Tired of rushing every round? Here are some of the best Mirage Default strats for you and your team to conquer Mirage with
If you’re a CSGO player, you’ve undoubtedly played Mirage roughly ten billion times, but how many Mirage Default strats do you know? Most lower and even mid-level players will be happy to roam the map without any real plan; or at most rush B, crowd into A or push Mid together on the T-side. However, anyone above Master Guardian Elite or Faceit Level 4 might want to opt for a slower, more methodical approach from time to time, weighing their options while making sure any nosy CTs pushing for info are dealt with. For the latter group, there’s the Default.
What Is the Mirage Default?
A Default on any map is basically a spread out formation for the T-side that allows a team to make more flexible, dynamic strat calls while also getting a feel of what the enemy might be up to. For Mirage, this involves having a player lurking inside A Palace, one holding A Main/Cave, one stationed at the top of Mid, one sneaking into Underpass, and the last of the quintet holding B Apartments. However, there are many small variations of this, which we’ll go into the details of below. In short, the full formation depends greatly on what you ultimately want to do.
For instance, when you want to go for a B play, you’ll want to focus on that site with the majority of your players when you’re ready to enter it. This means that Default strats usually involve a lot of carefully planned movement by the players on your team. Now that that’s settled, here’s what you can do on Mirage’s Bombsite A.
Mirage Default Strats for Bombsite A
Here are some useful strats for a Mirage Default that ends up in Bombsite A.
The B Fake
Mirage is a map with a notoriously long rotation time between sites for Terrorists, so any faking is pretty difficult to sell if you intend to crack the other site soon after. For a B fake, we implement the relatively recent tactic of dropping grenades.
The Default starts off as it should, with an early flash thrown into A to instigate the usage of some counter-utility. At the same time, the player heading into Underpass needs to drop two flashes and a smoke to the player holding B Apts. About a minute into the round, the Underpass player should fall back to A after having made some noise.
Meanwhile, the player in Mid smokes Nest/Window, flashes Connector and continues to lurk mid, while a B fake ensues with the Apts player throwing two smokes aimed at Short/Market/Bench, a Molly into Van and all the flashes they have into B while also shooting to fake further.
About 15 seconds after that, with 30 seconds on the clock, the players in A smoke Jungle and Stairs to prevent any retakes from B. With some timely flashes and a push from Main and Palace, they take control of A while the B flanker comes back to Mid and assists their teammate who’s been there from the start.
The Pull and Push
This one needs an extra bit of patience and involves a lot of coordination. The round starts with the Mid player smoking Nest from T-Spawn and, with the help of the Underpass player, taking Mid control. If this isn’t possible due to concentrated CT aggression, they can each hold Top Mid and Underpass.
Once the round has settled a bit, have the A players make some noise over on the site, throwing flashes and spamming through any smokes the CTs may have laid down. This will force out more utility from the A players. Following this, they fall completely silent for about 30 seconds.
Once this period is over, the Underpass player falls back and does a B execute with his teammate stationed there, except one of them immediately runs back to A after dropping a flash and a Molly and throwing a smoke while the other proceeds to commit into B. Simultaneously, the Mid player throws a Molly into Nest and makes noise leading up to the Catwalk.
With about 30-45 seconds left on the clock, the A players smoke Jungle and Stairs before pushing into A, with the player rotating from B pushing Palace to aid their quest. A Molly is thrown into Dark/Under Palace as this push is made. With a little luck and a bomb planted for A Main, the round should belong to the Ts.
The Sneak
After getting into the default formation with a Nest smoke in place, the player in B flashes Mid over the wall to ensure the presence of a teammate behind the boxes at Top Mid. The Underpass player Smokes off B Short and climbs on the bench, and with the aid of a flashbang from the Top Mid teammate, jumps into Nest and takes out the player there.
The purpose of the Nest player isn’t to go hunting right away, but to cut off rotations. The Mid Mid player then retreats towards A while the B player activates and fakes B, drawing attention towards the site and causing at least one player to move closer to it. Meanwhile, the three players outside A set up smokes towards CT spawn and Jungle, causing CTs to have to fight from either within the site or from Stairs.
This enables the Nest lurker to activate, while the B player, if still alive, falls back to Underpass and helps out at Connector. With some good shots, the round should belong to the attackers. This one is also possible with two players moving into Nest and B kept empty.
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