Beginner's Guide/Tutorial to Competitive

This guide teaches new or inexperienced players the basics of CS:GO in appropriate depth so that they are no burden to their team.

Introduction

This guide is designed to be sent to that friend of yours who would like to get involved in competitive play in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. I found that information on important topics is widely scattered around the internet. So here it is: everything in one place.

Before you start

1. Menu->Options->Game Settings->Enable Developer Console: Yes;
   Menu->Options->Keyboard/Mouse->scroll to bottom->Toggle Console: >>choose key<<;
   
2. Menu->Options->Keyboard/Mouse->Use Mic: >>choose key that is easy to reach<< (I use: B)
   
3. Menu->Options->Game Settings->Switch Weapons on Pick Up: No;
   
4. Menu->Options-> Video Settings->Motion Blur: Disabled;
   
5. Ensure by lowering your graphics-settings that you get at least 60 FPS constantly in every situation;

Crosshair
I urgently advise you against playing with the default crosshair!
Main Menu -> Play -> Offline with Bots -> Workshop -> View Workshop -> search "crashz" -> subscribe to crashz' Crosshair Generator and load the map.
You can find an array of professionals' crosshairs on the wall at your back. If you've got time to spare you can create a custom crosshair by shooting the buttons in front of you. Use crosshair style 4 (classic static) for best precision or crosshair style 3 (classic dynamic) if you don't know when you shoot accurately yet.

Mouse settings
Menu -> Options -> Keyboard/Mouse -> Raw Imput: on & Mouse Acceleration: off
In order to be able to aim most accuarately, you need to lower you mouse sensitivity, but after all you still need to check your corners effectively. A rule of thumb is to lower the sensitivity until you turn for ~120° if you do a full sweep across your mousepad.
For me this is a value of 1.65 while my mouse is operating at 800 dpi.

WARNING: When you play Competitive Counter-Strike for the first time, the matchmaking-system will start determining your skill-group. It does that by matching you against oponents from different skill-groups. (This may be inaccurate, but I'll keep it for the sake of simplicity.) Meaning, that you will find yourself being dominated by a bunch of experienced players. But don't lose heart! The more games you play, the more accurate your rating gets. After you have won 10 matches that shiny emblem will finally appear.

Map-Knowledge

Before you play on a new map you should have a quick look of it. Start a match offline without bots and type "mp_roundtime_defuse 60" in the console. Focus on the following aspects:

• How do I get from CT Spawn to A or B?
  
• How do I get from T Spawn to A or B?
  
• What would be a good spot for a CT to defend the site from and where do the Ts come from?
  
• How to rotate from A to B (B to A) as a CT or a T?
  
• Pay attention to the map-callouts displayed above the minimap.

It is a good idea to start off with only one map, expanding your map-pool as soon as you have a somewhat deeper understanding of your current map in terms of positioning, angles, smokes, and threat awareness (aka gamesense).

Active Duty Group:

• Inferno
  
• Nuke
  
• Vertigo
  
• Mirage
  
• Overpass
  
• Dust 2
  
• Train

First round - Pistol round

WarOwl Kevlar + Helmet (7:50)

There are two pistol rounds in a competitive match - the first and the 16th round. Winning these rounds is extremely important as it gives your team the "economic momentum" at the beginning of the match. I will now explain in detail what that means:
In a pistol round you start with only 800$ which leaves you with four different ways to buy.
The first option is to buy a better pistol. But as the starting pistols both kill enemies who don't have armor + helmet with one headshot at close to medium range it doesn't make much sense to do that.
Options 2 and 3 are for higher level play only: this is when (2) a CT buys a defusal kit and nades or (3) a T buys nades to execute a strat.
Option number 4 is the most common one: buying kevlar. While you still die in one shot to the head the armor will absorb a lot of damage from body-shots and negate aim-punch allowing you to steadily aim for the enemies' heads when you engage them.

