Dust 2 has been the most overwhelmingly popular map in CS GO history. If you search for a competitive game online with all maps filtered on, guess what you’re going to get? That’s right, sandy, gritty, fast-paced dust 2! You either love it or hate it, but there’s no doubt that it is a brilliantly designed map.
But what makes this map so darn popular among the counter-strike community? Well, in most CS:GO maps, there is usually a side (terrorists/counter-terrorists) that is dominant in the game. This is determined by the layout and the design of the different maps. This, as you can imagine, is a pretty negative aspect of the game as it can lead to some crazy, unfair comebacks like cloud9 in ESL one Cologne 2014.
The positive of playing on dust 2 is that there really is no side that is more dominant. The map is equally structured on both sides to make the game a fair and even match no matter what side you’re on. It is argued that the terrorist side on Dust 2 is slightly easier because of the many rushing and faking tactics that have been created. However, it is still debated that being a counter-terrorist is also just as easy because of the basic “defend the bombsites” tactic.
Dust 2 is made in the classic four-square map design that the CS developers are used to. Outside A long, A site, B site and Outside Tunnels/T-spawn are the four squares used as the broad sections, which results in medium-long range combat. The connectors, corridors and “mid” add close quarter combat. This leaves us with a perfect balance of ranges for engagements.
Players on pro teams are assigned to parts of the map to hold down key positions. Mid is the most important part of the map to hold, as most movement and tactics take place around mid in some way.
The fact that Dust 2 is probably the most balanced map in the game gives perfect reasoning for why it is played so often. It can be very repetitive at times, but it is excellent for learning basic CS:GO skills like jumps, movement, aim technique, callouts and flanking. Overall, Dust 2 gives a great, balanced welcome to CS:GO beginners as well as balanced, fast-paced fun for hard-core veterans.
Whether you hate it or love it, you can’t deny that Dust 2 is one of the most popular, well designed map in CS:GO history. Will any map surpass its supremacy in the future? I guess we’ll have to find out.
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