The 'Nades and Their Uses

In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive you have the economical system which rewards the players for doing good, or for loosing horrible, in which case it is duly needed. Each player decides on what inventory to buy at the start of each round. They choose from weapons, armour, utility items and from different kinds of grenades of course. This entry is about the latter.

Grenades in cs:go come in different shapes and sizes. There is the high explosive grenade, the flashbang, the smoke grenade, the incendiary grenade or the Molotov cocktail, and the last and probably least important decoy grenade.

Here are the costs:

HE grenade - $300
Flashbang - $200
Smoke grenade - $300
Incendiary grenade/Molotov cocktail - $600/$400
Decoy grenade - $50

As you can see, there are two types of flaming grenades. The incendiary grenade is only available to the counter-terrorist team, while the Molotov cocktail is reserved for the terrorist team. At first glance, it may seem that the price is the only difference and that the terrorists are more inclined to set things on fire, but it is my personal belief that the price difference comes mainly from paying for collateral damage caused by burning local areas. There are some other differences as well. The incendiary grenade is smaller and easier to deploy through tiny holes and crevices. The larger Molotov cocktail is easier to recognise and harder to fit through narrow points on the maps. However, another positive in favour of the Molotov cocktail is that it has a higher armour penetration, making it better against armoured opponents. Otherwise, the two teams are equal in their 'nading capacities.

Each player in cs:go may carry a total of four grenades. They can only carry one of each type at a time except for the flashbang, which may be carried in pairs. A counter-terrorist buying the maximum amount of most expensive grenades will be coughing up a total of $1400 (!) which is a lot of money, especially considering they spent that on grenades only.

Unused grenades are dropped on death, which means any survivor with the carrying capacity may pick them up. You cannot voluntary drop grenades, except by arming them of course. Enough of the silly information, let us get started with actual applied 'nading.

HE Grenade
When you see the word grenade, this is probably what comes to mind. It is the intuitive thrown explosive designed to take out infantry with explosion propelled shrapnel. The in-game effectiveness of the HE grenade is rather limited. Unless the players within the blast radius are unarmoured. In that case the He grenade can deal a whopping 98 points of damage. If the players were armoured, they would receive a maximum of 57 damage. That is still a respectable amount of damage, bet it decreases the further the player is from the blast radius's centre, and it is hard to have the grenade detonate right at someone's feet.

The HE grenade is best suited for picking off damaged enemies that have retreated behind cover. Another good use that requires some coordination is grenade stacking. Stacking requires two or more players to throw their 'nades at the same time at the same target. Combined, the blasts are strong enough to take out armoured players at full health. Since the HE grenade is cheap compared to most guns, grenade stacking is a respected eco round strategy, especially on maps with good choke points such as double doors at long on de_dust2.

A saving team could throw a couple of grenades at the choke point hoping there are enemies trying to get through. I have seen entire teams loose within seconds because they tried a long rush against a 'nade stacking saving team. Just remember, if you aren't going for the stack you are probably better off buying a cheap effective gun such as the P250. Also, grenade stacking isn't used widely at higher levels of counter-strike since the players are aware of the devastating effect it can have, and therefore they respect it and plays around it by not grouping up together at choke points.

Additional uses of the HE grenade is that the explosion causes dropped weapons to move. If you get a kill and want to retrieve the dropped gun without exposing yourself to the remaining enemies you can throw a grenade and hope to blow it into reach. This is a very rare situation and in my many years of counter-strike it is yet to show up. That doesn't mean it never will though.

Flashbang
The flashbang is one of the iconic grenades of counter-strike. It is the griever's dream item as it could be everything from great to greatly depressing. A detonating flashbang temporarily blinds people looking at it as well as depriving them of their hearing. This means flashbangs are at the uttermost importance when pushing into enemy controlled positions. Usually, this is when the terrorist team tries to make their way unto a bombsite, where the counter-terrorists have dug down into defensive positions. However, it could also be when the counter-terrorists are trying to make their way back into a lost bombsite to defuse the bomb.

The effect of a well placed flashbang is that whoever is trying to hold a certain position either gets sensory deprived or has to fall back to avoid this. When the defender then tries to return to his defensive position, he or she is the one who has to peek the enemy, negating the player of the advantage.

A veteran player knows of this and will therefore quickly step behind cover alternatively look away as soon as the player spots an incoming flashbang. This technique to avoid being flashed is crucial to learn since most matchmaking players don't know how to throw a flash properly. They just throw it, wait for the bang, and pushes forward. In such a scenario, the defender could very well have avoided the flashbang and is well prepared to mow down the enemy.

The proper way to throw a flashbang is to make sure that it lands where the enemy can't avoid to look at it. This requires some practice and some testing. Usually, this means the flash detonates high above the players or bounces first and then detonates immediately after being visible, leaving no reaction time to avoid it. Synchronizing your team's flashes is another important tactic since defending players usually are spread out around a bottleneck part of the map. One flash might blind one of them, but leave the other unaffected which means you're at a disadvantage trying to push through.

A nice trick one could do is something I learnt back in counter-strike 1.5. I don't know if it has a name, but I know it as the "Mooneyflash". The Mooneyflash takes advantage of enemy players looking away as they spot the incoming flashbang. Usually, one uses it as they want to peek a player around a corner. Instead of throwing the flashbang in front of you, you throw it in the direction opposite of where the corner turns and immediately steps out before it detonates. The enemy sees the flash, looks away and slightly before or at the same time it detonates the player steps out and has a free shot at the enemy. The detonating flashbang will be in your back, which means you will only be partly blinded, but if the enemy tries to return the fire, they will be blinded completely. That's the Mooneyflash and it works all the time for me.

