This is an intro to the perspective and decision-making aspects of IGLing. This is not intended to tell you specific plays that you need to use, nor to educate players on individual skills. This serves solely to highlight and explain some of the more fundamental thought processes necessary to someone trying to get a team to work as a functional whole.

Always attempt to defuse negative comms and be the voice of positivity. If you lose mental, you lose. Even if you win, you're just setting your team up to lose an important game later when you have reinforced an inability to keep composure (by winning) when you run into a tough match. If you are toxic and get noticeably frustrated with your team, then you are actively making your team worse. People are not perfect, and this is not anyone's job. Aside from purely competitive spirit, there is no reason for anyone to have 'solid mental' or 'thick skin'. If you are top fragging and making your team feel worse for their relative lack of contribution, you are a problem for your team. In a team setting, you can't fix major mistakes in the game - you have to fix them outside. Demo reviews and team practices are the only way to fix fundamental decision errors - there is no way to tell your teammate that was a stupid play, in a game, and have it make them better.

You are also the primary voice on your team. What you say dictates the flow of your team. You call the actions. If you tilt, your team will tilt. If you give up, your team will give up. Tilt, toxicity - every negative communication - is infectious. If you can do nothing else, make sure you don't let toxicity destroy your team.

In the most general sense, there are two styles of IGLing - big picture, and micromanaging. Big picture IGLs focus on what they want the team to do. Take map control, make a coordinated teamplay, etc. Once the team knows what to do, the players can figure out how to do it in a way that is best for them. Micromanaging IGL's tell their players exactly what to do on their plays. This could mean noticing someone got a special spawn, and telling them to use it to take quick map control, including what utility to use and where. These styles are both applicable, but some players will prefer one over the other.

A micromanager IGL style should not be confused for a player that micromanages other players every move. Telling someone what to do will always be worse than trusting them to make the right decision in the moment. This is why comms should always be silent (aside from providing information) during a clutch. In fact, telling someone what to do in some moments may cause them to miss information they would have otherwise gotten - speaking to them might make them miss a footstep or something else. If you disagree with someone's play, bring it up outside of the game, when they can actually focus on and learn from it. The round right after is generally not going to be good enough, because you need to focus on that round - not on fixing a problem. Again, in general, you will not fix a player in a game - players gain experience through games but become better players by processing that experience outside games. Obviously, minor points of knowledge are fine, but expecting someone to change their first reaction to a complicated, stressful situation after you criticize their choice the very next round is ridiculous.

It's better to do something stupid as a team than to do something genius as a fractured mess. Committing to something and hitting a timing (even if the whole play is fundamentally flawed) is more likely to work than letting your team 'pug it out' and do whatever with no actual plan in mind

If you're likely to lose a round, such as a save, then you should do something unexpected to try getting some sort of victory out of it. Generally, you can force pistols while not doing any damage to your economy (keep $2000 on 2 round loss bonus, e.g.) then rush an area. You can mouse over the round loss bonus to see how much money you get off a loss. CT can force buy rifles so long as they have $3600 (rifle and kevlar), and T's can force buy rifle if they have $3700 (rifle and kevlar + helmet). $4000-4400 is fair for a force buy with ~half util. This means that for round loss streaks:
- 0 Loss bonus - ~3000 remaining cash will allow a buy next round
- 1 Loss bonus - ~2500 will allow a buy next round
- 2 Loss bonus - ~2000 will allow a buy next round - this is a standard breakpoint for buys
- 3 Loss bonus - ~1500 will allow a buy next round
- 4 Loss bonus - ~1000 will allow a buy next round
The above noted buy thresholds are NOT the amounts needed to guarantee a full buy. These merely guarantee rifle + armor and possibly half util.

Winning the round is the best case scenario, but is not the only possible victory. Getting 3 kills means you've done economic damage (even if the opposing team wins, if they lose 3 players they lose economic strength because only 2 players survived and don't have to buy new guns - since only two can now buy guns with their excess money, if they were already low on money, then only two of the players that died are now able to get a full buy, e.g.). You might also get only one or two kills, but saving a gun can be a huge boost to your economy, too.

