What this means is when the enemy team begins attacking the other site, and your team mates rotate over to help out, you stay where you are until the bomb has been sighted. This will put you in more clutch situations, and you will likely not get as many kills, but you will help your team a lot. Since it is possible that you will end up being left alone on a sight, it is very important that you position yourself well. Otherwise the enemy team will easily kill you and take the site for free. A good position is one where you’d have enough time to reload while in cover, and you’re preferably able to dance around to stall for your teammates to arrive. some good examples:

• New Box, B site Inferno
• Piit, A site Inferno
• Bench, B site Mirage
• Triple stack, A site Mirage
• Pit, long A, Dust 2
• Generator or River, B site Cache

There are of course more, but this is just to name a few. Another important thing to keep in mind is that if you play the same position every round, the enemy team will likely begin to counter it. If you’re always playing behind New Box, then the enemy may try to throw Molotovs to force you out of position. It is also important to mix things up regularly and move around the site a lot. However, if for example you are alone on the B site of Inferno, but your teammates on the A site have smoked off the choke point between Top Banana and B site, then it is wise to take position somewhere where you can see anyone come through the smoke. Fall back to a safe position once the smoke is about to dissipate and no one is planning on re-smoking it. Finally, when you're alone on a site, your main goal isn't to get as many kills as possible, it's to slow the enemy team down long enough for your team to arrive and help out.

T Side

T side tends to be a bit more difficult to play support on, since you you need to coordinate with your teammates a lot more. However, if you throw FlashBangs for your teammates, and help smoke off crossfires, then your team can clear out the site more easily, and leave you in an advantageous situation. It’s very important that you have a 100% sure way to throw a smoke so that it lands perfectly. Otherwise you could end up doing more damage to your team than if you had never thrown the smoke at all, You can also help your team by watching certain smokes to ensure that no one pushes through them. While this is a more of a baity way of playing CS, it is an important role and most people don’t want to fill it. Since you are baiting your teammates to a certain extent, it’s important that you’re able to close out rounds for your team. If you and a teammate are still alive, try to establish a crossfire. One of the most common crossfires is on the B site of Inferno, with one person at New Box and the other person at Dark Corner or Emo, If the round comes down to a 1vX situation, try to ensure that the bomb detonates. Kill the defuser, throw a Molotov on the bomb, just do whatever you have to do. If the round comes down to a 1V1 situation, and you hear the opponent begin to diffuse, wait 2-3 seconds before peaking. This way if he was fake diffusing, you’ve wasted more of his time, and he may go back to diffusing by the time you peak.

Throwing Grenades

Throwing grenades to help your teammates is one of the more important parts of playing a supportive role. The grenades you're going to be using, in order of importance, are the Flash Bang, followed by the Smoke Grenade, and then finally the Molotov/Incendiary Grenade. You should always prioritize your grenades in this order: Smoke Grenade, Flash Bang, Molotov/Incendiary, HE Grenade (unless your team is planning a strategy that requires a specific grenade). There are a few Do's and Dont's of throwing Grenades.

Firstly, the Flash Bang. Your goal with a Flash Bang is to throw it so your enemies will be blinded by it, but not your teammates. A good example of this is a Flash on top Banana on Inferno, where the supportive player will stand behind Sandbags and bounce the Flash Bang off of the fence so that it lands just past the corner. Meanwhile his teammate at top Banana with him will have his back turned to the corner until the Flash Bang pops, where he will then turn around and peek down Banana. What you don't want to do with a flash bang is throw it so that it blinds your teammate. If it has the possibility of blinding your teammate, make sure you tell him where you are throwing the Flash Bang, so that he can turn away from it.

Next is the Smoke Grenade. The two main uses are to block off choke points to buy more time on CT Side, or block crossfires on T side. Generally you're going to want to line yourself up with something specific to throw the Smoke Grenade on T side, so that you can consistently land the Smoke in the same spot every time. On CT side, you can usually just wing it and throw it towards the middle of the choke point. If you're regularly playing as a support player, you may want to go to a private server and make sure you know exactly how to throw all the useful Smoke Grenades, so that they land perfectly every time. If you do not know how to throw the smoke perfectly, it's usually better that you don't throw it at all, as you could leave gaps in the Smoke that allow the enemy team to see through.

Lastly are the Molotov/Incendiary Grenades, as well as the HE Grenade. I'm putting these two in the same category as they are used in a similar fashion. On T side you use these two grenades to flush CTs out of powerful positions such as New Box on the B site of Inferno, Back Plateau on the B site of Dust 2, or Bench on the B site of Mirage. There are a few interesting ways to throw these so that they land perfectly, but you can also just throw them towards the intended target and you'll get the same results.

On CT side, you use Molotov/Incendiary Grenades to either deal damage to Ts as they move through choke points, or to slow them down. HE Grenades on the other hand are generally used in unison with a teammate, to deal fatal or almost fatal amounts of damage to the opponents. On both sides HE Grenades can be used when you know an enemy is low on HP, and you want to finish him off easily.

These are just a few pointers on playing the support role CS. I hope this helps you improve at the game.