CS2 Mirage Callouts: Every Name on de_mirage and When to Use It

Nobody loses a Mirage round because they forgot what Jungle means. They lose it because somebody said "he's mid" when the enemy was already standing on Catwalk, and by the time the rotation understood the difference, Connector was gone and so was the site.

Mirage punishes vague comms harder than almost any map in the pool, because its three lanes are short and its rotations are fast. A CT who hears "one top mid" holds a completely different angle than a CT who hears "one catwalk" — and those two positions are about a corridor apart. Get the word wrong and you gave away a free entry.

So here is the whole vocabulary: every named position on de_mirage, where it actually sits, and which handful of them are worth losing a teammate over.

Mirage in 30 seconds

Mirage is a bomb defusal map added to CS:GO on June 6, 2013. It is Valve's remake of the community map de_cpl_strike, built by Michael "BubkeZ" Hull for the Cyberathlete Professional League — Hull later released a non-CPL version under the name Mirage, and Valve rebuilt it with Moroccan-style architecture when they adopted it. It was promoted into the Active Duty group on July 1, 2014, and per the Counter-Strike Wiki it is the only map that has appeared at every single Major since CS:GO released.

Geographically, once you have the radar in your head, it is simple:

• T spawn sits on the east edge, with two exits — one toward A (Ramp and Palace) and one toward B (Alley into Apartments).
• CT spawn sits low and west, with fast access to A via Stairs and to B via Market.
• A site is the southern half of the map, B site the northwest corner, and mid cuts diagonally between them.
• The Counter-Strike Wiki's map data marks 42 named positions on Mirage. Four of those are the two bombsites and the two spawns. The other 38 are the callouts below.

You do not need all 38 to play the map. You need about twelve of them to play it well, and you need to say them in under a second.

A site callouts

A is where Mirage games are usually decided, and it has the densest callout vocabulary on the map because every crate on the site has its own name.

Two of these deserve more than a table row.

Palace and Ramp are not interchangeable. They are two separate entrances and they arrive at different heights. A Palace player is above you and has line of sight across the site the moment they step out; a Ramp player is on your level and has to clear boxes. "They're A" tells your CT nothing. "Two Palace, one Ramp" tells them exactly where to throw the flash.

Ticket is the CT anchor's home. It is the booth-shaped structure in the corner nearest CT spawn, and it has been quietly tuned for visibility across the map's life — the February 17, 2016 patch removed wall-lamps that blocked sightlines from the ticket booth toward mid, and the October 20, 2015 patch moved the palm tree behind the ticket box specifically to make CTs easier to see from the site. Valve has spent a decade adjusting the angle you will spend most of your CT rounds sitting on.

Mid callouts

Mid on Mirage is not a lane you cross. It is a lane you own, and whoever owns it gets both sites for free.

Mid has also been the most-patched part of the map. The January 29, 2020 update widened the T entrance to mid and added the bench in mid that lets you jump up to the window boost spot and peek toward Catwalk — a single prop that changed how mid control gets contested. The June 12, 2018 update removed the dark background door inside Connector to improve visibility from the T side of mid toward A Connector, which is why that angle reads much cleaner now than it did in 2016. And CS2's own December 6, 2023 patch fixed a gap under the door at Middle.

The callout that costs people rounds here is Catwalk versus Top Mid. Both are "mid" in casual comms. One of them is an enemy standing 30 metres away behind a window frame; the other is an enemy about to be in Connector in two seconds. Say the specific word.

B site callouts

B is smaller, uglier, and far more claustrophobic than A. It rewards utility and punishes anyone who walks in without knowing which box is which.

Van is the most famous prop on Mirage for a reason. The graffiti of an AWP with wings and four red skulls at B Van was added by Valve in response to Marcelo "coldzera" David's quad-AWP streak — finished with a jumping noscope collateral — from that exact position at MLG Columbus 2016. It is a scoreboard painted onto the map.

Practically, the B callout discipline that matters most is Market versus Van. Those are the two sides of the site, and a retake that walks into the wrong one dies to a crossfire. If you are the one dying, name the building, not the site.

Connectors and rotation routes

The named routes are where Mirage's speed comes from, and they are the callouts that let a CT side rotate before the plant instead of after it.

• Connector links mid to A. It is the single most contested piece of real estate on the map. Lose Connector and the A anchor is holding a site with two live entrances and no help.
• Jungle sits behind A and touches both Connector and the Window side, which is why the Jungle player is the one who can react to a mid push and an A execute with the same body.
• Stairs drop from Jungle into A. This is the CT reinforcement path, and it is short — which is exactly why the T side smokes it.
• Underpass runs beneath mid toward B, and Ladder Room connects the window area down to B Short. Together they are the CT rotation spine: a CT who takes mid control can be on either site quickly, and a CT who loses it can be on neither.

