At the beginning of every buy round, players purchase a gun, armor, and a variety of grenades including the highly explosive, or “h.e.”, grenade. When the h.e. grenade was included into the Counter-Strike weapon arsenal, the weapon’s initial intent was to mimic the results of real life grenade, giving players an additional opportunity to pick up frags aside from firing their guns. As the game evolved, players began to use h.e. grenades in synchronization with each other, exponentially increasing the effectiveness of the h.e. grenade. This is because a pair or more of grenades in a confined space is able to wipe out the entire opposition, whereas a lone grenade could not get the job done.

Over the past 3 years, offensive strategies have evolved into works of art full of misdirection, choreographed fakes, and lures to suck the defensive out of its comfort zone. This evolution in strategies almost effectively eliminated the usefulness of synchronized grenades. No longer can a pair of defensemen sit in an area with their h.e. grenade’s primed waiting for the offense to strike. As defenses began to over rotate and succumb to the “brains over brawn” offensive tactics, a new use for the h.e. grenade was born. Enter grenading for information.

Grenading for information is the act of tossing an h.e. grenade into an area of a map that will disclose the number of opponents in a select location via 3 distinct sounds. The first sound, and perhaps most thrilling pending the situation, is complete silence. If you toss a grenade in the correct location, and fail to hear a sound similar to a half-life model drowning underwater; congratulations, your area of the map is clear. The second sound (as depicted by this video) occurs when only 1 member of the opposition is in the h.e. grenade’s range. The third and most dangerous sound (as depicted by this video) occurs when 2 or more members of the opposition are in the h.e. grenade’s range.

Keep in mind there are only certain areas on a map where grenading for information is possible. In order to perform this trick, you must have a location that lacks an enclosed roof over the target area and contains a high enough ceiling near the target area to successfully toss the h.e. grenade. Also, be sure to only throw h.e. grenades into the target area. Should you accidentally throw a flashbang or smoke grenade, expect repercussions from the match officials as those grenades have the potential to disrupt game play rather than give you useful information.

The following page contains a list of common areas to grenade for information.