It is a tale as old as time, you fire up another MM game and land on your favorite map: Mirage.

It is a PUG player's paradise, frags everywhere and no one can stop you from topping the scoreboard. Your team gets to start off on the CT side, but before you can buy armor, all of your favorite spots are nabbed by those damn Gold 2 players. All that is left is the most dreaded spot on the whole map, the place where PUG stars go to die: B-SITE ANCHOR, ugh.

The B-Site Anchor role on Mirage is a daunting task, and honestly a very boring one, yet it can be very rewarding. It requires high mechanical skill along with an immense understanding of how the Terrorists can play the map, but most importantly, it requires you to apply these skills patiently, as one wrong move can cost your whole team crucial rounds. In this guide, we shall break down the best way to approach Anchoring on B-Site Mirage and highlight how the spot might not be the flashiest, but it is without a doubt one of the most important.

The Anchor Role Defined

The anchor role by definition holds down their bombsite of choice no matter what. You are the last to rotate off, the one that buys the kit, and always is the last line of defense if your team needs to leave to rotate to other parts of the map. It is the duty of the anchor to play smart, play sharp and play with their teammates the best they can while being as selfless as possible. The best anchors are a singular force of nature that makes every single execute feel impossible, even if they have to do all the hard work themselves.

The Three Pillars of B-Site Anchoring on Mirage

Anchoring on any map requires a tremendous understanding of how that given map operates, how rotations work, and how to use your positioning and communication to properly coordinate with your team. On Mirage, this role places the player into an even more complicated position, as the B-Site anchor arguably carries the most individual weight than any other spot on the map. It is the responsibility of the B-Site anchor to play in a scenario where they can both frag and stay alive, sometimes making or breaking entire rounds with one decision.

I’ve decided to break down these ideas into what I will refer to as the Three Pillars of B-Site Anchoring: Patience, Positioning and Precision.

Patience

The most clear advantage of the Counter-Terrorist side is that the Terrorists have to come to you. That being said, time is your biggest ally as the B-Site anchor, as it is the one factor that goes unchanged and stays absolute no matter what misclick or unfortunate timing you find yourself in. My biggest advice is to use this absolute to your advantage. Always be looking for ways to delay your opposition's way into your bomb site with your utility and your positioning to make sure the opponent can never get through B Apartments easily.

Importantly, it’s okay to just hold an angle, or play a singular spot in a site. This kind of play defines the best B-Anchors, as no matter what, they will never act too quickly or be outsmarted by the Terrorists. Don’t catch yourself moving too much, trust your aim and your sick crosshair placement, and when it is time, get ready to frag.

Positioning

But sometimes, PUGs and MM games evolve past the point of raw-aim, with timings and good opponents just out aiming you at every turn. A great way to counter this, and an aspect of which you can carry into your games, is to think about your positioning within the bomb site. This doesn’t mean just specifically for site executes, but for the round as a whole. In order to find favorable gun fights, constantly be looking for ways to ruin your opponent's ability to take easy duels.

If you want to secure each of your gunfights in B Apartments, constantly change up your position so your enemies will constantly be guessing. This will make your sick aim even sicker, letting you get those sick multikills, even as a B-Anchor. Think like your opponent in these situations: What would I expect? Where would I be aiming after seeing this smoke? Where did I find him last time? Set up your fights by out-braining your opponents, then lock out the duel with pure aim.

Precision

Knowing what to do in any anchor situation is the key to succeeding in every gun fight that you take, but being precise in every encounter will guarantee success in just about every situation. Precision here is defined by your ability to make the right choices in a precise fashion. This goes for the placement of your utility, the moments you take gunfights, and the crisp decision to move and hide while the opponents hurl flashbangs over the apartments.

This also tends to be the hardest to master, as acting in quick, high pressure situations improperly can get you killed. But in the end, there is nothing more rewarding than precisely weaving in and out of the bombsite to clean-up easy kills, knowing that you just single handedly won your team the round. It takes a lot to master, but the payoff is worth it.

