A map that has seen its fair share of changes over its lifespan, Ancient is a pugger’s dream. Whether you’re a sweaty stack with well-drilled defaults or a solo queue warrior looking for a competitive edge in your games, learning some basic utility on Ancient is a surefire way to increase your win percentage. With the help of a trusty NADR server, we took a look at a handful of interesting and useful util to get you started on your nade-throwing journey, in the latest in our Utility Secrets series.

Red Room Smoke

This is a wildly important smoke. It is, in fact, the single most important smoke on the entire map. As a terrorist, you should be throwing this every single round, without fail. This smoke denies a lot of Mid info for the CTs, and blocks a particularly brutal AWP line. You can use it to aid Mid takes, elicit slow Mid crawls, or simply as a default smoke for map control and conditioning. No matter the reason, it simply just should be thrown.

Whilst there is a range of instant spawn lineups for this smoke (perhaps we’ll show you in another Utility Secrets article…), today we’re going to show you an easy lineup so you always have a guaranteed Red Room smoke.

First, you want to line up loosely in the center of this pillar, as shown below.

Next, you want to aim at this dark spot, here:

Then it’s just a simple jumpthrow, and boom – your Mid take just got that little bit easier.

Donut Smoke

Continuing on the theme of Mid takes, this next smoke is a doozy. Oftentimes, CT Mid players will use Donut very effectively. Whether it’s a flash play, emergency cover, or irritating AWP lines, Donut is a very useful defensive resource for the CT side. Let’s learn how to smoke it off, quickly and easily.

Firstly, you’re going to line up with the second vertical crack along the bottom of the wall, as shown below.

Then, you’re going to position your crosshair exactly as shown, on the wooden beam.

Finally, it’s just a simple left-click throw. Couldn’t be easier! Here’s what the smoke looks like:

B Lurk Smoke

Moving away from Mid and onto the B bombsite, we have a super useful default smoke for you which will transform the way your T side play can push for information or site control. This is a lurk smoke, designed to cut off a lot of the CT information on the B site. If you throw it every round, the B defenders will never know whether there’s a single T lurking around it, a whole bunch of terrorists ready to pop onto the site, or nobody at all. It’s a very useful conditioning play, and if you get used to playing around it on T side, it can help you find a whole lot of impact. Here’s how it works:

To get started, you want to find this thin vertical crack in the stone on the pillar at T spawn.

Next, you want to look in the middle of this brick. The brick has a dark mark on it, which can be used to identify it easily until you’re used to the lineup.

Once you’re lined up, it’s a W+Jumpthrow. If you’ve done that all correctly, the B lurk smoke will look like this:

A Temple

Okay, so we’ve taken a look at the B site and learned how to throw a lurk smoke. For the final two pieces of utility in this article, we’re going to move over to the A site, and learn a basic two-smoke execute for site control. Both of these smokes are thrown from the exact same spot, so we’ll only show the lineup spot once. Here it is:

As these are both thrown from the same spot, we will show you the Jumpthrow first, then the W+Jumpthrow to finish. So, let’s learn the Temple smoke.

Whilst positioned in the corner as we have shown you, you should place your crosshair in the middle of this razor-thin gap between the leaves, as shown here:

After that, it’s a simple Jumpthrow, and temple will look like this:

A Donut

Finally, for an easy Donut smoke, you’re going to want to place your crosshair as shown below. It should be on the bottom-left of the mass of leaves.

Simply W+jumpthrow, and you have the perfect Donut smoke.

So, there you have it. A handful of simple, useful utility on Ancient, ready to win you your next game. As always, if you want to perfect the util we’ve covered today, or learn some more utility of your own, go ahead and load up a NADR server and get cooking! Who knows, maybe you’ll be teaching us some utility next time.