The chosen first map for our weekly map guides is going to be Nuke, a map often avoided by new teams due to its complex and unusual layout with bombsites stacked on top of one another. Throughout this guide, I hope to offer players a complete set of strategies for an often-avoided map and some ideas for general philosophies for the map's Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist sides. All smokes, molotovs and flashes will be shown in videos throughout the guide.

The Counter-Terrorist Side

To begin with, let's look at a Counter-Terrorist set-up for the pistol round. Rarely do Terrorist teams look to push outside on the pistol round, due to the range advantage offered by the Counter Terrorist's USP-S. As such, having a dedicated outside player is unnecessary. Often Terrorists opt for a ramp or squeaky door rush utilizing one or two “Raidboss” buys, as such I recommend having your strongest pistol player run to mini and focus on squeaky door, as he will have little time to react before being swarmed by Terrorists if they rush. If the squeaky door rush does not happen, then his attention should divert to outside, whilst keeping close to mini, so that he may help the site players in case of a delayed A site hit. Your weakest pistol player should buy a kit and smoke and hold A from heaven, keeping the smoke for a ninja defuse on the bomb, whilst his teammates retake a bombsite. Finally, your last three players should distribute themselves, with one playing on the A site, one holding ramp from deep behind the orange boxes and one holding ramp from hell. If the Terrorists seem to be going for a secret play, then your mini player should drop down the vents and fight the Terrorists crossing to control room and B site.

When playing against ecos on the Counter-Terrorist side, the Counter-Terrorists should always be ready to deal with a rush through the squeaky door, ramp and secret tunnels. Keeping your guns out early round and playing long range angles is a must. Also, excessive spamming through smokes should be avoided, as Terrorists will look to rush you as you reload. Faze tends to play “Rain” passive outside and then play two rifles on the upper bombsite and two rifles towards ramp. On the upper bombsite, both players tend to play up in the rafters around the yellow beam. If they have an AWP, then the AWPer should help hold ramp from the hell position.

On gun rounds, a strong set-up is similar to the eco set-up, but with greater emphasis on outside. The secondary AWPper for the team plays ramp and again two players hold the upper bombsite with one holding up in the rafters or on site and the other holding around mini. One rifler holds outside from around the blue crates or CT spawn and finally the AWPer plays around heaven and hell, focusing on the outside. It’s highly important that this AWPer remains unpredictable and constantly changes the angles he plays, such as around the catwalk, hell and CT spawn. If it is required, the mini player can even help hold outside, however more often than not, it is his job to drop down the vents and hold the B bombsite if the Terrorists could have rushed down secret. This is often your star player who is given lots of options down on the B bombsite to either go aggressive towards the steps leading to the secret tunnels or play passively in decontamination, toxic and control room, looking to kill the Terrorists as they push the site.

An aggressive push that the Counter-Terrorists should perform regularly is towards outside. Often you will find Glaive from Astralis doing this alone. However doing this push with a partner is far more likely to be succesful. To set up for the push, a smoke should be lined up to land between Red and the T boxes, which allows two Counter-Terrorists (the hell and outside player) to push aggressively outside and gain map control or generate an opening kill. If the duels go unfavourably, then at the very least they can trade kills and fall back with the help of the mini player.

The Terrorist Side

On the Terrorist pistol round, a simple strategy to execute is a squeaky door rush. Your two weakest pistol players will buy a smoke and a Tec-9, before dropping the Tec-9s to your two strongest pistol players. The other three players will buy chest armour and rush the squeaky door as soon as the round starts. One player with a smoke will instantly smoke between red and T boxes outside before rushing hut, using his teammates pushing out squeaky as a distraction. The other player with a smoke will line up a fast heaven smoke, which does not require the sky lights to be broken, before holding an off angle in lobby to kill any Counter Terrorists who wish to fast flank through lobby. One thing to note about this heaven smoke is that it relies on the player to have a right handed, classic preset viewmodel in order to line it up.

Good anti-eco strategies on Nuke depend on whether you think the other team has force bought with light armour, or just with pistols. If you suspect the Counter-Terrorists have no armour, then a simple ramp rush to the B bombsite with a Mac-10 running in first as bait and a player holding the flank is a good option. However, if you suspect the Counter-Terrorists do have armour, then utilizing the range advantage offered by AK-47s over pistols when taking outside control is preferable. Have two players hold lobby, one player goes on top of silo and pushes aggressively up the catwalk, and have two players smoke mini and push outside aggressively, taking control of garage and the CT spawn area. If few kills go down in this process, then performing an A split, with two players from mini, two players from squeaky door and one player flanking heaven from the catwalk is a strong strategy.

A strong Terrorist default on Nuke is having two players head towards outside, two players hold lobby and one player head on top of the silo. The aim of the two players in lobby is to play together and attempt to pick off any overly aggressive Counter-Terrorists. The players outside will often have an AWP peek garage, before smoking off mini and hell to take control of outside. Then the AWP holds for a Counter-Terrorist peeking out of secret. The player on top of silo will flash over the facility to blind any AWPers holding him from behind garage before peeking and pushing on to the roof of mini. At this point, the players will throw their smokes before the silo player pushes along the catwalk to heaven. At the same time, the rifle player outside should push into garage and push towards hell. I strongly recommend that the two players with the strongest aim on your team are tasked with this outside control on your default, whilst your support players hold lobby. If you wish, you may leave just one player holding lobby passively and have four players take outside control, however this greatly restricts how aggressive you can be in lobby.