When playing as CT, make sure that both A and B have two players holding it. The fifth player should play middle or some position from where he can swiftly rotate to another site. You should tell your teammates in the team-chat (u) which site you will guard. Stick to the site that you have chosen, unless someone asks you to swap positions.
When playing as T, you won't be able to execute crazy strategies yet. So the best you can do is to agree on taking A/B or "going mid to A/B" for example. Just stick together. At some point you might want to learn how to smoke off a certain position prior to entering the site. Once you've got the bomb planted play defensively just like a CT would.

The winning team will have ~3400$ available for each player what allows them to do an "anti-eco buy". The losing team with ~2050$ per player will be forced to "eco" or to "forcebuy".

Eco-rounds

At the beginning of every round you should take a look around you or on the scoreboard to check, if your team is able to buy up fully(more on that later). If not, call an eco round - you don't need a designated "strat-caller" or anything to do that.
The only thing that you buy in an eco-round is a P250 for 300$. The P250 kills in one headshot at very close distance even if your opponent has a helmet.
Your goal as a T in an eco-round is to get the bomb planted for the money-reward. As a CT you should get a decent gun from your enemies.
Behave unconventionally and you will be able to accomplish these goals. It even happens sometimes that teams win eco-rounds, so try your best!

Anti-eco buy

Kevlar+Helmet (1000$) is a must, as the enemy will be using cheap weapons that can kill you in one shot, if you don't have a helmet. SMGs are best suited for anti-eco-rounds as they are cheap and give you bonus kill-rewards. Don't buy the P90 or a rifle because if you get rushed and killed, the enemy regains some of your economic momentum. Nades are not that important yet.
As a T you can keep your weapons until the fourth round (buy fully 4th round) and as a CT until the third.

Full-buy

A full buy consists of Kevlar+Helmet, a rifle, (defusal-kit) and grenades. If you are on a buy-round, ALWAYS buy Kevlar+Helmet and a defusal kit!

Counter-Terrorists:
Kevlar+Helmet(1000$)+M4(3100$)+Smoke(300$)+Defusal-Kit(400$)+Nades(1100$)= 5900$
Buy in this order. If you don't have enough money you can substitute the M4 with a FAMAS(2250$ -> 5050$). Pick up a better weapon during the round or keep it - it is good enough.

Terrorists:
Kevlar+Helmet(1000$)+AK47(2700$)+Smoke(300$)+Nades(900$)= 4900$
As you can see, this is a lot less than what the CTs have to spend. That why usually the Ts can buy fully in the 3rd round.
If you don't have enough money you can substitute the AK with a Galil(2000$ -> 4200$).

Sometimes it is better to ask a teammate to drop a weapon for you and buying kevlar+helmet and (defusal) nades instead of cheaping out on your equipment.

Weapon choice

Fundamentally, every member of the teams should be equipped with the standard rifles AK or M4 (Galil or FAMAS if money is short). In many cases one player will buy an AWP. You should not have more than two snipers on your team.

Don't buy SMGs on buy rounds because of their low armor penetration and low accuracy. Instead, ask for a drop or buy a Five-Seven/Mag-7(CT-Shotgun)/Tec9.
Do not buy the P90. While it is ridiculously easy to kill a lot of enemies with it and it is relatively cheap, you get little to no money for each kill and are led to a horrible play-style of rushing and spraying.
Do not buy the auto-sniper because if you get killed, the enemy will get a massive boost of economic momentum.
Many players from other FPSs like to buy the AUG or SG553 because they have a scope attached to them. Don't use them because it takes a considerable amount of time to aim down the sights and you will neglect important advanced techniques like sidestep-shooting.

Grenades

If you can only buy one grenade, always go for a smoke.
I see a lot of new players wasting their nades or flashing teammates entering the site. As long as you don't know how to use them properly, you can spare the money as well.
You can throw nades with the left, both left and right or the right mouse-buttons for different distances. Also, you can add velocity to your grenade by moving and jumping. When you throw a grenade, stand still or move straight ahead. Do not move sideways!

