by Sumedh Balan

I am guessing you are now at a stage where you are making too many mistakes and not realising it. Here are a few simple tips that could help you in understanding and rectifying your team game.

Team Flash

Team Flashing is a big problem in CS and no matter what your level it will always come back to haunt you as you have no control over it and a misjudged throw could ruin a strat or a rush.

While Flashing keep in mind of angles, angles are very important in counter strike. Using walls and boxes to bounce your flashes off give a little time for the enemy to dodge. Also your teammates notice the bounce so they can judge for themselves where it will land and react accordingly.

Have a look at your radar while flashing. Maybe you are throwing a flash across to another site. But is one of your teammates already in the site? Could you be flashing him? You can prevent these types of team flashes by simply looking at your radar.

If you are rushing a site please don’t block the person behind you he maybe flashing or throwing a grenade and one person stopping for a split second could cause a block at a crucial time in a rush and that could initiate a team flash.

Rushing Correctly

A rush is a synchronised run so any untimely stops could cause a handful of blunders.
Please practice your rushes as a team together. It could really help understand what works and what doesn’t. Practicing rushes can help you understand how to lead a rush. How to flank and where to smoke. All these are very important in a team game so keep all of this in mind.

Team Killing

Team Killing or a TK as it’s more commonly known as is when one kills a person from his own team. Yes at times it’s an accident but even damaging your teammate in game can be prevented. So what if it was just a 2 HP damage? There have been some great clutches with even 1 HP so even 1 HP can do a lot of good.

Again the first and foremost priority is to look at your radar. Most people who play counterstrike dismiss the radar off as a useless piece of HUD decoration without knowing how important it really is.

Don’t slash your knife as soon as the freeze time ends.

While running with the knife don’t slash for no apparent reason especially during rushes.

The only time the TK is permitted is when an opponent or opponents come in front of you and your teammate if you get your opponents frag and end up killing a teammate it’s fine and it’s understandable. But don’t make it a habit please. Only in a dire situation when your teammate is in trouble and not moving out of the way. Again look at it like a math question its better you kill your opponent or opponents while you kill your teammate rather than the opponent take both your frags.

Screening

While sitting on LAN most teams screen their teammate’s monitors to understand their position and where the enemies probably could be coming from now a mistake that I used to make was that I sued to keep staring at my teammates screen and an enemy would just come right in front of me and kill me.

So please refrain from staring at your opponent’s screen. Just look at it for a split second and come back to your crosshair.

Cover

Please cover your teammates. This is a fundamental rule of CS. You do not let your opposition kill a teammate without getting killed himself. A 4 on 4 is still acceptable rather than a 5 on 4.
There are 5 of you in game make sure you stick together unless the strat calls for a different scenario.

Practice

Practice your clutching with your teammates help your awper get some 1 on 4 game time at a particular map. Work on your teams flaws and praise your teammates for jobs well done. Point out mistakes to your teammates and ask them to do it as well. POINT and NOT CRITICISE unless it’s in humour.

Follow you captain’s calls

Don’t go FFA (Free For All) or just go out fragging on your own cause you think you’re a just simply better than your opponents if you play according to your teams plan you will get your kills don’t worry about it.

Being an FFA player will garner you some amount of respect for the amount of kills you take but in the long run you will be looked upon as a person who just plays by himself and cant play a team game which will certainly be a very negative statement on your Counter-Strike Resume.

Boosting

A very Common mistake while playing a team game is Boosting your teammates.

1. You do it too Often and it becomes predictable

2. You take too much time over it. If you can’t do it in under 4.5 seconds forget about it and go and take your position. The terrorist’s won’t wait for you to be done with your boosts. Or ask you if you are ready and then rush!

3. Practice boost and time it then do it in-game.

It’s a Team!

At the end of the day it’s a team and as they say - there is no I in Team. So work together, practice together, have fun together and I am confident that at the end of the day you will win together.

Next week - Part 2 of Level 5 where we shall work on your individual game. So have fun.
And as always any questions comments or ideas for future levels please drop in a message.