How CS:GO players can improve their game with new Scrimmage Maps

The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive devs introduced new Scrimmage Maps to their competitive matchmaking offerings to the game, giving players a valuable mode to play with.

CS:GO features legendary maps that have been around for years, but even pros and diehard players routinely find new angles and nade lineups throughout a location. While it’s fun to explore different maps, Ranked games aren’t the ideal place to try out new ideas or learn how a certain area work.

It’s because of this that the CS:GO community are very hopeful for the potential that Scrimmage Maps could bring to the long-standing game, especially in relation to new maps that may come out.

Scrimmage Maps are located to the right of the regular Competitive Matchmaking offerings.

In the July 31 update, Valve added maps in Ruby, Breach, and Seaside to the Scrimmage Maps offerings. Even though this playlist falls under the competitive matchmaking tab, its biggest draw is that games are unranked and a team composed of any skill-ranking can party up together.

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This makes playing the game a lot more forgiving for people who want to experiment or just learn a new map in a live setting instead of the stale environment of jumping into an offline practice session.

Popular CS:GO YouTuber TheWarOwl was rejoicing that the game’s developers implemented the feature.

New maps like Ruby can be overwhelming to learn without the right practice tool.

“Scrimmage allows players to try out new maps without the fear of deranking,” TheWarOwl said. “[The mode gives] new maps a chance to be accepted by the community.”

Since there are no penalties for losing or the like, TheWarOwl thinks that Scrimmage Maps will give the CS:GO community an avenue to “try out new strategies” with minimal risk of backlash from teammates.

Additionally, if Valve sees positive feedback for the Scrimmage playlist then the possibility of expanding the feature to include more traditional maps could benefit every player, from Silver to Global Elites.

“If I get really good at Mirage, Cache, Inferno and I rank up to Legendary Eagle,” TheWarOwl explained. “But then I want to learn Overpass, I’m going to be scared to queue for it because I won’t have the map knowledge for it.”

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This could lead people to shun out maps entirely simply because they don’t have an option to get meaningful practice in with unfamiliar terrain.

Scrimmage Maps might feature a few trolls in there for kicks, but as a whole it could be used as a helpful feature for the CS:GO community.