Trading kills is one of the fundamental concepts of Counter-Strike. Teams will attempt to trade kills every round in every professional game. Even professional players sometimes don’t trade properly and end up losing rounds just because they lost a man advantage early in the round or because the trade kill came in too late and was punished. In this guide, I am going to explain what a trade kill is, why it matters, and how to practice and implement it into every game.

What is a Trading?

Trading is the concept of having a player immediately behind a teammate (or entry fragger) who will go out with the teammate and get the kill on the enemy player who killed your teammate. Meaning that you traded kills one for one. It is important to note, that any one for one trade on T side is almost always a good thing because it gives you map control. Hence why it is so important on T side. Trading kills on CT side is a bit more tricky and situational. If you push long on Dust 2 with two players, you can trade a kill and be in an advantageous situation because you gain map control (long A) and are in a potential flank position or you can cheat rotates to B site or expose a catwalk push.

Why Does Trading Kills Matter?

In Counter-Strike, never assume that anyone can act as a one man army. Sure if your teammate can get that kill, then all is well and you can continue pushing. If your teammate doesn’t get that kill, then often times the player will fall back out of fear of death making the person who died look worse and die for nothing despite not necessarily making a mistake. In this kind of situation, you do nothing because your teammate expects you to get the kill and go out on site. You not trading that kill puts the round in jeopardy and forces your teammate to either attempt to run out or hope that someone else does something on the other side of the map. This matters because simply not trading loses rounds over and over. This is also the same reason why professional teams can come back from being down 5 or 7 rounds while random matchmaking teams will just roll over and die. When tilt starts to go through and the other team starts to play a bit looser, you can punish that with solid trading and come back because the other team is more likely to continue to fight the 2nd guy and commit to a spray.

How Do I Learn How to Trade?

This one is tricky. Trading is one of the hardest things to do in the game. Not to mention it is often situational, so getting into the proper mindset is key to trading properly. Knowing how to do it and when is crucial, so watching professional counter strike and just thinking about doing it during the round is the best way to learn when to go for a trade. The problem is that talking about it out of game and actually doing it in game is different. To start out try to plan to trade a teammate at the start of the round. While at first you will obviously be accidentally baiting or mess up the timings a bit, trial and error is the best way to practice it. You are going to want to make sure that you are going out while the enemy is spraying down still or trying to get back into cover. This will make it hard for him to kill you because the other player has not reset their spray or is a very easy kill. Even if you end up missing your shot, it is not the end of the world. If you know that you were in the best position possible to get that kill it shouldn’t be neglected because you simply missed your shot.

What Is Baiting and Why Is It Bad?

Baiting is what happens when a player doesn’t fully know how to trade, and instead trades too late or simply doesn’t do it at all. Baiting is when your first player goes out and you sit back and wait until he does not expect you. It is important to note that flashing your teammate into a site is not baiting. Baiting can also be an instance where your teammate dies and you leave because you don’t have the same lust for death as he does. When a player does that, you make it a 4v5 for no reason and give the other team the advantage rather than trying to even the score. It also tilts the player going out first because his death didn’t achieve anything and it looks bad on him. There is a potential for the person baiting to get more kills once the game is over, but those kills are most likely exit kills or rotational kills with little to no impact on the round.

Pancake’s suggestion:

Trading kills matters A LOT in Counter-Strike. It doesn’t matter who you are playing with or against, trading kills is the best way to open up a bombsite. Do not be afraid to go in, just be confident and smart. Sometimes you may not get that kill and it happens. That does not mean you didn’t do the right thing in that situation. Keep trying to trade and be fearless.

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