Managing your economy well as a team is a must-have skill in CS:GO. Even if you have godlike aim, that won’t mean anything since you will keep playing with inferior guns and your enemy will have the upper hand in aim duels if you cannot manage your economy as a team.

The first rounds of each half, pistol rounds, give an economic head start to the team that wins it. The winner gets $3500 or $3250, and the losing team gets $1400, or $2200 if they planted the bomb on terrorist side. That is a pretty big advantage to start the game, and this means that the winner of the pistol round will play against weak buys for at least one, maybe two more rounds.

Result of the pistol round (for the CT side) Money Earned Won by defusing the bomb $3500 Won by eliminating the enemy team $3250 Lost $1400

The economic approach to a game is different for two sides. So this guide will be divided into two parts, with the first one being the Counter-Terrorist part you are reading right now, and the Terrorist version will also be published soon. Stay tuned!

When playing on the CT side, there are two things you should consider when deciding on your second round buy. One of them is whether you won the pistol round or not, and the other one that is frequently overlooked by lower ranked players is whether the terrorists got the bomb planted or not. Now let’s go over the possible outcomes of a pistol round and what you should buy the next round.

1) You won. They did not plant the bomb.

This is the dream scenario for the pistol round if you are playing on the CT side. Each member of your team will get $3250, plus $300 for each kill they got with the pistols. While the enemy team will only get $1400.

Assuming the Terrorists each had $100-200 left from the previous round, they should be sitting around $1500. Most of the time, terrorists will force buy in the second round with body armor, a pistol such as Tec-9, and they will have total of two or three grenades in their disposal.

The first thing is that you MUST buy head armor. You don’t want to get one shotted from your head, gifting your brand new gun to the terrorists. If you have head armor, you will have the edge in fights with your SMG, or shotgun if you opted for that.

When it comes to defuse kits, you may take a risk and save that money for something else, but I highly advise you to buy two defuse kits, and keep one kit in each site, as the terrorists will probably try to rush to a site and get the bomb planted as fast as possible. Just let those who got the kill bonus from the last round buy the defuse kits and you are good to go.

Another crucial set of equipment you have to buy are the grenades. Smokes and flashes are quite simple. You can smoke certain choke points, try to catch the enemy off-guard with pop flashes and so on, but one thing I want to specifically mention is the incendiary grenade. Even though it seems pretty expensive with a $600 price tag, a single incendiary grenade can win you the round. How? Terrorists will try to rush to a site to get the bomb planted as quick as possible, trying to outnumber you. When you see them coming to the site you are holding, just throw it to where they are coming. You just gained 7 seconds for your teammates to rotate, and for a flank attempt from behind. Just keep an incendiary grenade in each site, the same protocol with defuse kits, and you should be able to deal with an unexpected rush.

Now that all the talk about side-equipments is done, let’s come to the real deal, guns! The most common buy is to buy an SMG. MP9 is a great choice, or you can go for the UMP, PP-Bizon, or MP7. Choose the gun you play the best with. One thing though, I don’t recommend buying a P90 right after the pistol round, because buying a P90 and head armor means you will have very little money left for any utility. Aside from the default SMG buy, there are two more different buys you can make if you have a plan for them. One is the good old SSG. If you have a player who can utilize it well, then go for it. Abuse the jumping accuracy as much as you can and the round will be easier to win. You can also buy shotguns, for certain places like the skyfall on Cobblestone, or the stairs on Inferno. The best thing about buying a shotgun is that it will give you a sweet $900 if you manage to get a kill with it.

2) You won, but they planted the bomb.

The only difference between this scenario and the previous one is that you will get $250 more each, and the terrorists will get $800 more.

That $250 does not change much in your gameplay. All the advice above still applies. However, the $800 bonus each of the terrorists get can dramatically change how they approach the round. This time, they can play a slow game, spreading around the map and looking for a pick with their head armor and SMG. While the SMG buy is quite risky for them since that will render them unable to buy grenades, you should definitely expect head armor on all of them, and perhaps even two or three SMG’s, with the remaining players carrying the grenades.

3) You lost.

If you lose the pistol round, whether they planted the bomb or not will not have that big of an effect on your own gameplay, and there are two paths you can follow in this situation. One is just a plain save. You buy nothing but maybe a naked pistol, and you try to damage your opponent’s economy as much as possible by getting a couple of kills.

The other path is a force buy. With around $1500 on everyone, you should be able to afford body armor, maybe head armor if you are not buying any grenades, and an upgraded pistol. You can also buy a defuse kit, if you got a couple of kills the previous round, but I believe that is not as necessary as the previous case, so it is mostly down to preference.

To add some flavour to a boring force buy, you can try this interesting strategy that is also performed by professional teams frequently. One of your teammates buys an SSG without any armor, and goes to a common spot like mid on Dust II, or window on Mirage. The idea is that the SSG player will tag a couple of terrorists before they reach the site, down to a point where they can be killed in one or two pistol shots. If performed successfully, this strategy can be highly effective, and it can completely reverse the economic advantage terrorists had, and give you the economic edge.

Another point that will increase your chances of winning a force buy is holding close angles. With a pistol like Five-Seven, CZ, you can be deadly at close angles. In fact you must be holding close angles with every pistol with the exception of Deagle. Just sit next to a corner and wait for the terrorists to arrive. Even if you die after getting one kill, that is still good for your team since you damaged their economy.

Alright! Thanks for reading this guide. I hope it was helpful to you. If there is something you don’t like, or you want to see in a better shape, feel free to email me, and don’t forget to stay tuned for the terrorist part of this guide coming soon. Good luck, and have fun!