In Counterstrike, managing economy and making sure you always have the most optimal buy is crucial and as such, learning how to make the most of your money while attempting to damage the enemies is essential. If you buy too often then you lack utility and firepower to win rounds while if you buy too little you risk the enemy's economy booming and having to face multiple gun rounds in a row.

There is a generally accepted strategy planned out for the first few rounds if you lose them and/or win them all. If the win/loss is going in an odd direction or you're deep into a half then intuition and reading both teams economies is crucial. I will attempt to teach you both ways of reading the game, statically as follows the first option and flexibly reading the game like the second option.

Firstly, let's explain some terminology that might not be as obvious as they seem.

Eco, short for Economy. This is the minimum spend possible, if you're ecoing then the most you should spend is $300 on a P250 or $700 on a Desert Eagle (if you have excess cash and are confident with your deagling skills). You are meant to lose these rounds, purely for the money obtained at the end of them. Attempt to win them by all means, just don't expect to.

What do I buy in an Eco?

What When Cost Nothing If nothing else applies $0 P250 If you have a small excess of money $300 Desert Eagle If confident in one deags and have some cash $700

In rounds where you half buy, or pseudo buy, you purchase down to a certain amount of money. If your team half buys to $2000 and you posses $3700 then you can purchase kevlar, a Tec-9, and a Flashbang for example. These types of rounds are utilized to balance out your teams money so that you're on even purchasing grounds and to weaken the enemies economy, making their firepower less potent when your own Full Buy comes in. Unlike a force buy, a half buy will never spend all of your money.

What do I buy in a Half buy?

What When Cost Nothing If at the money level already $0 Kevlar If you have more than $1000 more than the requirement $650-1000 Weapon From P250 to Desert Eagle or even a UMP-45 $300-1250

In a Force buy, you do not have enough money to Full Buy but you either need to win the round or it makes sense economically to go for damage or the round-win. A Force buy requires you to spend all your money buying whatever you can. This is almost always done on the second round by Terrorists purchasing full Kevlar and a Tec-9 or Desert Eagle. As a counter-terrorist playing close angles with a CZ-75A and kevlar can almost always net you a kill, five sevens, Deagles and P250's can also be bought on a Force buy

What do I buy in a Force buy?

What When Cost Tec-9/Five Seven/CZ After losing pistol round or forcing with under $3000 $1500 Desert Eagle After losing pistol round or forcing with under $3000 $1350-1700 Rifle If force buying and having more than $3000 $3000-4100

Always buy Kevlar in a Force Buy.

A Rifle buy is when your team has enough money to purchase everything required, or almost everything. If you have 5 AK-47's and Kevlar then it is almost always considered a rifle buy, unless a sacrifice was made to get these weapons(No head armor on some). A full buy is when you have all the required grenades and defuse kits on all players (defuse kits on all is not necessary, but a full nade set is). Full buys generally occur after winning rounds in a row and rifle buys occur more often after losing rounds and having to play an eco round.

What do I buy in a Full buy?

What When Cost(With full nade set) M4 or AK-47 You are rifling on the team $3700-$4100($4700-$5800) AWP You are AWPing on the team $4750($6750-$7450)

You do not need to buy armor if you are AWPing. Buy it when you can.

A Pseudo buy occurs when your team has built up enough money to either rifle buy or full buy but you instead opt for a weapon that is cheaper than an M4 or AK-47 for other reasons. Such reasoning can be that you do not have enough money for a full buy and that you need to drop to a weaker weapon or that you want more grenades for your specific position. A pseudo buy is generally used on CT side as Terrorists have the money to full buy more often than Counter-Terrorists due to their cheaper weaponry and additional income via bomb plants. Useful weaponry that enable more grenades or a cheaper buy range from a UMP-45 to replace an M4A4, a SSG08 to replace an AWP or a Five seven/CZ-75A to play a close quarter angle and attempt to get a rifle from an enemy.

What do I buy in a Pseudo buy?

What When Cost UMP-45 In place of a rifle or for more grenades $2250 SSG08 In place of an AWP $2700 Five Seven or Tec-9 For more grenades $1500

Now that you know what different terms mean and what to buy when these terms are called we can explore further into when to buy like this and how to know when to call these purchases. There is only one round that cannot be described using these terms, and let's start with the first round of all, the Pistol round, starting with the Terrorist side.

Deciding between these 3 is crucial on Terrorist side. 5 armors will bog you down and allow your players to be picked off, one by one while not having enough armored players will cause you to lose the majority of aim duels and make it extremely difficult to get into a bomb site.

Alternate buys on the Terrorist side include purchasing two P250's and dropping them for armored players, greatly increasing the one shot lethality range of your offensive players, allowing you to play a slower more pick based strategy or just bolstering your rush with increased damage and potency.

Explaining tentative terms; "More flexible post-plant" means that you can take a wider variety of angles with impunity, such as non-headshot angles and can peak wider into the bomb.

Extremely skilled players can opt for the Desert Eagle on pistol rounds as its one shot headshot range rivals that of the Counter-Terrorist's USP-S. However, if you are not confident in the Desert Eagle do not go for this option.

Now, let us move on to the Counter-Terrorists

Purchasing on the CT side is generally a bit easier to understand as the USP-S is a one shot headshot at extreme ranges, meaning that in most scenarios an upgrade is not essential.

Purchasing Armor allows you to take a fight and fall back, positions like Mid and A Long on Dust 2 can utilize kevlar the best, allowing you to take multiple aim duels before going down to glocks.

You should always have a player with a defuse kit and some utility, usually 2 flashbangs. This player should be playing the "rotation" spots, where they can go to either site and anyone rotating can pick up the kit if they happen to fall. The two flashbangs can be used in a retake to acquire one or two kills and allow rotating players to play more aggressive while taking the bombsite back.

Upgrading your pistol to a CZ-75A or Five-Seven is a niche upgrade when you expect to be rushed by multiple players and don't expect to have time to reload. The Five-seven's 20 bullet capacity allows you to take fights with more Terrorists before needing to reload and the CZ-75A is able to stand toe to toe with the Glock in close quarter duels.

Explaining Tentative terms; CQC(Close Quarter Combat) fights meaning fights in which the glock has reached a close enough range to kill you with one shot to the head.

After Pistol round:

Now that pistol round has ended, we can use our terms to describe purchasing patterns depending on if you had won the round or not.

CT:

- If you win pistol you pseudo buy and attempt to build economy with 2-3 SMG's and 2-3 Rifles.
- If you lose pistol you can either eco twice in a row or force buy and eco. After doing these two rounds you then rifle buy.

T:

- If you win pistol you pseudo buy and attempt to build economy with 1-2 SMG's and 3-4 Rifles.
- If you lose pistol you force buy and then eco. After these two round you then rifle buy
- If you lose pistol but plant the bomb you eco and then Rifle buy.

In summary, knowing what to buy and when to buy is a powerful asset that you should keep with you at all times, one that can gift you free rounds by having enough money built up for a powerful buy. Learning to buy intuitively is difficult to learn but also extremely crucial and can turn a good team into a great one.

Get your own AKRacing Chair here and support our players, all profit goes towards the teams!