Smoke grenade
When I was a new inexperienced counter-strike player, I thought the smoke grenade was in the game because of flavour reasons. I believed it to be useless, a waste of money, and only there because in reality smoke grenades were a thing. As the typical beginner, I was completely wrong. The smoke grenade is not just good, it is crucial for competitive counter-strike.

The effect of the smoke grenade is a thick cloud of smoke (duh) that blocks line of sight as well as it obscures vision for whoever is inside of it. The thing is whoever tries to move through the smoke will be visible to people outside of it before they can see through it themselves. This means that pushing through smokes is a pretty poor idea, which brings us to the first use of the smoke grenade, holding back the enemy team.

As moving through smoke puts you at a certain disadvantage, you should not do it. Therefore, the best solution to a smoked off passage is to wait for the smoke to clear or try another way. Pushing through is seldom worth it. Since good players know of this, a smoke grenade will stop them in their tracks. Therefore, a smoke grenade comes in handy when the enemy tries to rush your position. Mostly, this strategy is used by the counter-terrorist side to buy time and stop the terrorists from having an easy entry into the bombsite. However, the smoke grenade can also be used by the terrorist side to hinder the retake of a captured bombsite or to block off visibility and allow for some mobility without the fear of being spotted.

Usually, the terrorist side will use the smoke grenade to smoke off a certain passage of potential threat, such as CT spawn in middle on de_dust2 when moving mid to B, or route to CT spawn on B on de_inferno. This means that any counter-terrorist who is currently watching that passage will be blind and the terrorists can move in on the bombsite feeling safer as they now can focus their attention on the remaining angles and camping spots. 

Incendiary grenade and the Molotov cocktail
The flaming grenades are expensive, but can be put to great effect if used aptly. What the flaming grenades do is that they ongoing damage to whoever is standing in the effected, aka burning, area. No surprises there. Much like with the smoke grenade, I didn't recognize the utility of the flaming grenade at first. Experience has since made me wiser. The reasons I had for disliking the flaming grenade was the expensive price tag and the small amount of damage it did to players since nobody would remain stationary in the flames as soon as the grenade detonated. I thought of them as a more expensive less damaging high explosive grenade. This is where I was wrong.

The flaming grenade is good at flushing out camping players. If you now of a defensive position where people usually are hiding, so that they have the advantage on incoming players, throwing a pre-emptive flaming grenade in that position will force the camping player to move or take considerable damage. Usually, this means they will move. This means that the flaming grenades often are used by the terrorist team when taking bombsites. Set the common camping places ablaze and watch the defenders get their pants on fire. When the counter-terrorists fall back from the fires they move out into the open and are easy targets for the entry fraggers (the players whose task it is to be the first one to push into enemy controlled areas).

The counter-terrorists, on the other hand, have their uses for the flaming grenade as well. Usually they are used in the same way as the smoke grenade, blocking off narrow passages and holding off incoming enemies. Seldom the flaming grenade is used to frag an opposing player.

Decoy grenade
At last we reach the cheapest of the grenades, the decoy. When thrown, this grenade will mimic the sound of the main weapon of the player who threw it, showing up at the radar as an opposing player. Usually, nobody is fooled by this grenade. Even the moderately experienced players have enough game sense to realize where the opposing players ought to and not ought to be.

One tactic I met on several occasions is the fake decoy rush. This goal of this strategy is for every player on the team to buy one of these and then throw them towards on direction, and then run the opposite. In theory, this could very well fool the other team as they would see five enemies firing off on their radars, but since they are no idiots, they will realize that there is no way in de_inferno that the enemy team will open fire in unison on nothing but chickens. The problem is, if nobody actually encounters the enemies, the location and the timing of the decoys will give away the tactic. The only good thing about it is that it is cheap. It is still a waste of money, if only by a little.

I usually never buy the decoy grenade. Since you know of my history with the smoke and the flaming grenades, you are wise to question my judgement, and should actually. I have found one use of the decoy, and that is to throw them in clutch situations, when the enemy don't know where you are. The trick is to throw it without giving away your position, so that it lands on a spot where it is logical for you to peek the enemy. I once saw a pro player manage this feat; unfortunately, I don't remember who it was.

The scenario was the following: the map was de_dust 2. The bomb had been planted on A. There was one counter-terrorist and one terrorist left and time was ticking down. The terrorist didn't know where the counter-terrorist would peek. The counter-terrorist approached the site from CT spawn. In the slope, the counter-terrorist threw a decoy onto short, where the stairs are. The terrorist who was camping on the site, the place called "goose", thought the decoy was the prefiring counter-terrorist and engaged short. This allowed the actual counter-terrorist to move up slope and get an easy frag.

This scenario is awesome, and it surely is what you imagine will happen every time you buy that decoy. However, if you consider the circumstances for this scenario to play out as it did, I think it is safe to say, that the expected value you get from purchasing the decoy never meets the price you are paying. Buying decoys is a loosing proposition. I can think of one instance when you should buy it. The last round in the half or of the game, when you have $50 remaining and can't save the money for the next round, and of course a free grenade slot.

Hopefully, you are now much wiser on using the 'nades in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This was my explosive, sorry, extensive guide on how to count to three not five. As always, good luck, have fun!