An advanced, but valuable, aspect of the economy is keeping track of your opponents buy. This is easy enough at the beginning of the game - T's lose pistol round but get plant? They will almost certainly force. If a team doesn't force second round, they will almost certainly have rifles on round 3. These are common, and knowing them is valuable, but not uncommon.

More notable is tracking your opponents buy situation in the later rounds. This is much more complex to keep track of because of the numerous other parts of the game that need to be managed, but understanding when the opponent will likely have to play a save round or have an otherwise compromised buy means you have a tangible advantage that you may be able to take advantage of to guarantee an extra round.

This can also be a part of the game where comebacks are made. It's not uncommon for a close game to find one team with a full buy after a streak of round wins. However, each of those round wins left them with only one or two players alive. This means their economy has gradually lost strength, and they will have to save if they lose this round. If their opponent manages to pull a win despite playing a save round with only pistols, this can be a huge swing, similar to the initial pistol rounds.

Another case to be aware of is the potential for extreme agression on save rounds from your opponent. They don't have much, if anything, to lose by attempting a play that can catch you off guard with extreme aggression. They were probably going to lose anyway, so rushes become a much stronger strategy when there is little to no risk but with the possible reward of a complete victory (round win). Playing a save round with a generic default will almost never work because even getting trades with a pistol against a rifle can be hard.

CS is a game of betting where you get the chance to influence the chances. You cannot win every gunfight, and it's impossible to guarantee something 100%. Skilled players minimize the chances of their opponents winning, and maximize their own. Where are general places where my team can maximize our chances?
- trading: players should position themselves near each other in order to trade if one of them gets killed. In a team context, this is the first thing that should be focused if you are having negative results. If your team is having extremely swingy games where you dominate one moment then fall apart the next, I suggest checking if you are positioning properly in order to trade for each other.
- afterplants: playing for more kills after you get site is not always a good play. While it can be extremely strong to take more control (like church on b inferno) it is not always necessary, and might even be risking more than it's worth. In general, you want to play afterplants in extremely trade-able positions. If one of your teammates can be killed without someone able to swing and trade, one or more of your players was out of position.
- if your chances of winning are already near zero, then do something unexpected and risky. If you are probably going to lose anyway, then doing something that seems stupid might be the best play because it maximizes your reward without actually lowering the chances of succeeding. If you are likely to win, minimize anything that could lessen that chance - don't change anything that doesn't need changing.
- Saving is a valid, and valuable, strategy for maximizing your chances into the next round. Your economy is more important than a bit of boredom.

A default is called a default for a reason. It is the general strategy a team should use the majority of the time.

Defaulting is ***NOT*** playing for picks. Getting picks is a natural result of most defaults, but the end goal of a default is not to get kills - it is to get map control. Why do you want map control? If you have map control, then you know where opposing players are - and are not. This is why banana control on inferno is so important. If CT's have banana control, then T's can only go A or try to take banana control. If they try to take banana control, then you have a huge early warning for CT's to rotate to B. If T's have banana control, then they control where they can go.

Taking map control will generally result in kills because you are contesting important parts of the map. Because of this, both teams will often want to take control of the same areas. Mid control on mirage, for example, or water on overpass, is important for both teams to have control over. These are the areas which allow for rotations between sites, and can mean T's have the option to attack either site, or CT's can prevent T's from attacking the site they aren't near without a super long rotate that necessitates a push through a risky chokepoint. Kills happen because you want to control what the other team can do - not because you are solely playing to get a kill.

It can be just as successful to take an area of the map and simply hold it, ensuring the opposing team cannot use that area to get an advantage in the round, even if you gain no kills from it. On overpass, holding long can be extremely valuable because A is much harder to hold from an attack that comes from both bath AND long. In the same way, a retake with players coming from bank, garbage, and/or long, and/or bath will be much stronger. Do you necessarily need to hold an area for the whole round? No. But taking and holding space is a fundamental part of CS, and sets your team up for winning because it provides information.

