Middle is easily the most important area on Mirage. Having solid Mid control can easily translate into a round win if you play your cards right. As a CT, one of the most dynamic areas to play in to get Mid control is Con.
I won’t explain why Con is so important; you’ll understand that yourself as you read through this article. The ft. NiKo at the top might’ve lured you into thinking NiKo is writing this article, but actually, the writer has just watched and analyzed NiKo’s CT side demos on Mirage.
We will go in quite deep, tactically speaking. You’ll also build your game sense when you adopt the right mental approaches to different situations, like the ones I’ll talk about. So without further ado, let’s get into it!
Being a good Con player doesn’t mean just playing Connector. You need to support your dedicated A player, especially when it comes to Palace. You need to be a rotator as well. Helping your Mid player and coordinating with him is key to controlling Middle, which we can agree is the most important area on Mirage.
You need to play Jungle and Window too, at times.
We’ll look at all these key aspects of being a good Con player by studying probably the best rifler in the world: NiKo.
How to reach Connector
If you wanna go to Con through A, the best way to do it is by mollying Ramp as you run by it. The molotov will burn at eye levels for the Ts, hence making it very difficult for aggressive Ts to spot and kill you.
Alternatively, you can go through Jungle. You can play Window and spam the top mid smoke that the Ts would usually throw. You can further coordinate with your Mid player and reach Con soon. It actually depends on the information you two have. You’ll play differently if the Ts are pressuring mid than if there is silence.
If there is no Mid pressure, you can even jump out Window (take care of the timings of the Underpass player, you can jump out Window early because it takes time to reach Underpass). You can then play bottom Con because it’s a difficult angle to clear for the Ts.
Let’s take a quick look at how NiKo has played in all of these situations.
Playing Con
If there is pressure, there are a few cases. If the Ts have mollied Con early into the round, they might just hang out at top mid. Using your smoke so early to counter that molly isn’t wise, and it’s better to hold onto your smoke and wait for further contact. The info your Mid player gathers wil be key.
If there is some significant pressure towards mid, like smoking Window and throwing flashes, suggesting a fast push, you should smoke Con. Hiding behind the smoke is a viable option. You can even get naughty by asking your A player or Mid player for a flash and then pushing through the smoke to get a quick kill and fall back.
Even if you get killed, you get a lot of info on the Ts. If there were a lot of Ts coming through Short towards Cat, then there’s a good chance that there’s an Apps presence, in which case, your B players can molly or smoke and spam Apps. If the Ts were heading towards Con, then there could be Palace presence, in which case your A player can smoke it off and play Default or CT to deal with the Con push. Playing Default will be a death sentence, and advised against if you, i.e. the Con player, died without getting a kill. The A player, coordinating with the Mid player, will need to get at least two kills if the retake has to be an option.
Ideally, you should mix up your tricks. You shouldn’t get aggressive all the time, or play passive all the time. Keep them guessing.
Playing passive and hiding behind the smoke is an excellent bet as well. You can catch them off guard and get solid information in the form of footsteps and gunshots, if not visual contact altogether. Throwing the right smoke near the edge and creating a one-way for Underpass or Lower is a great tactic as well.
You can also smoke Con off and then play an angle near Stairs to help thwart any Short rushes.
If there is no pressure, NiKo usually throws the smoke at 1:30, sometimes later so Con remains smoked till 1:00.
You can get aggressive again in case of Mid silence. You and your Mid player can push out the Con smoke with the help of your A player’s flashes. If Mid is empty, you can of course fall back. Or you can get even naughtier. Your Mid player can sneak his way to top Mid and play behind the boxes for the rest of the round. It’s a very powerful position, and if the Ts try to rotate effectively, they’ll have to go through Mid at some point.
Another variation is that you can throw a Con smoke that bulges out of Con just enough so that you can get out of Con, run along the wall bottom Mid, and use a flash from your Window player to clear Underpass, all while being out of sight of any potential Ts in top Mid. It’s a great maneuver that can catch Ts off guard, and if you get a kill, make it impossible for them to trade other than wishful smoke spamming.
(As you can see, you can peek Underpass without being spotted by the Ts in Top Mid, especially if you crawl.)
The last thing about being a Con player is when the Ts are executing A without any Mid pressure, i.e., through Ramp and Palace. In this case, Stairs and Jungle area will be smoked off, and your dedicated A player will be alone. By the time the smoke blooms, your Mid player, seeing that there’s no one in Mid, should be rotating to Ticket Booth.
You can help the play by throwing flashes near Default boxes. The Ts will most probably be near Tetris, so it could be an instant white screen for a lot of them. Your A player can peek off that flash and get some easy kills.
As is a constant point of argument in this article, you can mix up your tactics by pushing throw the smokes. One nice way to do it is to flash Default, followed by a high flash by your Ticket Booth player, and then you drop into Sandwich. (Or you can use both your flash to bounce it off the Con wall and then dropping into Sandwich. The variations are endless.) You are fairly safe there, plus you can support your A player by keeping an eye on Palace. Maybe even molly it. Also, the Ts can’t just strafe wide to kill your A player.
