How to Rank Up Fast by Changing Your Playstyle

A personal approach and playstyle are among the many factors that impact your performance. Whether you prefer defensive roles, aggressive, or mixed ones, discovering and adapting a playstyle that fits you can lead to winning more matches in CS2 and any other competitive title.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the most popular CS2 playstyles, find out how they differ, and how to find yours.

What Are CS2 Playstyles And How Many Of Them Are There

CS2 playstyles are sets of strategic patterns players follow during a match. Sticking to a playstyle is not a priority if you are just a gamer playing casually with buddies. However, developing a playstyle is necessary to win more, rank up, and beat the best. We will go over six common playstyles you can spot on the servers and a bonus one for funsies:

• Aggressive
• Support
• Lurking
• Passive
• Sniping
• Area control
• Bonus

Understanding playstyles will let you figure out which patterns work best for you personally, how to adapt to them, and how to benefit from them. Let’s begin!

Aggressive Playstyle

An aggressive playstyle will suit players who want to engage proactively in a face-to-face gunfight. This includes entry-fragging, clearing spots, initiating a site push, etc. You will risk your life more often than your teammates and make bold moves to create space and gain an advantage over opponents.

CS2 skins for players with Aggressive Playstyle:

It takes courage to initiate encounters and even more skill to get out alive with a job done, as you need to react quickly and have a precise and confident aim.

Although aggressive plays are effective in certain settings, they can also make you fall to counterattacks or ambushes. Players who adopt this style should learn to adapt to changing circumstances and coordinate their moves with support players.

Tip: Do your aim training routine regularly to speed up your reaction time, accuracy, and better flick shots precision. Learn to adapt and play in pairs with support players.

Passive Playstyle

Breeze in, breeze out. A passive playstyle involves a defensive approach, avoiding early and ill-conceived confrontations and waiting for opportunities to strike. Players who adopt this style often prioritize securing a round over top fragging.

Skins for players with Passive Playstyle:

Passive players defend a specific perimeter rather than move around the map seeking ways to get in trouble. This playstyle requires patience and effective positioning. Also, it’s an excellent strategy to approach eco and semi-buy rounds not for one player, but for a whole team.

Sometimes, a newcomer player might develop a “passive” playstyle due to fear of losing gunfights and other reasons. They tend to step aside and make minimal impact. However, we should distinguish a lack of courage and experience with well-thought defensive moves.

Support Playstyle

Playing CS2 as a support, you have to assist teammates, especially the entry-fragger, by using your utility and setting up the kills. Players with a support playstyle usually stay behind their team and provide cover with fire or utility such as smoke and flash grenades to help their team advance onto a site and also trade the fallen teammates.

CS2 skins for players with Support Playstyle:

Support playstyle is team-based and includes pairing up your efforts with entry-fraggers on the T side and defender players on the CT side to yield results.

Tip: If you want to become the best support player, get ready to spend hours learning utility lineups and coming up with new ones.

Sniping Playstyle

One shot, one kill. A sniping playstyle involves using long-range rifles to take out enemies from a distance. Usually, there is one designated sniper on a team, but other players may occasionally take on this role as secondary AWPers.

CS2 skins for players with Sniping Playstyle:

Sniper players focus on long-range combat taking out enemies from a distance with AWP which is ineffective in close-range combat (although some highlights by s1mple can prove us wrong). Before striking, snipers are likely to hold back and observe what’s happening on the map before engaging enemies.

Tip: Understanding the fundamentals of positioning and knowing when and how to reposition is key to mastering this role. Remember to practice your aim with other rifles as well, and be patient and methodical in your approach to combat.

Lurking Playstyle

A playstyle for natural-born troublemakers, lurking means roaming around the map to gather info and giving a hard time to the enemy team by striking when they expect the least. It is a flexible role that requires trigger discipline and learning tactics such as sneaking, flanking, and ambushing.

CS2 skins for players with Lurking Playstyle:

Lurkers try timing and outmaneuvering opponents to take control of the map. They can listen and communicate sound cues, hold an angle, or attack “out of nowhere” when in position. If you want to lurk for your team, you will cut off rotations on the T side and ambush the attackers while on the CT side.

Tip: Learn to be unpredictable. If you successfully strike the enemy team from the back once, they will expect you to do it again, so don’t play the same two rounds in a row. Train map awareness, give clear comms, and coordinate your moves with the team.

Bonus! The Infamous Run-and-Gun

Catch both enemies and teammates off guard. With the run-and-gun playstyle, you will rush aggressively through the map blasting fire from your Negev or an SMG. No strategy, no stealth – it’s just you, Negev, and disappointed teammates.

CS2 skins for Run-and-Gun Playstyle:

This is a cringy playstyle to joke around and nothing more. Some players do this when they’ve got nothing to lose because the game is unwinnable (or unlosable), or just to have fun. Here’s a famous clip of a CS2 player somehow successfully using the run-and-gun strategy: video here.

The Secrets of Developing A Playstyle

The process of defining a playstyle might seem frustrating at first, but you will get there with time. We’ve also prepared some tips to help out with developing your playstyle:

• VOD reviews: rewatching your demos is a perfect place to start. Analyze your plays to figure out how you play most of the time, how you make decisions, and what mistakes you make. Understand how you cooperate with your team, and see if you adapt to what the enemy team is doing. Then, conclude and work on that.
• Watch pros play: no one can give you a better example of “how to” than professional players. Hop on Twitch to watch official matches or players streaming. We can guarantee that analyzing their playstyles and taking something from them will make you a better player.
• Try new things: for example, if you don’t have much success playing aggressively, slow things down and try other playstyles. Also, switching between playstyles at the beginning of your CS2 journey will help you not only decide what suits you best but also understand how to cooperate with teammates of different roles and playstyles.

Every player is unique, including you. So, if you have already tried out every mentioned playstyle and nothing felt right, there is still a solution: mix different playstyles, moves, and strategies to create your own unique playstyle. After all, games were made for you to enjoy playing them how you like it. Good luck!

To Wrap Up!

In summary, you can develop, adopt and mix many different CS2 playstyles, each of which has its pros and cons. Some players may prefer a more aggressive approach, while others may favor a more defensive strategy.

Ultimately, the best playstyle would be the one that works most for the individual player and helps them get their job done in the game. The next time you hop into a match, take a moment to consider which playstyle is the best fit for you and get ready to dominate the server.

But before that, explore our blog for articles about CS2 skins, guides, and esports news.