A general way to set up a default is to determine which areas of the map are most important to you on a per round basis and call for your team to take map control there. One such default call on overpass might be:
- take water control
- take bath control
- hold monster

You can work with your team to have a shorter way to call such defaults. This is a general way which is easily understandable even when your team has not played together much. Be aware that some players will misconstrue a call to take control of an area as a call for a team to execute onto a site from that area. You are not required to use the map control you have - you simply need to guarantee you have options available that can give you the best chances of winning.

Taking control of an area should generally have two or more players. It is hard to guarantee control of an area without, at the least, a player to trade for a kill. If you bet on players getting control of an area alone too much, eventually it will bite you. Can you do it? Absolutely. Will it always work out? Of course not.

Holding an area focuses mostly on denying information and map control to opponents who may play aggressively for more information. Think of players who will aggressively peek or rush into monster after only 20-30 seconds of quiet on B site, or when contact is made in bath (often players will want to 'push and pull' map control by trying to take map control somewhere if contact is made on the other side of the map). Not holding areas like this can be the reason why a whole team is suddenly on the site you are trying to take, without any other 'reason' for them to all be there - someone pushed deep apartments on mirage, for example, and commed that nobody was B. They peeked mid and saw nobody. Obviously the majority of your team is prepping to go out A or they're trading pokemon cards in palace. There is little other reason for a team to have so little map control.

You may have noticed that the above call doesn't actually manage all the avenues of aggression on overpass that a CT might have - pushing long is a valid and often strong play. Players and the areas they can control are finite resources, and the number of places they can show presence and gain control over are limited in the same way. If you want to guarantee certain areas (so that later in the round you can take advantage of those areas), you have to take educated risks which may result in losing to a timing from these parts of the map which you decided not to hold. This is a natural result from the statistical chances aspect of CS. The best way to manage this is to commit some of your resources from more important areas to these (thereby weakening your ability to gain those areas) or to learn from your opponents tendencies over the course of a match (or, if you want to win badly enough, by watching their games on that map).

- Change the pace of play
If your team is constantly super aggressive, then switching to a slower playstyle may bait out utility for free for a round or two. If your team is constantly defaulting in a slow manner, a quick rush or contact explode may surprise the enemy team and catch them off guard, giving you an advantageous position.

What is contact explode?
Slowly and methodically walking up while clearing angles. When a player makes first contact - no matter if they win the fight, lose the fight, or the engagement is broken, then the entire team 'explodes' into action to take the site.

- Your team is consistently losing gunfights
If the opposing team is more mechanically skilled, the only thing you can really do is to attempt to use teamwork to beat their mechanics. This is first and foremost determined by your team trading kills with theirs. On T side, you have the advantage of pulling all 5 of your players together to take a single site. This will mean an advantage when trying to take fights against a CT side that will usually be split between both sites and must rotate.
- Your opponent is conditioned to expect a certain tactic over multiple rounds, and expects your team to carry out that same tactic once again
If you condition (force your opponent to expect a certain action) your opponent, then you can take advantage of that conditioning to make a play. If you constantly take quick control of specific areas, opponents might not expect you to suddenly take a different area.

At the end of the day, CS is about clicking heads. If your team is getting beaten in their gunfights consistently, it's going to be much harder to win. If they have won so many gunfights that they are confidently taking space so much so that you can't even execute on a site where those players that are constantly winning play, then the only thing you can do is to set up a trap with multiple players where you can force a trade after that (or those) players get a kill. Namely, bring multiple players to deal with that player and try to guarantee a trade. From there, the best you can do is to continue the round, though naturally committing so many resources to dealing with one player means your map control will be fragmented.

