Blitz

The economy

There is no buy menu. You cannot forget to buy, and you cannot get it wrong. What you can do is decide what matters to you — and the money decides how much of it you get.

Why a retake mode has an economy at all

Ordinary retakes hand out a rifle every round. That is right for a warm-up and wrong the moment the result is worth a rating: with free rifles there is nothing to play for beyond the round in front of you, no reason to save, and no such thing as a bad buy.

So this mode keeps money between rounds. It is hidden — the allocator spends it for you, along the preferences you set on your loadout page. What you notice is that some rounds you have an AK and a full bag, and some rounds you have an MP9 and one flash, and that this follows from how the last few rounds went.

What a round pays

$800Starting moneyBoth pistol rounds

$3,250Round win

$200SurvivedOn top of the round

$600DefusedCT

$600Bomb explodedT

$16,000Carry limit

Losing pays, and pays more the longer it goes on

Without a ladder, a team that drops two rounds never buys again and the match is decided by round three. This is the mechanism that lets a losing team come back with a full buy — which is what makes saving a decision rather than a formality.

1$1,400
2$1,900
3$2,400
4$2,900
5+$3,400

Kills

$300 rifle$100 sniper$600 smg$900 shotgun$300 pistol$1,500 knife

The scale is CS’s own, so it reads as familiar: an SMG kill pays double a rifle kill, which is what makes a half buy a real choice rather than a punishment.

What kind of round it is

Decided from your team’s average money, not yours. A retake is won or lost together — one person with an AK in a team of MP9s is a lost round with an expensive corpse in it. The thresholds are derived from what a buy costs, not picked: a CT full buy is a rifle ($2,900) plus helmet ($1,000) plus a kit ($400) plus two flashes and a smoke.

Pistol

Round 1 and 13

Money is reset. Nobody has a rifle and nobody is meant to.

Eco

Under $2,200

Saving, whether you meant to or not. Pistols and whatever utility fits.

Half buy

$2,200 – $5,200

An SMG, armour, a grenade or two. SMG kills pay 600, so this can fund the next round.

Full buy

$5,200+

Rifle, armour, kit and a usable bag of utility.

Utility is not symmetrical

A retake starts with the bomb already down. Terrorists are holding a site they have taken; Counter-Terrorists are coming to take it back. The side that has to break a hold carries the tools for it, and the side that has to stall carries the tools for that. Nobody carries more than 4 grenades.

Terrorists — holding

Smoke$300
Molotov$400
Flashbang$200
HE Grenadenone

Counter-Terrorists — retaking

Flashbang$200
Smoke$300
HE Grenade$300
Incendiary$600

Terrorists carry no HE. On a site the size of a retake, an HE thrown onto a defended plant is close to free damage on people who cannot leave it — every round opened the same way, so it is gone.

The order your money is spent in

PrimaryYour preference for this round type. If you cannot afford it, you drop a tier rather than to nothing.
SidearmThe default pistol is free and always there. A preferred one is a purchase.
ArmourHelmet if it fits, vest if not. A player with four grenades and no vest loses the duel that would have let them throw one.
Kit and utilityThis is the one you control. See below.

Kit or utility — you choose

A defuse kit is ten seconds of the round. When money is tight you cannot have both, so your loadout page decides which goes first. Someone who would rather hold two flashes and let a team-mate carry the kit can say so.

Kit first

$3,600 on a half buy

MP9 + helmet
Defuse kit
Flashbang, Flashbang, Smoke

Utility first

$3,600 on a half buy

MP9 + helmet
No defuse kit
Flashbang, Flashbang, Smoke, HE Grenade

Roles, and who gets the AWP

Four roles, one per player, and no two players on a team may take the same one — two entries is not a plan. A retake is four seconds of contact between two or three people, so the seven roles a five-man match needs describe jobs that do not exist here.

entrysupportsniperanchor

The AWP and the SSG 08 belong to the sniper. One AWP in a 3v3 retake decides the round on its own, so it is attached to a role somebody has to claim rather than to whoever set the preference first. Ask for one without the role and you get your fallback rifle instead.

Eight rounds, worked through

One Counter-Terrorist who prefers the M4A1-S, two flashes, a smoke and an HE, and takes the kit before utility. Four losses, two wins, a loss and a win.

Round	Type	Had	Bought	Armour	Kit	Utility	Left
1	pistol	$800	pistol only	kevlar	—	0	$150	L
2	eco	$1,550	pistol only	helmet	yes	0	$150	L
3	eco	$2,050	pistol only	helmet	yes	2	$250	L
4	half	$2,650	MP9	helmet	yes	0	$0	L
5	half	$2,900	MP9	helmet	yes	1	$50	W
6	half	$3,600	MP9	helmet	yes	3	$250	W
7	half	$3,800	MP9	helmet	yes	4	$150	L
8	eco	$1,550	pistol only	helmet	yes	0	$150	W

Read the middle of it: three straight losses put them on an eco, the loss ladder brings them back to a half buy by round four, and the two wins after that fund a full buy. That swing is the whole point.

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Every number on this page is read from the same module the server runs, at build time. If the economy is tuned, this page changes with it.