Ever lacked ideas on what to do on a pistol round other than the usual play off spawn strat for pistol rounds? Well then, throughout this article I will be going through and explaining simple and effective strats for the following maps in the competitive map pool; Dust2, Cache and Mirage. This is in order to hopefully help your teams pistol rounds on the following maps. Now you may ask, in usual pistol round strategies people tend to full buy armour and no utility on both sides. However, it is statistically proven and the meta shift currently is that strategies are more effective than full armour buys. This is not the purpose of this article but it's to inform you guys why strats are much better than stupid rushes onto a bombsite, which can work sometimes. A fellow and very smart in-game leader Sean Gares explains the meta of pistol rounds and why strategy is much better than full armour buys. A small thing to note this meta is mainly for the professional scene because in lower division or in pugs, most likely aim will matter more than strats but it depends on you on how you want to use the information.

Dust2

The most basic and flat map of them all. Most people just play off spawns or rush a bomb site and half of the time it doesn't work and it just throws away a nice 3 rounds you could get as Terrorists. This strategy requires two smokes and a flash or two, as well as perfect timings. This is a common pistol round strategy and can be very effective if done correctly. It is known plainly as the 'Mid to B' For this strategy you want to initially send two people to mid through top mid just to apply some pressure on any CT's pushing for information early on. Then send the rest through lower and keep two on upper and send three through mid. Now before you obviously push top mid you want to smoke off short so mid can't see you push into mid. Then you apply the Mid to B smoke and send a couple flashes through and proceed with the strategy. As soon as you do push out mid, make sure your upper players push with you so the two or however much CT's there is on B are isolated and have to focus on one angle each. Now if you time this correctly then the CT's on B are distracted from either side so it should enable you to trade and get the entry onto the site. If everything goes to plan you should have the bomb site without sacrificing too much. You can even do this strategy with one smoke and keep some utility for the retake. However, be warned CT's do tend to push or peek over the smoke to hit you as you move through the B slope.

Cache

This map is very good for pistol round strats. There is a variety of things you can do and a lots of different ways you can attack bomb sites. Attacking bombsites on Cache is literally near impossible without the use of utility at a high professional level, it isn't like a Dust2 where you can aim your way in. This pistol round strat requires a lot of utility and good popflash knowledge. In the beginning of the round you want to boost two people on boost, and have one guy go door and two in A main. You then want to smoke Z connector and make your way up highway. Again, just like Dust2, this is basically a wrap on the A bombsite. Time it correctly and make sure you smoke off the cross into the bombsite. Then any utility you may have left over like molotovs or flashbangs, use them for the post plant. The pictures below will indicate how the strat should look like. Do note there is a lot of variations on this wrap and you can choose to smoke NBK or Quad if you wish to do so or molotov quad, it's up to you how you want to approach the bombsite. Just a reminder though, make sure you have good flashes out otherwise you will probably get 1 tapped. You want to force back the CT's as much as possible during this strategy and applying pressure via nades is a good way to do so.

Mirage

This strat requires a lot of smokes as you will be basically smoking off the whole of short on mid with this pistol strat. I won't teach the smokes in this article but it should look like something below and make sure there are no tiny gaps incase you do get tapped by any USP's. This strat is however very obvious but it does guarantee you onto the B bombsite. You can even mix it up and throw decoys in the smoke and pull of a fake. If you do this smoke strategy, then I suggest you put one or two in B Apartments to keep the CT on B distracted and leave the CT on short isolated from the 3-4 incoming Terrorists on short.

To conclude, these strats require a lot of smoke/nade knowledge and if you want to pull off these strats, you also need to have good co-ordination and be in sync with your teammates. This is because it can easily fall apart if you're not timing things correctly. For example, a Mid to B needs to be timed correctly, as you need to distract the CT's in one direction and have your teammates to push the other for an easy backstab. Lastly, always remember to buy some sort of utility, because this will help in post-plants, entering or even gaining map control. Even if you're not going to execute a strategy, even a flash can help you run into a site or clear an area of the map! Thanks for reading, and I hope this article has helped you be more efficient with your pistol rounds.

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