Another method is to default - for about half the round. Ensure you have map presence - where the opposing team knows you were in a certain area for long enough to contest it, and have to worry about your team potentially having control there if they choose to agress (often you will see players throw a flash as they leave an area, and this is part of the reason that allows that decision to make sense) -

Take a site as a team, set up a specific play, pretty much anything.

An execute can, technically, be built for any area of the map. It's not commonly talked about, but defining an execute for important areas of the map may be important for your team. This could include such areas as banana on inferno, mid on ancient, mid on mirage, etc. In general, however, executes are built for site takes.
The main points to focus on for site takes are how you can use util. Smokes can block off site lines, and molotovs can empty an area for a short period. You will want to find the most common angles the CT side can peek you from, and figure out how to smoke them. There is a reason overpass B heaven is almost always smoked, or stairs and jungle on mirage A, or CT on inferno B. After that, molotovs can be used to deny valuable parts of the site. Using a molotov to move a CT off new box on inferno B, or toxic or the headangle from pit on overpass B are extremely valuable uses.
Use flashes the prep the way for your team. Without getting a full flash, one of the best cases you can get from a flash is to break CT pre-aim because they have to either take cover or move their crosshair to avoid the flash. Assuming proper timing (which simply comes from practice with your team) then your players should have a noticeable advantage against anyone who gets flashed.

Water control on overpass is a great example of an area that allows you to have strong control over a site execute, because one player can smoke heaven, molly toxic or pit headangle, then double flash site while one or more players waits on short and one or more players waits in monster for your flashes to rush out. The monster players can go out before the flashes if someone flashes monster first, because you can easily throw flashes onto b site from water that do not flash the monster players.

In general:
1. Smoke off areas that can provide valuable sightlines for CT
2. molly off areas that are strong and usually have a player - but don't provide a strong avenue for players to push in for a retake
3. flash before your team goes in to break CT pre-aim

If you have managed to track your opponent's economy well enough to get a read on a save round (or even a compromised buy such as a half buy where only a few players will have something stronger than pistols) then this is an ideal time not to play a default, but to make an aggressive, targeted play. This can be a site execute, or even a rush. Rushing with rifles can be startlingly effective because it is rare for CT's to stack a certain area, an even if they do, they have to get lucky (or have the hardest read) to be in the area you're going.

Defaulting when you know your opponent is on a save round will naturally be weaker (but not unplayable, of course - defaulting doesn't stop working just because your opponent might have some minor advantages that weaken aspects of a default) because there are fewer players available to trade against sneaky plays. This means there is more chance of one player on a default getting caught by an unlucky timing or a tricky play while in a position where a teammate may not be able to trade properly, or even get beaten by a second opponent swinging as part of a trap play.

Note - A trap play is not necessarily defined, but I am using it to imagine a play where CT's, for example, might play deeper on site than normal and allow T's to take space while waiting in a rarely cleared angle or otherwise surprising off-angle that may allow a higher chance of winning a gunfight, despite a disadvantage.

If you can keep track of your opponent's economy well, then you will have a better idea of what their options are, and what you can do to counter or take advantage of those options. Rushes or executes, plays which tend to group all of your team's firepower in one area to minimize the opponent's ability to react, will be stronger than normal against weaker buys because opponent team's retakes will be even weaker than normal. Additionally, the initial resistance on the site will often be weaker - especially if they are using pistols or SMG's.

In fact, it may be argued that CT's shouldn't even play sites on save rounds, because there is almost no possibility of winning against a well-played T side execute or rush. Instead, it may be more effective for CT's to attempt a rush of their own which can catch a lurking player or a defaulting player off guard.

CS is played by 5 people, and unless there is a huge disparity in skill (and even then) it is incredibly hard for a single player to reliably win a game on his own. There is one fundamental action that all teams *must* have as a basic aspect of their play in order to find success, and that is trading. Even comms are less important than this, because you can at least have your teams players stick to each other closely enough to trade even if they aren't talking to each other. This is actually a valid way to train this ability in your team - tell each other to 'buddy up' and never be far away from a teammate. This isn't ideal for a game you absolutely want to win, but going into a game without the focus on winning - but rather improving - will naturally help you win more in the long run. Focus on parts of your teamplay that you think need work. Trading for each other, calling for a flash or flashing for your teammate, talking about plays you can make together, etc.

