The Weekly Team Dignitas Map Guide: Cache

This week we are going to explore a range of strategies and set-ups you can employ with your team on the map Cache for the both the Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist sides. Due to Cache’s wide open design, it's highly popular in PUGs for lending itself to a loose and aim-heavy game style. This also applies in team-based play, with Counter-Terrorist aggression being possible across the map. All the Molotovs, smokes and flashes required for these strategies will be shown throughout the article in videos.

The Counter-Terrorist Side

On the pistol round, teams can adopt a range of Terrorist tactics, from simple Squeaky and B Main rushes to technical A Site and Middle executes. As such, doing something aggressive on the Counter-Terrorist pistol can greatly help you work out where the Terrorists might be going. I suggest four players buy armour and the weakest pistol player buys a smoke and kit. This player goes to Car and plays in a retake A position, looking to luckily kill a Terrorist crossing to the Site from Highway or Main. One player with armour goes to Connector and the final three players head towards B. If there isn’t a B rush, they should push together and take control of Sun Room, before leaving one player there and rotating where needed. Alternatively, you could have two armoured players head towards B, two armoured players rush towards A Main via the Forklift and the last player buys a kit and two flashes. He uses the demonstrated popflash to flash his teammates into Main and rotates to a more central position on the map, such as Connector. Whichever strategy you employ is down to personal preference and after executing either push, you simply play out the round as normal, capitalising on your information.

When playing the Counter-Terrorist anti-eco rounds, as stressed in every other map guide, it is important the Counter-Terrorists keep close together allowing for trade kills while also keeping the Terrorists at range to avoid getting run over by their pistols. We recommend two players head towards the B Site. They should play passively on the site, saving their utility for defending against a potential execute. It is essential that these players keep their rifles out in the opening twenty seconds of the round, due to the high risk of getting rushed. The final three players should head towards Middle, with one player in Connector focusing on Middle and the two other players primarily focusing on A. One of these players should be playing on the Catwalk above the ladder and the other around Whitebox. If help is needed in Middle, the Whitebox player can help and if the Terrorists push A, then the Catwalk player can delay the bomb plant with a Molotov. This set-up prevents a Counter-Terrorist being isolated on the A bombsite and rushed down, which would give the Terrorists a man advantage, a rifle, and a chance at winning the round with the bomb planted.

The defining feature of Cache’s Counter-Terrorist side is the ability to easily seize aggressive positions across the map in order to gain both map control and information. This is especially important if the Terrorist side take control of areas of the map which limit Counter-Terrorist information, such as Checkers or Middle. Almost like a game of chess, your team should decide to take control of a different part of the map to limit the Terrorists' information elsewhere. For example, if the Terrorists push Middle, your team might aggressively push and take control of B Main. If the Terrorists take control of Checkers, you might popflash a player into A Main to see if there are any Terrorists there. High level teams will also need to prevent this from being predictable by varying the response. This can be done, by pushing different areas of the map every time the Terrorists take the same area of control, or by varying the time between the stimulus (the Terrorists taking control) and your reaction (your team taking map control elsewhere). For example, if initially you always push A Main immediately after losing Middle, you might want to wait twenty seconds and regroup before re-aggressing Middle to catch the Terrorists off, as you have “taught” them to expect a certain response from you.

Ideally this aggression should have been pre-planned and practiced, but high skill teams can even push simply off of a popflash or two. Your Counter-Terrorist set-ups on gun rounds should directly feed into the aggression that you wish to attempt that round. For example, if you want to boost in Middle later into the round or directly fight Terrorist for Middle control, playing a 1-3-1 setup with an AWP on either bombsite and three riflers in Middle is ideal. Two riflers can play an aggressive close Middle, so that they are able to boost on a moment’s notice off of information (for example, lots of steps in A Main) while the other rifler can play further back towards Whitebox.

Another common set-up is to have your star player on A, two players on B who play around holding Checkers control and the final two players in Middle. An AWP can hold passively in Middle around Whitebox and Connector, while the other player can play in the Vent with a rifle. By having three players close to B, this allows the two players on B to be aggressive towards Sun Room while knowing that if they die, there will be at least one, if not two, players who can quickly rotate to defend against likely Terrorist counter-aggression. A similar mentality can be applied to A Main aggression, where an AWP is left to hold B alone from around Checkers, one player heads towards Middle with an AWP and holds Garage. Finally, the other three players head towards A, performing the same A push discussed during the pistol round strategies. Again, if the aggressive A players die during the push, then you will already have players in position to deal with Terrorist counter-aggression. However, if either of these pushes are successful, they will either yield your team with opening kills in important gun rounds or good information about where the Terrorists are, both of which are invaluable if you wish to win Counter-Terrorist gun rounds.

