5 Mirage A-Site Smokes You Must Know in CSGO

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is still one of the most popular FPS games that exist today. The game was released on the 21st of August in 2012. Even though the game has been around for almost a decade now, it still tops Steam’s Most-Played Games charts. That is an impressive feat and is not something that most online competitive games can claim themselves. Since then, the game has undergone several revisions in map layouts, gun stats, gun skins, and gameplay mechanics.

Like any other 5v5 online competitive game, CSGO is a game of teamwork, communication, and strategy. Teams have to work together and exhaust all the means necessary to support each other and win games. CSGO, as a technical FPS game, not only employs guns to be used in-game but offers a few utilities that players can use to increase their chances of clearing objectives and winning matches.

Smokes in CSGO

CSGO gives players the ability to buy guns, armor, grenades, and utilities before the round starts. Depending on the “Economy” or the amount of money the team currently has and the type of strategy players plan to employ for a round, players can opt to buy multiple combinations of these utilities.

All of the utilities in CSGO certainly have their time, place, and usefulness. However, an argument can be made for the most valuable utility in CSGO: The Smoke Grenade.

The CSGO Smoke Grenade

The Smoke Grenade is an incredibly valuable piece of utility in CSGO that can be used to block off enemy sightlines and angles within a bomb site. It is a powerful tool that can help your team enter and take control of bomb sites with ease.

The smoke grenade can bounce a few times before it detonates. The amount of bounces is dictated by the angle the smoke grenade was thrown from and the type of throw the player employs (right-click/left-click/jump-throw.) The Smoke Grenade has the bonus of thawing out Incendiary Grenades or Molotovs when thrown directly at the fire.

The smoke grenade can be purchased within the buy period for 300 credits. It covers a large enough area that blocks defenders’ vision during site entry.

Mirage A-site Smoke Spots

A few common spots that Counter-Terrorists hold are:

1. Ticket booth
2. Jungle
3. Stairs
4. Balcony
5. Connector

These are also the most common spots T-side players will want to smoke out, to give them the most effective smoke coverage. This helps T-side players enter the Mirage A-site with minimal risk. This also reduces the number of angles T-side players have to check and will make bomb site control much easier.

How to Throw Mirage A-site Smokes

Most of these smokes are straightforward, but some of these smokes will require some practice to execute consistently.

We will look at 5 Mirage A-site smokes:

1. Ticket Booth – This area is most commonly held by CT players, often with a long-range rifle. This area gives them sightlines over A-Main, Balcony, and Tetris.
2. Jungle – The Jungle area is home to CTs middle player. Most commonly equipped with an AWP. CT Defender from this location has sightlines over Middle, Underpass, Connector, Palace, and Balcony.
3. Stairs – Stairs players usually have vision over Palace, Balcony, A-Main, Tetris, and Connector.
4. Balcony – Although not a usual spot for CTs to occupy, some cheeky bastards play this tight Balcony cubby with a shotgun or a quick-firing SMG.
5. Connector – CT Connector players usually check Underpass, Top-mid, and Catwalk.

If you look closely at the spots that we will be smoking out today, you will realize that CTs can hold multiple angles and sightlines from a single area. CTs have too much vision and control over the A-site, which will make it harder for T-side players to gain control over Mirage A-Bombsite.

Worry not, though, because once you learn all or even some of these smokes, the CT-side players will have a very difficult time defending against you and your team as they will be visually-locked out of A-Bombsite.

1. Mirage A-site Ticket Booth Smoke

This smoke will cover most of the CT-side area known as Ticket Booth. This spot is commonplace for CT players to hold using the AWP, CSGO’s in-game, one-tap killing machine. Smoke on this area is also helpful for delaying any rotations from players previously holding the Market area from B-site. They will most likely rotate back to CT-Spawn and then head over to Ticket Booth since Ticket Booth gives a direct view of the most common T-side planting spot: Default.

1. From T-Spawn, run toward this area:
   
2. Look for this line:
   
3. Hug the wall.
   
4. Turn to your left and look for this spot:
   
5. Place your crosshair around this spot here:
   
6. Now this part might be a bit tricky, and you may need to practice it a couple times. You need to jump and throw the smoke grenade at the same time.
   
7. If done correctly, the grenade should land here and cover most of the Ticket Booth.
   

If you don’t get the timing right the first time, keep trying since the window for error on this jump throw is quite narrow.

2. Mirage A-site Jungle Smoke

This next smoke will cover the sightlines of enemies holding the Jungle and Connector area. This smoke also slightly covers Balcony and Palace for Terrorists. This is how to throw this smoke:

1. Go up towards this area:
   
   
2. Look for this thick center frame:
   
3. Hug the wall and center yourself on the middle frame.
   
4. Turn 180 degrees and look for this trapezoidal fixture.
   
5. Place your crosshair at the left-ouside-middle of this fixture.
   
6. Left-Click to throw the grenade.
   
7. The grenade should bounce on Stairs, then bounce against the adjacent wall, and finally land in the middle of Jungle, Stairs, and Connector.
   
   

This is what the smoke looks like in the enemies’ POV:

3. Mirage A-site Stairs Smoke

This is one of the easiest Smoke Grenades to throw on this list. This smoke covers the stairs area in Mirage A-site. This blocks off vision from enemies holding the Stairs area and the Connector Boxes, an angle often held by enemies with an AWP.

1. Look for this spot in T-Spawn:
   
2. Jump over the first stair and hug this small post:
   
3. Pan your screen towards the upper-right corner and center your crosshair in the gap.
   
4. Left-Click to throw the grenade.
   
5. If done properly, the smoke grenade will bounce and Tetris. and land gracefully on Stairs.
   
   

4. Mirage A-site Balcony Smoke From Palace

This next smoke is quite easy to execute. This Balcony smoke from Palace is good for blocking vision for anyone playing Default, Triple-Box, and Fire-Box within Mirage A-site. This will help players coming from Palace enter A-site safely.

1. Go inside Palace and look for the third post from the left:
   
2. Walk to this spot here:
   
3. Align your crosshair with this small strip here:
   
4. Hug the post.
   
5. Turn towards the post here:
   
6. Look for this slightly darker spot:
   
7. Left-Click to throw the grenade
   
8. The smoke grenade should bounce off the wall and land on the balcony.
   

5. Mirage A-site Connector Smoke From T-Spawn

This last smoke completes the 5-man smoke ritual your team should consistently execute during A-site take. This last smoke covers most of the connector area and blocks off vision from CT players holding B-Short. This further hinders CT players from gaining information about what is going on in Mirage A-Site.

1. Look for this spot at T-Spawn:
   
2. Align these three stones until they form a straight line.
   
3. Follow this imaginary line until you hit the wall.
   
4. Turn around and look up to find the box.
   
5. Place the center of your crosshair on the bottom corner of the box.
   
6. Jump and throw your smoke grenade.
   
7. When done properly, the grenade should bounce towards the inside of Connector.
   
   

It’s Too Smokin’ Easy!

That’s about it! Even if only two or three players from your team know these smokes, it will definitely help your team take Mirage A-site faster, safer, and more efficiently. The smokes are relatively easy to do and very repeatable across the course of a match.

However, it is important to note that all of the smokes featured were done on a 64-tick server. Some of these smoke lineups might not translate well over to a 128-tick server. Experiment and adjust accordingly!

With that said, some of these smokes require pixel-perfect lineups to execute correctly. This is why you should practice these smokes until you get very familiar with them. When thrown together as a five-man team, these smokes will look absolutely horrifying to the enemy team. Watch them run and cry: “Holy Smokes!”