Communication

Without communication your team won't get very far at all. First thing you want to do is getting a headset with a microphone if don't already have one.
Communicating means agreeing on eco rounds, planning to take A/B as terrorist or calling out enemy positions. When you die, it is very important to tell your teammates from where you were killed, how many there are, for how much damage you hit them and where they are going. Regularly checking the radar helps as well.
After you've died and told your teammates what's going on, think about what you did wrong in this particular situation and if death could have been avoided.
You should only call for a rotate (your teammates from the other spots come to assist you) if you spotted the bomb carrier or you are 100% sure that the Ts are about to take the site.

Shooting

Tab shooting - long distances - aim for their heads, shoot
Burst shooting (3-6 rounds) - medium distances - recoil control
Spraying - close distances - no panicking

The M4 and the AK for example both have unique spray patterns that you could learn by heart (check out the map "Recoil Master"). Really important is to get a good feeling of how far you have to pull your mouse down at the first 2-10 rounds. Try it out in a private match facing a wall. Notice that the spray patterns do not change when you crouch.

Always place your crosshair where an enemy's HEAD could appear next. This way you theoretically only have to click once using the AK to get the kill with no need to take time for aiming.

Never move when shooting your rifle. Sidestep shooting is a movement technique mainly used to peek around corners (and to avoid enemy fire). Strafe around a corner (keys: A or D) exposing you to only one possible enemy position at a time (keep your crosshair at head level!). Press A or D to accelerate in the opposite direction until you stop. Now your shots will be perfectly accurate. Strafe back around the corner and check the next position. Mastering this technique takes some practice but is extremely important!
Always remember to check your corners! There are some standard-positions, but there are still a lot of unusual ones that you might be ambushed from.

Practice

WarOwl Crosshair Placement Matchmaking Academy (11:02)
============> VERY IMPORTANT <============

Weapon-stats are subject to change! CZ costs 500$ now and was nerfed, Tec-9 is worth a buy at the moment.

Guide for Eggmans (Text)
Link

Map Call-Outs (Pictures)
Link

Grenade Maps
Link[operationl2p.com]

Following this guide you should be able to reach Gold Nova X. You are now "into matchmaking" and can take care of yourself. Look out for more advanced guides on Youtube or Steam, watch your own replays (Main Menu->Watch->Your Matches), learn how to smoke off certain positions, find people to play with regularly, the list goes on - it's a lot more to learn.

Thanks very much for reading! If you come to think of something else that a new player should know, let me know in the comments and I will probably update this document every once in a while.
What do you think of that format / are you a new player and this guide helped you? Share this guide with other people to get them into competitive as well!

On TheWarOwl's channel you will find more in depth tutorials, professionally casted pro-matches, a small podcast and more. For even more advanced strats, techniques and specific nade-throws visit adreN_TV's Channel.

AdreN Match with Comms (1:05:33)

[Lennox-C-]

can u do a remastered version plz, thanks

[» petrolic ٿ]

great guide! ty

[Linuz]

Professional players buy P90s or cheap rifles to counter armor+pistol buys. (At the last major in Cluj you could often see 3 cheap rifles + 2 SMGs) However, I felt like introducing armor+pistol buys would go beyond the scope of this guide. What you say about tiple-AWP-setups and autosnipers is correct, but in low-level public matches they are most likely to backfire. This guide is already too long for what it was supposed to be/deliver.

[Anonymoose Goose]

I disagree with some of these things. Professional players sometimes use P90s and shotguns and FAMAS and Galils and other guns on anti-ecos, use three AWPs (sometimes on certain maps), and non-Americans use autosnipers when they are rich. Often people purchase other pistols on ecos and pistol rounds, too. This is supposed to be a beginner's guide, so it is unlikely that you will be able to have buy-rounds or eco-rounds coordinated or that anyone will ever buy armor that didn't read this guide. It is rare that someone who has 700 hours in CS:GO is so bored they read a beginner's guide and critique it, so I am probably being too nit-picky. This is a long guide though so this long comment of everything I thought was wrong isn't even that much.

[Parnell91]

Great guide for begginers like my self, great video's as well. Thanks for the guide!

[♔❀∂ℳᎧℛ❀♔]

Definitely helped me when I played a competitive match for the first time! Thanks