In order to have a successful Terrorist half on Nuke and win gun rounds, you must understand how to manipulate Counter-Terrorist rotations by taking map control. Nuke is an extremely modular map with several distinct zones and as the Terrorist side takes control of various zones, the Counter-Terrorist side will react appropriately. For example, if the Terrorist side takes control of ramp room, then a Counter Terrorist must rotate to the B Bombsite or its surrounding tunnels. Often this would result in the ramp player retreating down the ramp and protecting the B bombsite. This means one of the Counter-Terrorists in heaven or on the A site must now be aware that the Terrorists can flank through hell, as the Terrorists have ramp and hell control.

However, if in the process of taking ramp control you manage to kill the ramp player, then another Counter-Terrorist must drop down to the B site to protect it. Often this is a player from the A site, resulting in a weak A site hold with just one Counter-Terrorist watching too many angles. Therefore, if you push ramp, take control and manage to kill the Counter Terrorist holding ramp, it is often more favorable to quickly rotate back to lobby and explode onto the A site, leaving a lurk player in ramp. This lurk player can simply hold map control and fake a B attack, whilst your team retreat to A, or he can attempt to backstab the defending Counter-Terrorists by pushing towards hell and heaven.

One set strategy you can run on Nuke is towards outside with a secret tunnel rush. You require a minimum of three smokes for this strategy but having four smokes is preferable. This strategy can be strongly used on force buys where the Terrorist side buy Tec-9s and armour, but is equally viable on gun rounds, especially if you do not have an AWP. To begin with your dedicated lurk player heads towards the roof where he breaks all the skylights above the A bombsite. He then holds off any pushes towards lobby by the Counter-Terrorist side.

Eventually, he will begin to hear Counter-Terrorists who wish to rotate to the B Bombsite via the vents. His job is to kill these Counter-Terrorists as they rotate. He may also take a more aggressive approach by smoking and flashing outside the squeaky door later in the round, before attempting to rush down the vent and put pressure, from an alternate angle, on any Counter-Terrorists who have rotated to B. Four players head towards outside where one player will smoke between the T boxes and ramp, before watching his teammates backs as they rush down secret. If he has a long range gun, such as an AK-47 or AWP, he may do this from on top of silo. He can also do this by simply waiting at the top of the secret stairs or behind red.

His other teammates will throw two smokes which form a wall between secret and red and allow them to rush down the tunnels. Once down the tunnels they will rush past the vents and towards the decontamination room in an attempt to clear it. If they see nobody, then the two players who do not have the bomb will turn around and rush the control room via the tunnels to clear it. From here they simply enter the B bombsite, with the bomb carrier entering via the door from decontamination and planting inside of a smoke on the B Bombsite.

Another common strategy on Nuke is an A execute. This strategy has become less common at the higher levels of play, but you still see it at least once a match. In this strategy you have two players head towards the roof and three players who head towards lobby. One of the players on the roof holds for an outside push, whereas the second player uses his secondary weapon to break the skylights. These players then line-up their smokes, molotovs and flashes for their teammates. The player throwing the Molotov for the yellow beam rushes down to lobby and out of hut as soon as he has thrown his utility, whereas the other player with the smoke for door and hut Molotov can either attempt to lurk outside and kill Counter-Terrorists in the back from mini, or he can hold the flank for his team. One of the lobby players will flash and open the door as soon as the smokes land. He will then clear close above hut and by the vent, before throwing his Molotov to heaven and pushing out squeaky, using his teammates exiting hut as a distraction. The final two players will act as your entry fraggers out of hut, one of them will smoke mini off and the other will flash out of hut before being the first man out. This strategy should be extensively practiced in an empty server before being attempted in practice scrims in order for the timing of utility usage and the entry fraggers pushing to be perfected.

These last two strategies can also be combined into a simple fake. The aim of this fake is to manipulate the above mentioned rotations of the Counter-Terrorists. To begin with, the three players who do not throw smokes on the A execute head outside at the start of the round and throw the three smokes outside required for the secret rush, then everyone walks to their respective positions for the A execute and the A execute commences. By throwing these three smokes outside, it forces one of the Counter-Terrorists to rotate down to the B site in case it is a secret tunnel rush. Often this player who rotates is one of the two players on the A site, leaving just one player on the A site to defend against the execute. It is important that while the players rotate to lobby, they remain completely silent as any small sound cue could indicate to the Counter-Terrorist side that it is a fake.

In Conclusion

I think it is important to stress the value of reflection, especially on a complex map like Nuke, where your players will not have much experience playing the map in a more casual setting such as pugs. Make sure that you watch both your own and other team’s demos with the intention of spotting mistakes and learning something new. After every scrim and every official match, have a discussion about what works and what doesn’t, what feels awkward and what naturally brings round wins. Below is a playlist with all of the smoke videos from above, feel free to share it with your teammates.

Hopefully, through implementing a few of these strategies and a positive, reflective mindset, your team can be successful playing Nuke. I hope to see you next week on the Team Dignitas website, for Week 2 of the Weekly Team Dignitas Map Guides.

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