After you've learned how to trade for each other, learn how to communicate. Focus first on informing your team where enemies are located. There are only 5 people on a csgo team. Spotting even one player accounts for 20% of their team. If your team doesn't get that information, then it's useless, and you are actively lessening your teams chances to win. Communicate where your opponent is. This is something IGL's will need to work with their teammates on. This is especially important for lurk players, who can gain information or take map space without the other team knowing they are there at all.

Next, focus on communicating plays with each other. Especially on CT side, the biggest factors your team can do to gain an advantage against T's are to coordinate a play. This can be flashing for each other on a long peek, or going aggressive into something like inferno apartments with appropriate spacing to trade for each other.

There are an infinite amount of possible ways to play as a team, but these are the most fundamental parts needed to build toward being a successful team. They are simple, but this guide is aimed at those who are new to playing in a team.

- Be positive. Seriously. Lift your team up. Make sure they don't turn negative. Make sure they can play their best.
- Comm important information. Are you dead? Make calls for your teammates who are busy in a gunfight. It's very hard to make a position call while in the middle of trying to get a headshot on a map that you rarely get a chance to play. If you are dead, telling your team where your teammate spotted or is fighting an enemy is valuable. Telling your team that a previously called enemy is dead is valuable - knowing they don't need to worry about that space anymore means they can focus on other places that opponents are likely to be.
- Don't try to micromanage individual plays. Giving information is fine, but forcing a player to react to your plays is only going to delay how quickly they can respond to the round.
- Set your team up with utility. Don't be discouraged if you flash your team - figure out why they got flashed and figure out how to prevent that.
- Be confident. It doesn't matter if you call something dumb - your team just has to do it. Committing to something dumb is better than wasting the opportunities you have with arguing and uncertainty. Many advantages can be gained simply by having a better spawn than the other team and taking advantage of them.
- Learn from your mistakes. Don't be satisfied with a call that turned out poorly. Was it chance going badly, or was the play flawed on its own? Rushing monster on overpass while two players have AWPs is not a good call, for example, while losing a B site execute after ensuring enough map presence to minimize the possibility of a B stack is more down to small details than an issue with the call itself.
- Mix up your calls. Do the same thing as long as it works, but you don't have to do the same thing every time while it works. You can make something even stronger by mixing it up just enough that opponents refuse to adapt to what is working for you so well.

Definitely not. Play the areas you can have the most impact on the game from. It will generally be easier to get your team to work together if you, who holds all of the ideas, are running the utilities which allow those ideas to work best, but it's not absolutely required. You can just as effectively lead the team by playing an entry role, awp role, or any other.

TinyElephant comments:
"Being the IGL doesnt mean you need to play the "worst" roles, instead you should be taking key info gathering roles, ie one of the two B players on inferno or Jump up/mid player on Vertigo. Information is the lifeblood of an IGL and you should play spots that help you gather that all important info."

Often the best place for the IGL to be is with the bulk of their team. This lets them react to information where their team can best respond to new information, and develop the round from there. Additionally, try to develop a *need* to communicate information in your teammates, especially those that are commonly on other parts of the map than yourself.

CS is a game of managing chance and statistics, even if it looks like an FPS game. This extends not only to the game you are in, but the games you will play in the future, as well. Entering a game with the intent to win is fundamentally different from entering a game with the intent to improve. If you enter a game with the intent to win, all of your focus goes toward winning, and functionally removes your ability to take in information that may allow you to improve. You can only truly focus on one thing at a time - winning or improving. You can go back and view the demo later, hoping to improve there, of course. Every bit of improvement now will be more valuable for your winrate later than wins you gain now can ever be. Improvement in your skills compound over time, while winning only grants you a small bit of pleasure.