Improving Economy Management with DignitasVIE friberg
Learn some tips that will help maintain a superior bank than your opponents
Economy is, without a doubt, one of the most important aspects to master when trying to become a better overall CS:GO player. It’s also one aspect that generally goes unnoticed by newer players. Knowing how to manage not only your team’s economy but also your opponent’s is the key to get a deeper understanding of all that goes on within a CS:GO match and that can sometimes make you make decisions that seem risky but could make you win the round or even the match!
Naturally, it’s also a topic where a lot of players still make some mistakes. To help you improve on economy management and reducing those mistakes, I’ve partnered with the King of Banana himself, Adam "friberg" Friberg from DignitasVIE!
Before looking at common mistakes players make, it’s important to note what can be done to improve economy management at a basic level. You want to have as much money as possible in the greatest number of rounds possible, that's a given. But obviously, things don't always happen as you want. In fact, being able to play with your opponent’s economy is really important! In general, if you know your opponent is close to having their economy ruined, you should do everything in your power to push them into an eco round.
First of all, you need to know how much you're getting each round after losing, so you can count yourself how much money you need to get all the utility needed when you get to a full buy round. Also, depending on what your team is wanting to do, you may fully invest, but you need to do it together. You might also need to take a step back if you failed to break their economy and might even do a double eco so you can get your economy back to a healthy state.
Understanding in what situation the match is at every given moment is crucial. If you have absolute control of your economy, just do your thing. If you’re on the brink of breaking your opponent and maybe you don’t have enough money for a full buy, you should consider buying. For example, if you win with 3 rifles and 2 pistols, you force your opponents into a hard eco, essentially giving you a free round.
friberg also touches on how important it is to play as a team in these moments - remember that your money is not yours alone, it’s the teams’. If one player just randomly decides to force buy all of a sudden while the rest of the team goes on an eco, that player will most likely only have a pistol or SMG to work when the other four finally have enough money to buy everything they want.
Naturally, knowing how to control your opponent’s economy is important for you to be able to manage everything the best way possible. I’ve gone and asked friberg for some tips on this:
It was a lot easier back in the days with the old economy, we were always trying to break the economy, but nowadays, people just have way too much money all the time. I don't really like the system in CS:GO right now, but it is what it is. The way you control it is by reading how many people survived, what weapons they saved, and if you have an opportunity to break them. It might be worth pulling out a set strat or a push when you're CT to deny Terrorists building up a great bank. For example, winning the Pistol round and then force-buying - it's the best thing to do, you will have more money than the Ts would get if they won that round and they will need to double eco if you avoid their plant.
As I’ve said, and friberg agrees, you should always take into account not only your money but also what you think your opponent has when deciding what to buy.
But what about the mistakes?
If you’re learning how to manage the economy, it’s more than natural to make some mistakes that may cost you a healthy buy in a future round. The worst part is that these are the kind of mistakes that most times you won’t even notice you made, even when you’re missing a Flashbang or a Smoke Grenade in subsequent rounds.
The biggest mistake is probably buying too many pistols when you’re having a save round. A lot of players buy a Deagle and armor when they could have just bought a single Deagle and get clean headshots. What happens is that when you have a full buy, you won't have the utility needed to stop a push or hold off the Ts long enough.
Everyone had a situation or two (or several) where no one has money but one player, who has around $5000. Everyone just goes and tells him “drop pistols” and he just proceeds to buy a stupid amount of Deagles or Five-Sevens. Suddenly, he was less than $2500 and is now in a worse position than the remainder of his teammates. That player alone could have dropped a gun and bought one for himself in the next buy round, and you won’t even notice that. That’s food for thought, think about it and how many times you’ve made a mistake like this.
Let’s now look at some hypothetical scenarios and the way friberg would tackle them:
You’re losing 3:12 at the beginning of the second half, and you lose the pistol, effectively putting you in a very hard 3:13 position. What do you do?
“I would probably force and try to break the opponents. Depending on how many kills you get in the first force buy - if you didn't kill anyone, it might be worth doing a full eco and then buy at 15, but if you get a lot of kills and they only survive with 1 or 2, it may be worth buying again to try and break them. But then again, it's really hard coming back, as the Ts would have money almost every round.”
You’re now in a very close match scenario, 12:12 or 13:13. When should players force and when should they eco?
“That varies from match to match, but if you have a chance to break the opponent, it might be worth forcing, but it's always something that you have to discuss with the team. It also depends on the map, because some of them are harder to win force buys, especially on the CT side, where some maps might be easier to pull off a set strategy directly from spawn.”
Adding to what friberg said about “depending” on the map, it’s easier to play with pistol forces or even shotguns on close range maps, like Hut on Nuke or Banana on Inferno. It’s all very situational and you have to look at it on a case-to-case basis.
To finish up the article, friberg has made sure to give a few general tips to help on managing the economy:
Always try to keep an eye on how much money the opponents have and if you have the opportunity to break them, do it, depending on the map and what side you're on. The economy is the most important part of CS nowadays, you need to have money to invest in utility and a rifle when you're actually buying.
Good CS:GO players take into account their economy at all times. Even better CS:GO players take into account not only their economy but also their opponents’- that’s the main takeaway from this article.
You can check how many players were alive at the end of each round in the scoreboard by hovering the mouse over the round history. If you didn’t use that feature until now, make sure to start using it, as that is definitely one of the best ways to keep everything under control. You can even use a pen and paper and make calculations on the fly by knowing their win/loss bonus.
Thank you for reading this article! You can reach out to me for suggestions or feedback via Twitter!
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