CS2 Smokes

CS2 is not your average first-person shooter, where you can run and gun straight toward the objective brainlessly, shooting anything that moves, and still somehow manage to win. CS2 is a tactical first-person shooter, where winning a match demands a well-thought strategy and near-perfect execution, especially at the high ranks.

CS2 offers a wide range of equipment that helps teams plan each round. Among these tools, the smoke grenade stands out, having a high influence over a team's strategy and the round's outcome. As the name suggests, a smoke grenade is a throwable item that creates a dense cloud of smoke upon detonation, unlike regular grenades that explode with shrapnel.

Smokes are primarily used in CS2 because they obscure vision, meaning you can't see through them. There are several ways players can use this to their advantage, but the most common ones include:

Concealing Movement: Players can throw a smoke grenade between a path and enemy-controlled areas. After that, they can freely move across that path without revealing their movement to enemies. For example, CTs usually throw smoke in front of Mid-Doors on Dust 2 to prevent Ts from seeing how many CTs crossed and went to the B site.

Blocking Lines of Sight: When defending or holding key positions, players can throw smokes so enemies don't have a clear line of sight. For instance, after planting the bomb at A Site on Dust 2, an AWPer holds A Short from Goose. To avoid getting shot from A Long, the AWPer can throw a smoke, blocking visual for enemies coming from that location.

Wasting Enemy's Time: You can also use Smokes to delay an enemy push or a retake. When Counter-Terrorists figure out that the Terrorists are pushing a particular plant site, they can throw a smoke grenade toward the entrances, preventing Ts from moving forward. Or, when Ts have planted the bomb, they can smoke the paths CTs are coming from for a retake.

Clearing Plant Sites: Players commonly use smoke grenades to secure a plant site, be it for the initial push from the Ts or a retake by the CTs. Players can throw smokes at key holding positions, forcing any enemy at that location to go back in cover or move to a more vulnerable spot.

Tactical Deception (Fakes): Another popular use case of smokes is to bamboozle CTs into believing the Ts are attacking a particular plant site while actually moving to the other. For example, Ts can throw smoke grenades at the A site and then go to the B site while all CTs move toward the A site, thinking that it's the one getting attacked.

Imagine you are a CT on Dust 2 with 4 CTs alive and only 3 Ts remaining. While the bomb already got planted on A site, you have a significant man advantage. You and another CT try to push from CT Spawn, but the Ts throw a smoke there. Your other teammates try to go from A Short, but the Ts throw a smoke there, too.

Two players risk it and push through the smoke, but they die since the Ts have aimed right at the smoke cloud. You and the remaining player wait for the smoke to clear, but there's no time to defuse the bomb. You lost a 4v3 just because of two well-placed smokes. That's the power of smokes in CS2.

A smoke grenade is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal in CS2, thanks to its ability to obscure enemy vision and block their lines of sight. Only two smoke grenades are enough to lock down an entire plant site or completely block a path from enemy fire.

As you start using smokes, you'll notice a drastic improvement in your win rate. You'll have a much easier time securing the objectives since smokes will allow you to dictate the terms of engagement, create opportunities, and practically control the battlefield. In other words, learning smokes won't just make you better at CS2; it will be a game-changer for you.

Now that you understand why learning smokes in CS2 is crucial, you might be wondering what it even means to learn smokes. The thing is, in CS2, if you throw smoke grenades while aiming your crosshair and positioning your in-game character at the same spot, they will always land at the same place.

In other words, aligning your aim and position at the same spot will allow you to throw accurate smokes that deploy precisely where you want them to, every time. But how to do that? Positioning your crosshair and the location where you're standing in the same spot every time seems impossible. Well, it's actually quite simple.

All you have to do is align your crosshair and position using reference points on the map. You can stand in a particular corner to align your position and use a part of a building or another structure on the map to align your crosshair. For example, if you use the image below to align your aim and location and do a jump throw, the smoke will always land on the X Box on Dust 2.

Once you've figured out similar crosshair and position alignments for other smoke landing spots like A Short on Dust 2 or Window on Mirage, all that is left to do is practice using them. To do that, you can check out our guide on how to practice smokes in CS2. However, the problem arises while figuring out those alignments. Fortunately, we've already done that for you. Here's a list of our extensive guides on CS2 smokes for all popular maps: