Essential Ancient Smokes-CS2 Smokes
Despite receiving heavy criticism replacing Train on the Active-Duty map pool back on May 3rd, 2021, Ancient made its way to the top and became the most played map in 2023 amongst professional teams.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the map however. In fact, Ancient had its fair share of problems including performance issues, agents visibility, favoring the CT side and many more.
Over the years, Valve kept polishing the map and took notes of the community’s concern and made it a remarkable haven to play on. If it’s your first ban during your Premier matches, you might want to give it a chance after learning these smokes which will give you the edge to outsmart your opponents and win games.
B site Smokes
As a T side player, three smokes are enough to lockdown the bombsite. With the CTs A players usually rotating from spawn for a fast retake, it makes it challenging to succeed in disadvantage.
Short Smoke:
The short smoke denies the first point of contact when entering the bombsite, a favored position by some AWPers. Be careful as some cheeky players like to play around the pillar so be sure to check your angles when entering.
Long Smoke:
With Short being blocked, your opponent is more likely to reposition to Long if he’s not holding from there already. This easy long smoke blocks off vision entirely for better chances at clearing the bombsite.
This lineup pops a bit deeper and leaves the right corner off-angle clear as some players like to play inside the smoke and take action when it fades, catching you off-guard.
Cave Smoke:
Depending on your strat and playstyle, the Cave smoke is the last piece to block off the entirety of the bombsite.
It can be thrown when all five enter from the ramp, or as a fake while still splitting from Cave.
As an extra safety measure, you can throw a molotov to the Wood/Banger position to clear it, since it’s a common spot.
Middle Smokes
Just like many maps in CS2, mid control is crucial for both sides and taking that space would tighten the grip on the opponent and make them easy to read.
Though you can abandon it in some rounds if you’re doing a fast rush into a bombsite, leaving a lurker behind will almost secure you a frag as the CTs rotate.
Top mid Smoke:
Taking mid control without the top smoke is a bad idea. With an opponent usually holding you from there, a simple smoke is enough to deny information and take space.
Based on your spawn, we have two lineups for either the right or left side.
Donut Smoke:
The Donut smoke is crucial as a CT can disrupt your plan in taking over mid from that position. To avoid any mistakes, this smoke allows you to take full control of mid and proceed with the plan whether it's an A or B split.
The first lineup is thrown from spawn for a fast-paced play, while the second is thrown close to elbow for late/mid round adjustment.
B Alley Smoke:
Once you take control over mid, you’re left with a couple options and one of them is an A split from top mid. That’s when this smoke comes clutch to secure a safe passage towards CT spawn and A while blocking vision from Alley and B.
Cheetah Smoke:
To put an even stronger foot on mid, the Cheetah smoke allows you to peek from Heaven safely and help your teammates coming out from Elbow.
A site Smokes
The A site is arguably harder to hold in a post plant situation due to the many access points for the CTs including Temple, Donut, A main and Spawn.
Temple Smoke:
Opposite to CS:GO, there isn’t a lineup that lands the smoke inside of Temple. And with the CS2 smoke behavior, the corner outside will get smoked off, so be careful of any sneaky opponent playing on the fade.
Donut Smoke:
There are two different lineups for Donut, with the first blocking the position entirely, and the second popping deeper inside, giving you access and vision to closer corners.
CT Smoke:
Smoking CT is a must before entering site as it gives room to clear different corners without having to worry about rotations.
This lineup lands a bit deeper, so you won’t have any CTs playing in the smoke or disrupting your bomb plant.
Now that you have all the basic smokes for Ancient; Queue, execute and happy fragging!