If you only fix one comms habit on Mirage, make it this: when you die, call the route the enemy is using, not the room you died in. "Three coming Underpass" is worth more to your team than "I'm dead mid."

Wallbangs Valve built on purpose

This is the part most guides skip. Several Mirage wallbangs are not community discoveries — Valve deliberately built visual markers into the geometry so you would find them.

• Connector's left wall. The July 10, 2014 update added a blown-out, wood-covered section to the Connector-to-A wall specifically to visually designate a bangable spot, and Valve said outright it was to give more options for taking and retaking A. If you see the wood panel, you can shoot through it.
• Catwalk to Kitchen window. The same July 10, 2014 update reworked that window bang to make it visually obvious which part is penetrable and which is not.
• B bench wall. The July 16, 2014 update thinned the bench wall at B to let more damage penetrate. That wall is a legitimate pre-fire target, not a wishful spray.
• Palace to A scaffolding. The January 29, 2020 update added an AWP wallbang spot from Palace through to the close corner of the scaffolding on A. If you AWP Palace, this is free damage on an anchor who thinks the scaffold is cover.
• Kitchen shutters. The July 16, 2014 patch fixed the upper shutters in Kitchen, which had a no-draw face inside the wall that blocked wallbangs from one direction. The bottom wood was left unchanged.

Knowing these turns dead space into pressure. A rifle round through the Connector panel costs you nothing but ammunition and can force an anchor off the angle before your entry even swings. Pair it with the CS2 spray control guide if you plan to hold the trigger through a wall.

The four callouts that decide the round

Thirty-eight names is a lot. If you are new to the map, learn these four first and add the rest later:

1. Connector. Control of Connector is control of A. Every A execute either takes it or smokes it, and every CT retake wants it back.
2. Window. The CT window over mid is the map's cheapest information position. One player there tells the whole CT side whether mid is contested — and one AWP there can shut the lane down alone. Our CS2 AWP guide covers why that angle is worth the $4,750.
3. Palace. The height advantage into A. If Palace is not smoked, the A anchor is fighting from below with no trade partner.
4. Underpass. The quiet one. It is how T sides fake and how CT sides rotate, and it is the callout that is missing most often when a team gets split.

How to actually call it mid-round

Callouts only pay off if they arrive fast enough to act on. The format that works:

Count, position, action. "Two Palace, taking it" beats "uh, I think there's someone up there near the palace maybe." Three words, in that order, every time.

A few rules that hold up in real games:

• Never say just "mid." Top Mid, Middle, Catwalk, Window and Underpass are five different fights.
• Call the route, not the room. Your teammates cannot use "I died"; they can use "he pushed Short."
• Update the count out loud. "One down Palace, one left" is the difference between a confident retake and a 5v4 that plays like a 5v5.
• Do not call while you are alive and shooting. Win the duel, then talk. Half-called information from a player mid-spray is how teams get baited into bad rotations.
• Say "default" when the bomb is on the default plant spot. A Default and B Default exist so the retake knows the defuse angle before they enter.

Mirage rewards this more than most maps because its rotations are so short. A correct callout buys a rotation; a wrong one buys the enemy a free plant. And if you are still buying wrong on top of calling wrong, the CS2 economy guide is the other half of this problem. The rest of our coverage lives on the Counter-Strike 2 coverage hub.

Quick Action Checklist

• Learn twelve callouts before you try to learn all 38. Connector, Window, Palace, Ramp, Ticket, Jungle, Stairs, Catwalk, Top Mid, Underpass, Short and Market cover most rounds.
• Split "mid" into Top Mid, Middle, Catwalk, Window and Underpass. Never use the bare word.
• Distinguish Palace from Ramp every time — one is above the site, one is on it.
• Call the route the enemy took, not the room you died in.
• Use Count, position, action. Three words, in that order.
• Shoot the wood-panelled section of the Connector wall; Valve added it in July 2014 to mark a wallbang.
• Pre-fire the B bench wall — it was thinned in July 2014 specifically to let damage through.
• If you AWP Palace, use the scaffolding wallbang added in the January 29, 2020 update.
• On B, name the building. Market and Van are opposite sides of a very small site.
• Say "default" when the bomb is on the standard plant spot so the retake knows the angle before entering.