So your team has just lost a round. You look at the scoreboard and see that no one is in a position to buy. Your team decides to save, and you feel the round would be best spent rushing to your deaths, but what should your team really be trying to accomplish on their save round? These are some of the more useful ways to spend your eco rounds than just rushing B.

Start of the round:

No matter which side you're on, there are a few things you should know once your team has decided to eco. First thing is keep your money above $2000. A bare minimum buy (AK-47/M4A4/M4A1-S + required armour) costs $3700 on Terrorist side, and $3750 on Counter-Terrorist side (without head armour). As long as all players have $2000 or above going into the round, they will be able to buy a rifle, armour, and utilities (Grenades and Defuse Kit) the following round with their round loss bonus (in this case, at least $1900). The next thing to keep in mind is that, while it may be tempting to purchase a Desert Eagle, your money may be better spent purchasing some Grenades instead. You can flash for your team onto a bombsite, flash a teammate into an area so he can try to get a kill or plant inside a smoke. It's far more useful to have four players with upgraded pistols and a player with utilities than it is to have just five players with upgraded pistols.

Terrorist side:

Terrorists should try to do one of two things, either plant the bomb, or get 2-3 kills. Your team should try to get a bomb plant when the enemy team has far more money than you, and won't be affected much from losing 2-3 members. Your team should go for kills when the enemy team has a poor economy. This way if you win the following round, you can force the enemy team to eco.

A bomb plant gives your whole team an extra $800 going into the next round. The best way to achieve a bomb plant is to have all five players flash their way into a site and plant inside a smoke. Try to only to stick to the easier site to take, for example: Bombsite A on Dust 2 is far easier to take than Bombsite B. Another option for planting the bomb is to send four players to one bombsite, and the other player to the other bombsite with the bomb. The four players act as a fake, in an attempt to cause an over rotation, allowing the fifth player to walk onto an empty bombsite, and plant the bomb. This method is easy to pull off against less skilled teams, but teams with more game knowledge and better communications will leave a player behind until the bomb is spotted. Once you have achieved a bomb plant, try to get a kill or two, but even if you don't, the bomb plant is good enough.

The second option is to try and cause economic damage. If your team can kill at least two members of the opposing team, then a win on the follow up round should cause them to eco, or force a buy. The best ways to try and get kills are to stick together, if three pistol players attack one rifler, it's very hard for him to kill all three of them. If you know the enemy AWP player has been playing the same position more often than not, try to have 2-3 players rush him down. Once you've managed to kill some enemy players, try to save some of their weapons. This will allow your team to buy more utilities on the following round.

Counter-Terrorist side:

Counter-Terrorists have only one option, which is to try and get kills. They do have one advantage however, which is that they have more defensive positions, and can potentially catch out enemy players not looking the right way at the right time. Because of this, it's very common to have 4-5 players stacking one site, in hopes that the enemy team walks right into their ambush. Alternatively, they can play the round more aggressively and try something the enemy team might not expect, like rushing an area. This can catch the enemy team off guard if they have a standard setup at the beginning of the round. Like the Terrorist side, it's a good idea to save weapons at the end of the round, instead of trying to cause more economic damage.

The following round:

Once you finish your eco round, and move onto the next round (assuming you lost the eco round) you may still not have a whole lot of money. In this case, it's best if some players skip out on buying an AK-47/M4A4/M4A1-S, and buy a Galil/FAMAS or Tec-9/Five Seven. This way they can prioritize buying utilities to help win the round such as Grenades and Defuse Kits. It's only necessary for one or two players to sacrifice firepower for utilities. If your team doesn't have many utilities, it's often times wise to try and get a kill early in the round, so that you have the advantage moving forward and it won't matter as much that you can't delay an execute or properly execute. If this is the case, rely on your AWP player to get an initial kill, then work around that. If you're on the Counter-Terrorist side, fall back to the bombsites and don't give the enemy team a chance to neutralise your advantage. If you're on the Terrorist side, try to take advantage of the weakness in the enemy team's defence. Try attacking the area he was playing, or killing a player rotating to his spot.

So even though you're probably going to lose the round, you can still get a lot of good out of it, so don't forget to try your best!

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