MouseSports is one of the most recognizable names in competitive Counter-Strike. They seem to have been around forever, and always have a lineup packed with the most talented German, Austrian, and sometimes international players. The team sent to compete at the 2006 CPL Spain event was no different.

Dust2 has one of the most easily exploitable offensive sides on any map. The large amount of ground to run between sites makes rotating from the defense very difficult. Rotate too early and you may find yourself completely faked out and giving up the site for an easy plant. Yet rotate too slowly, and the defense is spread thin and forced into poor number setups with multiple attackers per each defender.

Mouz showed their understanding of the offensive end on Dust2 at CPL Spain. They start with slow, methodical picks, using as much time as they need to force defenders into making mistakes or becoming impatient. If they can’t get a pick, they utilize boosts in order to peak the defense with multiple guns. In this match they also showed a clear understanding on how coL approached their defense, exhibiting the importance of studying your opponent.

In the particular round which we will delve into, mouz utilizes a spread out attack in order to keep the pressure on each side of the defense and force the defenders to remain much longer than they would normally. In this way they allow themselves to constantly be ahead in numbers during each execution. When they finally pick a spot to attack, in this case a middle and catwalk split to the A site, they find themselves attacking a thinned defense.

This is how they executed this strategy

gore - Middle Hold, catwalk clean-up
PapsT - Long A distractor, middle clean-up
Blizzard - Lower B, middle entry fragger
Roman R - Lower B, middle secondary
neo - B distractor, catwalk entry fragger



To start things off, gore and PapsT heads over to the Long A area while Blizzard, Roman R R, and neo move towards B. PapsT starts making his way toward Long A for the peak. gore remains behind outside the doors keeping an eye on middle. Once PapsT peaks Long A and sees that it is clear, he banks a smoke off the A sign, establishing a presence at long.



Over at B, Roman R smokes out of the B tunnels, establishing a terrorist presence at that site, and heads to lower B with Blizzard. neo remains in the upper tunnels, wall spotting the tunnel entrance. Blizzard boosts up Roman R so that he can spot the catwalk from atop the big box in lower tunnels.



PapsT tosses a pretty standard high flash in deep middle to allow himself and gore to begin the take over of middle. gore nades the entrance to lower / the middle doors and smokes out the possible awper in middle. PapsT banks a nade off the catwalk wall and keeps his eye on the area.



neo keeps the pressure on the B defenders by constantly making his presence known at the site. He does this by flashing the site from the spiral staircase. While neo does this, Blizzard and Roman R begin to work into the middle. They start by both throwing their nades toward the catwalk stairs, hoping to frag some players who were spotted earlier. Rather than simply crossing the entrance and peaking out the doors, Blizzard boosts Roman R on the box in middle. Blizzard, Roman R, PapsT, and gore simultaneously peak middle; Blizzard from the ground, Roman R from the box, gore from catwalk, and PapsT from the catwalk railing.



neo runs from lower b, and joins gore on the catwalk. neo begins to slowly work up the catwalk followed by gore, while the others hold middle. Once neo reaches the base of the stairs without being spotted, he holds up.



Blizzard initiates the assault out the middle doors by first tossing a high flash, and then smoking off spawn. Roman R also tosses a flash on the run out the door. PapsT joins the rush out middle, tossing his flash into spawn. Roman R cuts to the left, and tosses a flash against the B double doors.




A few moments after the attack begins in the middle, neo attacks the catwalk, backed up by gore who is carrying the bomb. gore heads toward the site, where he is joined by Blizzard who has come from CT spawn. PapsT remains behind in CT spawn, setting up defensively for the plant, while Blizzard ducks behind the slanted box on A ramp.



MouseSports exploits middle in this strat to make seamless transitions from distracting at Long A and B, to finally splitting middle and the catwalk. By establishing a decent presence at B, they are able to keep one defender inside the site late into the round. During this time, they utilize a few boosts to clear positions and force good number situations for them. The best part about this strategy, is it’s ability to be adapted based on what picks are made, and what attackers are lost while making those picks. Mouz shows that sometimes, slow and steady can win the race.