Utility

Like I mentioned above, utility is paramount in the anchor role. You must place your nades at the most optimal times in order to get value out of every piece of it. For example, your incendiary grenade is the most powerful nade for stopping the B-Rush, throwing it at the start of rounds can help train the opponents to stop the rush, as they must use their own utility and take time out of the execute to extinguish the molly, giving you enough time to position yourself properly. But it might not always be useful coming out in the first ten seconds of a round.

Sometimes, the best way to approach utility in the Anchor position is to balance out all of your utility evenly, using your molly, smoke, nade and flash to make sure every inch of map control taken by the Terrorists is punished. Sometimes that might even involve taking the MP9 over the M4A4 if it means getting a whole nade set, knowing that you can lock down your part of the map regardless of the team’s economy. Just be wary of overusing your utility, if the enemy team knows you have used every nade you have, it’ll make them a lot more confident to rush the site and ruin your whole day.

Value Your Life Over Your Kills

As we have talked about, the kills and the utility as a B-Site anchor are important for helping you win the duels you have to take at any given moment. However, there is a bit of theory that comes to whether you should be valuing the kills or valuing your life inside the bombsite. The individual side of the argument would always fight for the individual plays, making high skill moves to win their team round.

Sometimes that might not always be the best road to take, simply staying alive on site and using your knowledge of the role to delay as long as possible for your teammates might turn out to be more useful. It might not be the flashiest play, but it can sometimes be the difference between getting insta-headshoted or winning the round.

The Art of the Clutch

The most underrated aspect of the B-Anchor role tends to be the frequency at which the anchor gets to try and clutch the round for your team. If you use your utility perfectly and play smart, that still might not do you any good, as the enemy can just rush A and leave you in a 1v3 scenario. With the rate at which most teams attack the site, the probability that you’ll be left in a clutch can be very high, and is just another way that you can shine individually in the role.

This is where good utility usage comes into play, because if you waste it all in the first thirty seconds, you might have trouble in these clutch scenarios, or even retaking the site with your team. Just don’t be afraid to save. Sometimes bringing a rifle into a new round might be more useful than losing all of your guns and getting your economy reset. I know it can be hard to not always go for those sweet, sweet clutch opportunities, but don’t sweat it, you’ll get them next round.

Communication

The anchor role can feel like a very isolating one, making you feel like you have to do all the work with little help or appreciation. But sometimes, getting what you need from your teammates is as simple as asking. I know it might seem obvious, but a big flaw that permeates PUGs and MM games is just a big lack of communication. We all get so caught up in the frags and the sick plays that sometimes we forget that we have teammates with us too, and asking for a flash or a smoke might be the missing piece in your master play.

Of course I say this with a giant grain of salt, as I’m sure we all know how disastrous trying to play with you random teammates can be. But who knows, sometimes all it takes is a great pop flash to give you your next four man spray down.

Get Creative

It goes without saying that even after all these paragraphs about the proper ways to lock down the B-Site, these are nothing more than guidelines. Find the setups, the nades, the angles or even the crazy aggressive plays that will win you the round. In the end, if it turns out as a round win for you and your team, then you have done something right. Use this guide as an outline to find the best way to hold your bombsite and mold your own play style so you can stand above each of your teammates, even in a spot like B-Anchor.

Do what it takes to win, and don’t forget to have fun.

Conclusion

And here we lie, 1500 words later with hopefully a nice understanding of the B-Anchor position. It’s a lonely spot, and an often under-appreciated one, as it tends to see a lot less action than the frag-heavy A-Site. But in that, the position can be a very rewarding one, as it rewards sick individual plays, giving you a tremendous amount of responsibility. But it is of course a double-edged sword, as one small slip up can cost the entire round, but it also means you can single handedly win rounds for your team.

The role may not shine the brightest, or get you the most frags, but at the end of the day you can leave your PUG knowing just how much you did for the team. And that’s all that matters at the end right? Teamwork?

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