Step by Step – How Sprout dominated T-side on Nuke

Last weekend Sprout (#40 ranking at the time) faced off versus OG (#12 ranking at the time) in the ESL Cologne 2020 Group A upper bracket semi-final, resulting in a surprising 2-1 victory for the underdog Sprout. Besides the obvious upset their dominant T-side on the 3rd map nuke was even more surprising, taking 13 T rounds in a row and making it look easy. Let’s take a closer look at Sprout’s most important strategies.
The start of the half

Sprout started the game on T-side and the start of their half was all about setting themselves up to outplay OG later on. Round 3 is when Sprout has their first opportunity to start executing their game plan. They full-buy and start the round off with a default setup in the lobby, transitioning this slowly into an explosive ramp play. Sprout spots a failed smoke by Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski on ramp, giving them an opening to take control of the round. Denis “denis” Howell was quick to abuse the gap in the smoke and got flashed through by his teammates, taking down Valdemar “valde” Bjørn in the ramp area and getting B bombsite for free. At this point OG has an incredibly difficult 4v5 retake ahead of them, and they decide to save their equipment for the next round. 

With the first round on the board, Sprout keeps up the pace in Round 4 and they go for a fast A execute. They trade kills efficiently, get control of the bombsite and plant the bomb in a 3v3 situation. denis takes down another member of OG and OG decides to save again. Continuing with this fast-paced pressure, Sprout throws a fast wall smoke outside with denis rushing into secret to gain a positional advantage and apply pressure to OG’s outside defense. Meanwhile Michal “snatchie” Rudzki goes for a door peek taking down mantuu in A main. With a 5v4 advantage and a player with map control outside, Sprout decided to split B from ramp. denis lurking secret takes down valde as he retreats towards B bombsite from ramp and once again Sprout has control of the bombsite and a significant player advantage. OG opts to save, but only maintains one gun.

The score is now 3-2 for Sprout and OG has to eco. Issa “ISSAA” Murad saved his gun from the previous round and tried to make something happen outside, but gets shut down quickly and the rest of OG gets cleaned up by Sprout. At this point in the game, Sprout has been playing a fast-paced high pressure game. By winning or going even in opening kills and trade kills, Sprout seals the deal on these first rounds quite early into the rounds and forces OG to have to save without a chance to answer.

In round 7 Sprout slows down the pace and goes for a typical nuke round: holding off lobby for a bit and then throwing the wall smokes outside. Aleksi “aleksiB” Virolainen drops down vent, and mantuu rotates away from heaven because he gets flashed off his angle and he is at risk of repeeking into an AWP. When the wall of smokes starts fading Sprout sends three players through. Nathan “NBK” Schmitt spots this but is unable to take one down before falling himself, giving Sprout the opening they need to take control of A site. They opt for a slow A split with one player sneaking heaven, three players coming from A main, and one player throwing utility from T roof to support the rest as they take control. With this pinching approach they crunch the bombsite.

The seed has been planted

After these starting rounds OG has to be aware of everything. Sprout has been mixing up the pace at which they approach rounds as they have used wall smokes to take outside control and also secret control, but they have not yet gone secret to B. They have exploded ramp and executed A without throwing any wall smokes at all. On top of that, Sprout’s economy is thriving since they have been able to keep most of their players alive with OG having to save and rely on the round loss bonus to keep their economy afloat. The game is completely in Sprout’s hands.

OG decides to take the fight to Sprout outside with valde and NBK, and with mantuu supporting them with utility. Sprout is there to answer however, getting the entry kill on NBK. Meanwhile denis went down vent unnoticed and snuck through secret to flank outside. He spots valde but is not ready for the duel and valde takes him down. Sprout quickly rotates to ramp since they’ve spotted the ramp player outside. Left at ramp are mantuu and aleksiB. Sprouts utility forces mantuu off the angle and aleksiB is left alone to hold ramp. He gets traded and Sprout rotates back to lobby. At the same time Josef “faveN” Baumann gets the lurk kill on valde on A site. ISSAA trades him but gives away his position and Pawel “dycha” Dycha wallbangs ISSAA. mantuu takes down dycha resulting in a 1v1 between mantuu and snatchie, which snatchie wins. A very close round in Sprouts favor.

Round 13 is a great example of pulling rotates and abusing the gaps in the CT’s setup. Sprout go for the duel at door and snatchie trades for ISSAA. Three of Sprout’s players dive down vent, applying loads of pressure on B, whilst denis is lurking ramp and hears mantuu drop down. He decides to sneak through to hell and searches for a duel on A from heaven. He catches NBK off-guard and Sprout go back up the vent and take A site for free. OG is forced to save having no utility and lacking the manpower for the retake.

Sprout appear to like abusing ramp, because in the next round they let faveN lurk out door and search for an entry. He trades with NBK, and shortly after Sprout explode ramp once again, catching valde full blind playing from an all-in position, with B bombsite again open for them to take. OG is forced to save. In the last round Sprout send denis outside into secret with a quick wall of smokes, whilst they hold off lobby for any last round plays from OG. A correct decision, as OG decide to play more proactively going for ramp aggression, but snatchie is there holding them off with his AWP as he gets 2 quick entries. Sprout goes down to a free B bombsite once again and take their 13th round in a row.

Conclusion

Once Sprout entered the buy rounds, they immediately took control of the game with fast-paced rounds catching OG off-guard and sealing the deal on the rounds early on. The economy advantage they built up in these first rounds meant OG would be playing against a fully kitted Sprout for the remainder of the first half. Sprout later mixed up these fast rounds with slower rounds, where they managed to find gaps in OG’s CT-side defense by applying map pressure and abusing their rotations. 

Sprout actually used their first tactical timeout immediately after winning their first round. One can only assume that this was to map out how they wanted to approach the next round and the rounds that would follow. This is something they did once again later in the first half after only barely winning a close round. A clever way to reset and take back control of the game. As IGL, Spiidi could not have asked for a better T-side, since everything Sprout did worked for them and OG had no response.

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Image Credit: Sprout
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