How to play Dust 2 in CS:GO? Tactics & tips on the map. Guide by SCOPE.GG

Dust 2 is probably the most popular map since the moment of its creation. Recently it celebrated its 20 year anniversary. Most of the practice matches, DM servers and private game modes are being played on Dust2. What makes it so good?

It’s an ideal map for the new players: it doesn’t have a lot of corridors and different small nooks and crannies that usually make a map hard to learn. Absence of narrow passages make space for skirmishes even for people trying CS:GO for the first time, who’s still learning the lay of a land and may have trouble traversing other maps!.

Despite being not overly complicated, Dust2 is actively being played on professional level by well-known teams such as Gambit, NAVI, Astralis and more. Today we’ll take a closer look at this map and analyse the most common tactics that will help even the new players to be effective around the map.

What makes Dust2 the most popular map in CS:GO?

Considering the fact that this map was initially made back in 2001, we shouldn’t expect complicated structure from it. Dust2 is considered a “shooting” map, meaning it doesn’t have a lot of tactics and the main skill that you need is aiming. If you can land a couple of headshots while fighting for a key position that’s definitely a map to add to your mappool. This map is ideal for solo play, it allows you to assist your teammates on both plants, quickly relocate to a necessary position and use all the grenades to their fullest.

This map has two bomb sites and three main directions of attack - tunnel, mid and long. There’s also short, but it’s usually also considered as mid. As you can see, this map is quite easy and without excesses.

In one of the patches the developers opened up skyboxes, this means that grenades stopped hitting invisible walls in the sky, which allowed the community to develop lots of new unusual grenade executes.

There isn’t much room for boosts on Dust2. It isn't a multi-leveled map and Dust2 has just several boxes that are otherwise inaccessible without a teammate.  Anyway, those boosts that exist aren’t really effective and don’t enable any good combinations with other player on your position.

Pros of Dust2

• Simple single-leveled structure makes this map really easy to learn.
• Moderate size makes every round very dynamic and allows for quick relocations from one position to another.
• Clear skyboxes allow players a lot of different effective grenade executions.
• Low dependence on tactics and fakes makes victories by simply outgunning your opponents possible.

Cons of Dust2

• Almost no variety in attacking directions. Both plants can be accessed from two sides and attacking those is never safe.
• Lack of variety in tactics can make your opponents predict your actions and smokes after several rounds.
• An opening on mid doors is a perfect sniper position in any situation.
• Due to this opening, the defending team must use a smoke there to be able to safely move to B. That’s -$300 every round out of the team's economy and -1 smoke that could be used elsewhere.

Dust 2 map callouts

If you want to play successfully on Dust2, you should start learning the callouts as quickly as possible. You should learn them in English instead of your native language if you’re not planning to always play with your premade. It’s not as hard as it seems, but it will make more players understand your callouts in public games.

Dust2 isn’t a large map, so you’ll probably be able to learn all the positions in a couple of days. The best way to do it is to just run around the map and say the position’s name aloud. Or you can just comment your route like: “Leaving T spawn, moving through outside long into long box, moving along the blue, jumping into the pit, rushing long, checking the car, entering the ramp, etc”. You probably won’t win a lot of games without knowledge of the map and callouts.

Key positions on Dust 2

Map control is extremely important on Dust2 (as on every other map). The more key positions you control, the more difficult it will be for your opponents to organize a dangerous attack or stalwart defence. Here’re the most common tips and tricks regarding key positions on Dust2:

• Short is one of the key positions on Dust2. Whoever controls short has more room to do whatever he wants around the map. You can get tons of information from short: you can hear entrance to long and CT spawn, good headset even may allow you to hear your opponents’ actions on long. Good grenade execute from short can trivialize attack on A or allow for easy open frags on mid as a defence.
• Always try to keep all the entrances on the map under control. Both the defending and the attacking team will try to push for better positions. It’s always a good idea to keep a couple of players protecting long and tunnel, this way the other three players can feel much safer while trying to take control of the short and mid.
• Don’t try to attack from the same direction. You should never go on the same point as a whole team. As an attacking team, you can always split up to attack from at least 2 directions. As a defending team, never leave the mid and B plant uncovered, your enemy will definitely exploit a weakness like this. Even considering recent changes to B base, it’s still very hard to retake. As pro-players say, “B plant on Dust2 is unretakable”.

How to play as Counter-Terrorists on Dust2

Playing as a defence on Dust2 is quite simple - you have A and B plants and mid. All you have to do is split up and move out to protect those. Upon arrival you’re free to do almost whatever you want: push for key positions using flashbangs, assist your teammates and listen for info from the other two positions. If you play on short, you can play together with a mid player - he’s watching out for catwalk while you’re peeking the lower tunnel. If you decide to play long, it’s really important to know how to retake A plant just in case your enemy pushes through short. All of that comes with the experience.

On Dust2 one of the most crucial things to learn is not to play routinely. You’ll need to be flexible and try to adapt to your opponents. There’s no need to play long all 15 rounds if your enemy has no trouble pushing you out of there. Just try something else.

Your opponents rarely play long and like to push middle? Try the '2-1-2' combination. This way two defence players still play on A plant, but one of them plays closer to the short, while the other supports him with flashbangs whenever it’s necessary. One of their teammates plays mid, while the other two hold out the B plant.

Your opponent plays long all the time? In that case, you can either reinforce this position with a third player, or set the defences directly on A base, while your teammate on mid provides you with information about possible attacks from short.

If your opponent managed to plant the bomb on A, don’t try to retake it by just coming out of CT spawn with your whole team. Remember that your enemy on short and plant has the high ground and all the advantages of it. Try to split up and push from short, long and CT simultaneously.

If your opponent tries to rush B or split pushes it from mid you shouldn’t try to play a hero. Inform your teammates and find yourself a favorable position for the future retake along with your teammates. Whenever possible, use grenades to slow your opponents down until your team arrives for your aid.

How to play as Terrorists on Dust2

If you don’t have a game plan set up beforehand, all you have to do is play the so-called “default”. Your team plays around controlling the map and key positions on it. After that you can launch an attack from any direction depending on a situation. As we’ve already said, short is one of those positions. The only way to pass through it is by using several grenades to stay safe from enemy sniper on mid. Warming up the short with a couple of grenades from the lower tunnel is also a great idea, it can frighten the enemy player covering short.

Taking control of long is also extremely important. Even if long won’t be the direction of your main attack, getting rid of enemy players on it will help you to confuse an opposing team, giving you an opportunity to launch an assault elsewhere with less opposition from the enemy.

Always try to take control of mid. Don’t do it carelessly though, peeking it or rushing through doors hoping for a frag most likely will make a frag out of you instead.

If your team did an entry frag on one of the plants, that doesn’t mean that you should immediately attack it. Make sure that your teammates are close and everyone’s ready for action. Your main objective in this situation is to take control of the plant before your enemy’s assistance arrives. If your teammates are spread around the map and won’t be able to quickly follow you up on plant, it would be safer to just fall back after the frag.

To wrestle the control of mid, the main tactic is to smoke the CT spawn side of mid and follow it up with a couple of flashes to try to get rid of an opponent to the left. This so-called “mid to B” tactic is well-known in solo play, so almost everyone knows how to execute it.

Executes and smokes on Dust2

Grenades and executes are one of the most efficient weapons in an attacking team’s arsenal on Dust2. After the developers opened up the skybox on this map, the CS:GO community came up with tons of new cool grenades. Don’t worry, you don’t have to learn them all, just the default ones. Your life will be significantly harder until you learn those, so if you’re ready, get right on our SCOPE.GG grenade prediction service, choose a map and the required tickrate and you’re good to go!

Here’re some of the most important grenades on Dust 2:

Long smoke as Terrorists. It’s main use is to block your opponents’ vision of the long doors, allowing you to safely enter long. This smoke is extremely important and even though casual players don’t use it often, professional players use it all the time.

You’ll also definitely need a mid box smoke. It’s required to safely push mid and short.

Another useful grenade is a CT spawn smoke that enables the “Mid to B” tactic that we mentioned before.

B doors smoke will leave your opponents with one less way to enter the plant site.

As you can see, it’s not that hard at all, you don’t have to know hundreds of smokes to play on a casual level. If you want to play on a more professional level, then you probably already know a lot of other sick grenades that are possible on this map. On “Custom” tab of SCOPE.GG grenade predictor you can find dozens of useful and tricky smokes that will definitely help you get the upper hand in your games.

And here’s another huge compilation of different guides, secrets, tip and tricks for Dust2:

Good luck in the game!