Check Out These Mirage Smokes

(7 votes, average: 2.14 out of 5)

Mirage may now be out of the major roster of the maps, but that doesn’t make it a lot less popular among players. It’s only useful to know a couple of the most important Mirage smokes.

Basically, if you ask any player fluent with the map, they will have at least a couple of their own strats for both teams when it comes to using nades here. However, there are a couple of simple, yet very effective ways to smoke the map that allow for some degree of variation. Below we’ll discuss some of the smokes on Mirage, with a brief look at the map’s premise first.

Understanding Mirage Map

In the past we’ve talked about Mirage to a certain extent, with an overview of the map’s structure, most intuitive nades and some necessary callouts to carry you through a skirmish.

With a little insight into the logic of the map, it will be much easier to plan your nade play.

Mirage’s structure is pretty simple – each of the two bombsites have one straightforward approach and one shielded approach for each of the teams. There’s also the mid lane that branches in and out of both spawn sites. Except for the palace passage, market and apartments, every place on the map is open air. This allows players to distribute quick smoke nades literally from the spawn point, or move out just a little bit and throw a nade across the entire map.

As per usual, smokes can be used either to cover your team or to block out comfortable, long range shooting positions. As the attackers, it’s important to smoke the passage leading out of the CT Spawn into Site A, or block out the passage at the jungle to make it more difficult to take your teammates down from mid. As the defenders, you’ll have significantly less usage of smokes to your advantage, but a couple of them might make life easier for you and harder for the Ts.

Mirage T Smokes

Here’s a couple of throws that serve the T players.

Smoking CT Spawn to Site A Entrance

Stand on the ledge of the path leading to the palace, at the end of the metal fence, aligned with it. Look up and right at the tower above Site A, aim your crosshair at the end of the pole sticking out close to the top, and jump-throw. The smoke will land in the middle of the passage and practically limit all visibility from this entrance. You can push that smoke a little further with another person standing in the middle of the adjacent cut wall next to the fence and aiming at the same spot at the pole.

Jungle Smoke Mirage Trick

One smoke grenade is enough to cut out the cross section next to the jungle and stairs. Climb the platform above the lower A entrance and stand exactly at the middle pillar. Turn around, look up at the wall extension and aim in the middle of its height, to the left of its left slope, slightly off the extension itself so as not to hit it. Left-click throw will send the smoke to a spot blocking away both jungle and Mid peak.

Palace Cover Smoke

While going out of the palace to the rafters, stop at the furthest right corner of the pillar next to the exit. Turn to the inside wall of the exit corridor, aim at about 60% of its height, to the right of the doorway edge. Left-throw the smoke to make it bounce to the edge of the rafters and cover any sight from the CT Spawn alley.

Mid Window From T Spawn

Nudge yourself in the corner between the trash can and the wall. Crouch, turn around and look up and lock your crosshair in the middle of the metal fence as it intersects with the right frame of the door. Start crouch-walking forward until your crosshair meets the bottom of the balcony and then jump-throw. That one is pretty annoying for CTs, because it disables entry frags from snipers.

Market Window from Apartments

Stand at the corner of the doorway and the wall at the cross section of the apartments. Look up at the tower, aim at the top corner and go down to mid-height of the space between the window sill and the roof extensions. Jump-throw to send the smoke flying and bouncing right into the Market Window.

Mirage CT Smokes

Here, on the other hand, are a couple smoke throws you can perform as a CT.

A Ramp Easy Smoke

When entering A, at the height of the ticket booth strafe left and stand in the corner of the pile of things (called out as ‘Trash’). Look at the triple box and find a stamp near the top of the upper box. Aim just above it and left-throw, leaving Ts no view on the A Site from the ramp.

Apt Control Smoke From Market

If your team is trying to push the apartments and wants some coverage at the juncture, stand at the market window’s left side, inside the market, just at the corner of the left window frame and crouch. Aim at the arch, then to the right, and down to the top of the last brick of the arch (as shown below). Then, jumpthrow while still crouching. If done properly, this should smoke the area just at the entrance to the apartments, next to the underway entrance.

One Way Window Smoke

This one is pretty easy. Walk next to the wooden stand in the one-way corridor and look up at the ceiling above the window. You should see a black dot on one of the wooden planks. Just left-throw a smoke and it should bounce in a way that it launches at the windowsill. It leaves a small gap on the left of the window frame to snipe out enemies walking into Mid. However, bear in mind that it is a clear signal that someone’s out there and people will prefire.

Steam Workshop Maps For Learning Mirage Nades

There’s a lot of customized maps built on the basis of Mirage and there’s a couple that will guide you through the best tactics for throwing smokes and other utilities.

The most popular and lauded workshop map seems to be Mirage Training by Dolnma. It has a couple of configuration options and literally guide you by the hand, showing you exact positions and actions to perform. 

If you want something more specific, there’s also a very team-and-site specific map called Mirage Bombsite A T Smokes, made by P1g3on

Mirage Smokes – Summary

Because Mirage is a pretty tactic-versatile map, these few nades are just a tip of the iceberg. Try the ones we described here to begin with. Then, search for more when you have these in your mind. If you spot someone throwing good smokes, ask them how they do it.

Even though Mirage is not in the pro focus as it is no longer a major map, it’s still very popular in competitive CSGO and makes for a great skirmish arena.

Comments

comments