Playing Window
Sometimes, you might wanna switch up your positions with your Mid player to run by a few strats.
First of all, if the Ts are consistently smoking Window, you can throw your own molly there, so their smoke will create a one-way to your advantage.
Another possible variation could be that both you and your dedicated Mid player could go Window. If there is a top mid smoke, you can molly the Boxes and throw a nade behind the smoke soon after. Meanwhile, your Mid player can jump out boxes and aggress forward to catch any Ts retreating from the molly you threw, and your nade can help your teammate further.
Another good variation is you being the only CT playing in the Mid-Con-Window-Jungle area, with your dedicated Mid player going A or B. In this case, you should make your presence known in Window, while your A player can throw a smoke in Con to fake strong Mid presence.
At this point, I wanna mention an interesting play NiKo made against Heroic once. He was in the situation mentioned above, playing all alone. He was near Window when Heroic mollied him off. Instead of vacating Window and going Con, NiKo kept an eye on Cat. He caught cadiaN off-guard and got a free kill.
Now, if cadiaN was aggressing down Upper, there might be Lower presence as well. And if Heroic see that the usual Con player just got a kill from Window, there’s a good chance that Con is empty. NiKo knows that Heroic know this, so he quickly repositions to Jungle to ward off any funny plays from TeSeS.
That is a good play to improve your overall game sense.
You can hold a smoked Window too by looking at the light source behind it. This is quite common and I’m sure you’ve seen it before as well. Your A teammate can flash Mid and you can peek out Window just as when the smoke fades, and I’m sure you’ll easily get at least one kill.
Playing Jungle
Once you lose Mid control, you need to vacate Con and either play Stairs or Jungle. You might even go Window. But let’s talk about playing Jungle for now.
In the last scenario we talked about, you were voluntarily playing Window as a strat. But in this case, you are playing Jungle because you’ve lost Mid control. That is important since you know someone’s waiting in or outside Con to kill you.
Let’s talk about a quick play by NiKo against NiP. He is playing Jungle and spots hampus coming through Window dry. He kills him, and now instead of just placing his crosshair towards Con as he did previously, he actually mollies it, since T’s Mid presence is 100% established. The molly ensures that there are no Con rushes as a result of hampus’ death.
Small details, but worth noting and understanding nonetheless.
Another great NiKo secret is the fact that if he knows a smoke is coming, he’s gonna position his crosshair at the perfect place, and then spam that smoke in the very position where the opponents could be. Usually, people would just leave that position or spam mindlessly if there’s a smoke on the way, but NiKo establishes an advantage in every situation.
Another cool detail is how if he runs out of bullets, he’ll switch to his pistol and wait for the opponents to run throw the smoke to try to catch him off-guard.
And CS:GO fans created a narrative that NiKo doesn’t have game sense. *facepalms*
Playing Stairs
As I mentioned before, you can play either Stairs or Jungle when you lose Mid control. But unlike in Jungle, you won’t only play Stairs when forced off Con. You can play it without Mid pressure as well.
Your first option is to support your A player by taking care of Palace. You can also just tuck into the corner if there is a Top Con smoke by the Ts, and it’s a great spot to be in, especially if your Mid player comes and plays Jungle effectively.
Another good NiKo play comes to mind when he got 2 kills from this maneuver and further knew that cadiaN, the AWPer, is near Con, in Mid. Instead of peaking or going silent, NiKo keeps cadiaN’s attention by jiggling his gun barrel, and soon enough, huNter shoots cadiaN from behind.
Playing A
Instead of going Con, you can play A with your A player. The Mid player can play Con in this case, and you can support him with smokes and flashes. I know this article is about Con, not A, but you should know your variations. You should aim to be a great area player, instead of just greatly knowing an area.
When you play A, you can play Default, as your A player holds Tetris. You can oversee Palace from Default, and even if you get flashed, you can just duck down to avoid being killed. The exposed Palace player will either have to rush out, mostly resulting in a free kill for your team or more rationally, he’ll have to fall back.
The height of the boxes near Default definitely is very favorable to the CTs playing there.
The above situation I talked about is probably the best, but of course, there are quite a few variations.
You can play on the boxes between Ramp and Palace. Or you can aggress Ramp with your A player for info. You can both aggress into Palace as well. Let’s talk about Ramp aggression. You might wanna do this in the mid-game or late-game scenario. If you push into Ramp and you see no one there around the 20-30 second mark, there’s an extremely high chance that the Ts are going B, since executing A is slow and methodical.
As I crudely mentioned before, it’s not always about the present. Maybe it’s better if you don’t get aggressive in your present, but by breaking those rules, you’ll set a precedent for the future. Your opponents will always have to be vigilant and keep an eye out for all possibilities. That, in itself, is a huge mental and psychological win.
That ends it for this article. I learned a lot from watching NiKo, and hopefully, you learned from this article and NiKo’s plays’ tactical breakdowns as well.
Until next time; cheers.