In Counter-Strike 2 grenades have the potential for brilliant plays. The professional player s1mple shows you what a perfect example looks like.
Who is it about?
- The 26-year-old Ukrainian Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev is considered one of the best Counter-Strike players of all time and has played in his career for HellRaisers, FlipSid3 Tactics and Team Liquid.
- s1mple reached the peak of his career at Natus Vincere (NaVi), for whose team he has played since 2016 and won several high-profile tournaments, such as the Intel Grand Slam in September 2021.
- At NaVi, s1mple was also named the best player of the years 2018, 2021, and 2022 and was also a title contender in 2019 and 2020.
- The Ukrainian doesn’t think much of Counter-Strike 2. s1mple says you shouldn’t play the CS:GO successor right now
How do you get more out of your grenades? Counter-Strike 2 brought many changes – including a major overhaul of grenades.
The smokes now react to their environment. Objects and walls keep the spread of the smoke contained, and shots even tear small holes in the cloud through which you can see your opponents. A highlight of the new grenades is also how the cloud reacts to the explosion of a grenade – it disappears briefly.
Many players take advantage of this and let grenades explode in the smoke clouds to briefly see and shoot their opponents accurately. A clip of s1mple is now circulating on Reddit, where he shows a nearly perfect execution of this tactic.
What makes s1mple’s execution so good? s1mple manages to get a kill in every situation shown in the clip. He succeeds primarily through communication with his team. He clearly announces every time when the smoke should be “broken” by an explosion, meaning blown away.
This allows both s1mple himself and his teammates to optimally react to the temporary disappearance of the smoke and surprise the opponents. He always takes angles from which he can see his opponents when the smoke disappears.
On the map “Mirage”, for example, he caught the rotating opponents when he broke the smoke in the window with a grenade that he dropped just a few meters away.
Just recently, s1mple gave an insight into the life of an e-sports player and revealed that he has over 23,000 hours in Counter-Strike:
