The economy system in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the most important element in the entire game. This single game mechanic can decide the winner and the loser in an instant. Most gamers think when watching Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that the most important thing is to out-frag your opponent, or maybe have more rounds won, which is partly true. But truly the most important element to victory in Counter-Strike is having a strong economy.

THE CASH COW - THE GLOBAL BANK OF COUNTER-STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE

How can you kill your opponent when you can’t afford a gun to shoot them with? Imagine if the enemy team (just barely in the lead) just used up all their economy buying two AWPs, and you kill them and pick them up? That’s like they just bought two sniper rifles and just gave them to you as an early birthday gift. Now wasn’t that nice of them?

In this article, I’ll explain THE CASH COW Role - how to manipulate the in-game economy to almost ensure utter victory. Now I can’t say I’ve seen a professional Counter-Strike player use this strategy to the point that I’m illustrating, but regardless I feel if someone executed this idea/concept correctly, it could change the whole of Counter-Strike as we know it.

WHO NEEDS GRENADES??

Grenades are an extremely important and vital part of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive meta game. They can help you out when you’re outnumbered, help push bomb sites, help smoke off the openings to a bomb site, shock-and-awe an unsuspecting player and more. It is pretty much a widely accepted strategy and meta to ALWAYS have grenades.

“If you have the money, BUY GRENADES!” I agree that it works. Pros do it and other top-level CS:GO players do it. So there must be no downside, right?

Not exactly!

Just like with any real economy, it’s all about supply and demand – basically, stuff costs money. You buy something, you lose money and you gain an asset. Normally, buying grenades is an acceptable asset. But wait... imagine this... what if you never bought a grenade? Let’s now think about how much an inventory of grenades costs.

Basic Buy Guide for Grenades for mid-to-late game.

2x Flashes ($200 per)
2x Smokes ($300 per)
1x HE Grenade/Frag Grenade ($300 per)
1x Molotov/Incendiary ($400 per Molotov/$600 per Incendiary)

[This is a very conservative estimate on buying grenades for mid-to-late game]

Let’s assume you’re doing well, winning rounds, and have money to spend. No worries, right? At the low estimate of the total cost for buying all those grenades just for that one round, that comes to a cost of $1700 on just grenades. Now, beyond all odds, the worst scenario happens - you lose 3 rounds in a row, which results in losing all of your economy. It happens. You do your best to keep up the good fight, and since you have your economy before those 3 round losses, you keep buying rifles and grenades since you have the eco advantage. Now... 3 rounds of buying grenades, which will happen from you dying or using up most of them in the past 3 rounds - that is $5100. You can easily double that number if you factor in money spent on weapons which you would have bought to keep the enemy team from gaining momentum on your team, and because there would be no reason to eco round while you’re winning.

Just from cost of grenades alone, in 3 rounds, you could have bought a teammate an AWP. Or saving up even more you could have possibly bought rifles for your entire team in just 3 rounds. That is an insanely huge savings and a huge economical advantage to have in any scenario.

Think about it the next time you have extra money to spend in-game… a penny saved is a penny earned as they say.

DON’T FORGET YOUR VEST AND HELMET, LITTLE TIMMY

The whole idea of the Cash Cow Role is to horde money for your team — playing the entire game essentially as a bank account for your teammates. No unnecessary buys for yourself. Why buy an AWP for yourself (even if you have the money) when your team is slaughtering the enemy team and they can easily kill the enemy AWPer, allowing you to take their AWP? Small things like that, most casual Counter Strike players don’t think about, but just doing that saves you the cost of buying an AWP ($4750). Whether you’re winning or losing, that kind of savings isn’t something to laugh at.

But just because you’re a bank doesn’t mean you don’t need insurance… buy a helmet and a vest, because cows aren’t invincible. Also buy a defuse kit if possible. If not, you might end up as your enemy team’s next hamburger.

You also have to keep in mind the more money you have saved up, the better; so just because you have money to burn doesn’t mean you should buy an AWP for your entry fragger. Be smart with how and when you buy for your team and with your savings backing them, your team will be unstoppable!

COWS ARE NINJAS

Since you’re a Cash Cow, you are constantly saving. You’ll have to wait to get that AWP or AK/M4 you wanted... because you’re saving. And since you’ll be completely relying on your team to slay the enemy team, you’re going to want to always stay behind your team and avoid pushing alone at all costs. Any weapons you get will mainly be picked up from a dead enemy. Remember, you’re a ninja cow… ninja cows don’t rush the front line guns blazing. They sneak around and stay hidden so they don’t end up on the next day’s lunch menu.

ONE BANK TO RULE THEM ALL

So the basis of Counter-Strike is to play as a team, everything for the team. You buy grenades for yourself, weapons for yourself and weapons for your team. All of this involves the in-game economy. What would be a better way of supporting your team than being a nearly infinite supply of money that can buy your sniper an AWP or your entry fragger a tier 1 rifle to clutch the last round before the half?

Be a cash cow.

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