The Terrorist Side

On the pistol round, it is very common for the Counter-Terrorists to get aggressive towards the B side of the map, while playing a retake set-up on the A Bombsite. Therefore, playing a simple default at the start of the pistol round tends to lead to your team getting an opening kill by punishing Counter-Terrorist aggression, especially if you are a high skill team. I would suggest having two players head towards B Main and hold for a push, either by stacking on each other's head on an off-angle, or by playing one player close in T Spawn as bait and another in Useless who peeks off of their teammate’s contact. Your team’s weakest pistol player can buy a smoke and two flashes before heading towards Middle and watching for pushes from an off-angle, while another player can head towards A Main. They can play passively spotting for Counter-Terrorists pushing A Main, while checking boost every couple of seconds. The final player can head towards Squeaky being as quiet as possible. If your team gets kills in this phase, you can either play off them and quickly push the site you got the kills on or you can wait out the Counter-Terrorists and group up towards Squeaky late round. With four players in Squeaky, your support can throw the smoke and flashes shown, allowing your team to burst out of Squeaky and rush the A bombsite.

When playing anti-eco rounds on the Terrorist side, it’s easiest to start off in a simple default with one player holding B from T Spawn, one player holding Middle from Useless, one player holding Boost from on top of the white van, one player holding A Main passively and the final player holding Door passively. It’s very likely that the Counter-Terrorists will try an unusual push to try and catch your team off-guard in the opening moments of the round. If you get kills in the default, keep holding until the Counter-Terrorists stop pushing, you can then simply rush out A Main together. Importantly, don’t smoke Highway, as this gives the Counter-Terrorists a chance to use the smoke to their advantage and get irritating kills. Alternatively, if you get no kills, you can take Middle control using the “CrissCross Smokes” with two SMGs from Garage and a rifle on top of Boost. When you have Middle control, the player on Boost can hold the smokes while the two Middle players go through the Vents to B. The final player can hold in B Main with the bomb and wait for the player who threw the Molotov for Vent to join him. They simply smoke CT, Molotov Headshot and push B at the same time as the Middle players push Vent.

On the Terrorist side of Cache, much like the Counter-Terrorist side, map control is essential for limiting the information that the Counter-Terrorists have. A good default to run on the Terrorist side is to have your entry fragger head towards B Main and throw the “B Pressure Nades” which greatly restricts Counter-Terrorist vision around B and would allow you to take Checkers control. Your AWPer can head towards Middle and peek if he has a good spawn or go up onto the Boost. A second player can occupy whichever role the AWPer doesn’t take and can be aggressive over Boost if the AWPer peeks Middle. One player simply heads towards A Main and can hold it however he likes. He can crouch behind the box if he wants to be aggressive and avoid flashbangs or he can play at the back of A Main if he has an AWP. Finally, your team’s star player should be left to go towards door and do whatever he wants. Ideally, he should irritate the players on A and around Highway by looking to pick off overly zealous Counter-Terrorists, but he can also simply jump across the doorway to spot and spam the door in between to be a nuisance. This player should also routinely throw a smoke for Connector from T Spawn to limit Counter-Terrorist vision.

One important strategy that should be regularly run on your Terrorist gun rounds is taking Middle control. Some teams will even build the entirety of their Terrorist side game plan around doing so. There are three different approaches to doing so. First, there is throwing the previously mentioned “CrissCross Smokes”.  These smokes offer the advantage of being quick and easy to do, thus working well for spontaneous Mid to B splits or situations where you are low on utility and numbers. However, they do not give you control of the entirety of Middle.

Second, you can take Middle control right at the start of the round using the two smokes from T Spawn. This take can set you up in a very favourably default, with three players rushing out of Garage using simple popflashes or delaying it a second by having two players push out Garage and the third player going over Boost. The final two players should position themselves on opposite sides of the map waiting for Counter-Terrorist reactions, such as pushing A Main or pushing B. If the Counter-Terrorists are being predictable, you could even gamble and place both of these “lurkers” in the same position to guarantee the kill on the Counter-Terrorists as they react. However, this Mid take can also be risky, especially if the other team has strong close range guns, such as pistols or UMPs, because the Terrorists rushing out of Garage will often need to run through a smoke.

Finally, you can have a full-on Mid take for the middle of the round. Again, have one player go to each of the extremities of the map. They will also be required to throw some of the utility for this strategy. Unlike before, it is probably better to have two players go over Boost and one player come out of Garage a couple seconds later to trade frags. Once you have the map control, you can let your star players and AWPer play off this control in whatever way they wish to do so. The rest of the team should simply react accordingly and support them.

As a last note on the Terrorist side, set executes on to either bombsite are fairly uncommon, especially on gun rounds, due to how strong playing for picks and map control is on Cache. I personally would avoid it as much as possible, especially if you are a high skills team. However, knowing a few simple supportive nades for either bombsite will greatly improve your success rate when you do finally push a site in a round. Below I have included the most common of these nades for the A and B bombsites.

In Conclusion

When playing Cache, you should always be thinking about map control and vision. Your aim should be to always have more map control than the other team, as this will lead to picks and round wins. Focus on having perfect team play, rather than perfect executions, and this will give your stars the freedom to really shine on this map. Once again, down below I have included a playlist of all of the videos included in this article. Please share them with your teammates.

We hope you have enjoyed this week’s map guide for Cache and we hope to see you tune in next week for a guide on Train.

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