Among professional teams, one of the best maps to do a fake on is Inferno. Most of these fakes are often done inadvertently or done completely on “feel”. When I say “feel” I’m referring to that sense or understand that the opposing defense has been forced to rotate due to the pressure being put on the site being attacking. One way to work on this is simply watch HLTV demos of Inferno matches.



Fake banana, rush hallway

As for the more formal fake strategies are concerned, remember that on Inferno its best to attack the weaker defended banana bombsite. Here we have two offensive players pushing down the hallway with the goal of applying pressure and giving the presentation of five players instead of the actual two. Smokes again can aid in the masking of numbers and routing out AWP players guarding the site. If the two players can manage to kill one of the two defenders in that site, that’s an instant indication that a fake is ready. The two attackers in banana should fall back slightly, defending their advanced position.

Once a player in that far site dies, the Counter-Terrorist’s will instantly rotate the right side middle defender of the primary bombsite – it’s too risky for them to leave the far site to be defended by one player. Another side benefit is often the Hallway defender will come out of the halls and back off into the primary site, allowing him to get closer to the banana bombsite if more deaths occur over there.

Giving the defense time to make these rotations, 10 seconds at most, the offensive team can then execute a fake setup with a hard rush of the hallway. In our modified second screenshot we also boosted a player into window allowing him to provide cover in the middle.




Another axiom of faking is the needless deaths caused by the initial fake attackers can lose rounds. Taking or putting pressure on a site to force rotation is important, but the strategy can fall apart if the initial cost is too high. No team, not even the best in the world can afford to give up one or two players to an opposing team and still expect to win the round.

On Inferno, those initial players faking into the banana site must understand their role. Initially they create a distraction; once the fake is executed they must then harass the Counter-Terrorist’s that have been faked. Just rushing in once you have executed the faked does little to no good, even with the bomb planted. A Counter-Terrorist team with five versus three odds will still likely be able to regain the bombsite.