Defending the A Site on Inferno has to do a lot with fine-tuning the coordination between the Apps to Balcony/Pit player and the second A player, with some help from the Arch and Library rotator.

Unlike on B where you can contest Banana, winning which can solve a lot of problems, A is wider and provides a lot of different options for the Terrorists to execute it.

In this article, we’ll talk in-depth about how you should play as the Apps to Balcony/Pit player and the strategies and setups related to it.

Playing Apps and some early-round setups

Apartment is a key area, the control of which lies with the Counter-Terrorists primarily in the beginning since CTs reach there first. The player that will go on to play Balcony or Pit has to play Apps in the early round.

Your main goal as an Apps player early is to discourage any rushes from the Apartments side, especially early on in the round. Apps is at the periphery of the map, hence an Apps rush means it isolates you and your A player, and the rotator will likely be fumbling with his grenades for Banana control over at B.

Also, it’s kind of a funnel. Once the Ts get out from Apps and into A, killing you in the process (since it’s early round, you were in the Apps area, not ready for the push in Pit), there’s no stopping them since they’ve already poured into the huge area of Mini Pit and Pit and that general area.

This is not a problem in Mid. Mid rushes can be stopped at any point in time, just molly or double molly A Short, and keep your Arch player/Library player attentive. Or the other way around, molly top of A Long so they can’t pour into CT Spawn, and maintain a bunch of safe angles for Short, like that from Pit.

Coming back to Apps, yeah, it’s convenient to discourage early rushes. Don’t let your teammates be caught off guard with their default nades in their hands. A simple way to do it is to molly or smoke off this hallway at roughly 1:40. I like to smoke that angle, not only because anyone walking through the smoke will be grayscreened with their body exposed, but also because it gives your Short A player leeway to hang out in Window room, keeping an eye out for Alt Mid.

If your team is doing a more time-consuming setup like boosting on the roof of Porch or climbing all the way to the plants above and between Balcony and Porch, then you need to buy them some time. Molly and then smoke is a good combo for that. If your team is playing 3B, then doing the molly and smoke combo is possible, but don’t do it all the time, or else it’ll become a tell-tale sign of your CT setup.

Here’s another smoke that you can use to create a one-way. I’ve seen Ax1Le use it to both success and demise. Your back is turned to Window Room, so there’s a chance that you can be shot in the back, or worse, stabbed.

You can play Apps from Boiler room as well. You can play alone at the bottom of Boiler room and throw a molly, or if the Ts have been overenthusiastic in Apps, boost over your Short A teammate. Hopefully, I just reminded you of the vintage CS:GO strats, with kennyS absolutely obliterating a boosted Guardian.

There are some good wallbangs that you should try out. Here’s one for the bottom of Stairs, at the far entrance of Apps.

If you’ve mollied or smoked off Halls, there’s a good chance someone might be waiting for it to clear at the bottom of Stairs. This wallbang will get some easy damage on the Ts.

Here’s another useful wallbang. Shooting this window will do damage to someone in the Window Room, hopefully.

Spamming here can also cover the sounds and buy you some time for your A players to set up, like a CT boosting another CT on top of Porch while you wallbang Window Room.

Next is the final important piece of playing Apps early solo. This is a grenade lineup that you should throw at roughly 1:40, and it will damage anyone trying to boost into the Window Room.

Let’s talk about some double-man setups in Apps. If the Ts have consistently shown presence and activity in Apps, then you can bring your Short A player into Apps and do a two-player setup. One player can hold the Stairs angle of Apps, and the other player can hold the Window Room angle. This setup is useful if the Ts have done their own two-man double peek to trade off the Apps player.

There are some aggressive positions you two can hold as well. You can walk to the end of the Hall. One player can hold the bottom of Stairs and the other the entrance to Window Room. Trades become easier as well in this setup, unless the Ts know about it and are doing their own double peek. Supporting each other when the Ts double peek is impossible since you have your back turned to the other T. As for the Ts, both of them have the CTs in front of them. Hence, this aggressive setup should only be done once or twice in a half.

Read the full guide on https://tips.gg/article/mastering-apps-balcony-pit-on-a-site-of-inferno/