Open a Counter-Strike 2 .dem in the demo viewer. If you still need the file, see where to download CS2 demos. The viewer parses the file locally and shows a top-down replay of both teams. For a useful review, pick one question per round: Why did the entry work? Was the trade available? Did the utility arrive before the hit? Then check the evidence on the radar and timeline.
1. Find the rounds worth reviewing
Start with the match round strip. Pick a lost full buy, a round after a side switch, or a late-round retake. Open the Events tab and filter by duel, utility or tactic to narrow the list. Detected plays and key moments are shortcuts into the demo: click one to seek near it, then scrub backward to see the setup before the result. The timeline also marks raw kills, throws and bomb events, which are useful when no tactic label appears.
2. Rewatch the entry and its trade
Pause just before the opening kill. Look at the entry player, the nearest teammate and the defender's angle. Step through the exchange and ask whether the teammate was close enough to trade, whether a flash reached the defender, and whether the entry exposed a second angle. Use the player focus and path layers to follow the route in and out. A trade marker identifies a quick refrag; it does not tell you whether the spacing or decision was good. If you need to repeat the sequence, drag a range on the event lanes to loop it.
3. Check the utility against the timing
Open the Utility tab and filter to the round, team, grenade type or landing site. Click a throw to jump before its release. Watch where the smoke or fire landed relative to the attackers' arrival and the defenders' positions. On newer parsed demos, Copy setpos gives a practice command for throws with a recorded release position; if that position is missing, the command is unavailable. Compare several rounds instead of treating one successful throw as a complete execute.
4. Compare defaults, rotations and retakes
Use the Teams tab to select a CT setup and step through the rounds that used it. Ghost rounds overlay earlier routes and grenade landing spots, aligned to the end of freeze time. Compare where players began, when one rotated, and which area was left open. A heatmap can show repeated presence or kill locations across the selected rounds. For a retake, rewind to the plant: count the surviving players, their approach paths and the utility still available before judging the outcome.
5. Put the fight in its economy context
The Rounds and Teams tabs show each side's buy and result. A failed rifle round against a low buy calls for a different adjustment than losing an equal-weapon fight. The Players tab separates T and CT performance; its All view can show the game's official scoreboard totals when the demo includes them. Exit frags after a round ends can appear in those totals without appearing among the in-round kills. Compare rounds with similar buys before drawing a conclusion about a setup or player.
6. Save a clear takeaway
Add a bookmark with a short note at the playhead, or draw an arrow or line over the radar to explain a route. Copy a link to the exact round and time when sharing a saved replay. A useful note says what happened and what to try next: “Second player reached the choke after the entry died; flash and swing together on the next B hit.” Review a few repeated situations rather than collecting every mistake in one match.
How to read detected tactics
Execute, fake, lurk, rotation and save labels are deterministic rules over recorded positions and events. They help locate candidate plays; they cannot prove team intent. Check the surrounding seconds before calling a play a fake or a save. A missing label also does not mean the tactic never happened. The radar is a 2D view of a 3D game, so stacked-floor maps need extra care when interpreting overlap. The replay shows server-recorded data, not a player's full first-person view or voice comms.