Last week, we began our covering of CS:GO submachine guns (SMGs). Then, we looked at three of the seven SMGs available in the game. Now we're back for the larger portion of this weapon class that will transition us perfectly into next week's CS:GO assault rifles guide.
You can go back to the first part of our submachine guns guide before moving on to get a feel of where we stand before part two. If you're like me and like doing things backwards, that's ok. I'll go over the general premise of CS:GO SMGs again before going to individual weapons for your convenience.
CS:GO SMGs Overview
There are seven submachine guns in CS:GO. Five common and two exclusive - one for the Terrorists and one for the Counter-Terrorists. In general, SMGs in CS:GO are like your average FPS submachine gun. They inflict less damage in exchange for better movement and easier control and spray pattern. Still, like every gun in this game, they demand skill and understanding of their stats in order to be mastered, and that's why these types of guides exist. To sell you skill! Just kidding. Sadly, we can only help with the understanding part.
Let's begin today's session wiiith...
MP7
- Price: $1,500
- Kill reward: $600
The MP7 is a fun place to start this as it is quite an unconventional part of the SMG class. It is better where SMGs are usually bad and worse where SMGs are often strong.
The bad: it's much heavier, and thus affects movement much more than other SMGs. It also has a slower fire rate, but it's still a turret compared to other weapon types, so that's not that big of a deal. Its final and perhaps worse negative side is the MP7's price. At $1500, it wouldn't break the bank, but as we established in the first part of this guide, SMGs are mostly used for farming and the second-highest price in the weapon class does not bode well for the MP7's competitive viability.
In the positive column, the MP7 deals decent damage and penetrates armor enough so that two shots to the head kill an enemy at medium distances. Due to the SMG trademark damage drop-off, three are needed at long range.
Recoil is very manageable, even for a submachine gun. Accuracy, including while on the move, is also impressive, which makes the MP7 arguably the best SMG in terms of pure shooting. Spraying is totally alright with this gun, especially at short range, but the farther you are from the enemy, the more you should stick to bursting.
CS:GO is not a pure shooter, however, and in truth, you'd rarely see the MP7 in competitive play. In the rare cases you do, it would rather be during a force buy rather than an SMG's usual role as an anti-eco money maker. As we stressed above, this is mainly due to its higher price than other potential anti-eco choices.
MP5-SD
- Price: $1,500
- Kill reward: $600
The MP5-SD is almost identical in stats to the MP7. That is because the two compete for the same spot in the buy menu. You can only choose one and which one you pick boils down to which gun's small advantages are more important to you individually.
The MP7 is the best pure shooter among submachine guns. That we already know. So how does the MP5 compete? To make up for the lower damage, the MP5 is a bit lighter and has a slightly longer effective range. It also comes with an undetachable silencer - the only such CS:GO weapon, hence the "SD" in the name.
All other stats are generally the same - the moving accuracy is just as good, the fire rate is the exact same, as is the price. Even the spray pattern is basically identical. So, it really is a choice between slightly better damage or slightly better range and mobility. The silencer is also considered a plus, so when we take out the scale, it is perhaps 51-49 in favor of the MP5-SD.
What we said about the MP7 counts in full here too, so don't be tempted by buying this gun in important games too much.
UMP-45
- Price: $1,200
- Kill reward: $600
The UMP-45 is the middle child of the SMG weapon class. It is neither as good as the MP7 and MP5, nor as bad as the P90 or the abomination we're going to speak of in a little bit.
It does shine in one particular category that makes it viable, especially for Counter-Terrorists. That category is armor penetration - the highest among SMGs. Of course, this makes the USP much more useful against fully equipped enemies. This is still a situation you would want to be in when your back is absolutely against the wall.
Why is it suitable for CTs? Because they don't have access to the Terrorist exclusive MAC-10, which makes the USP-45 their cheapest SMG option. As it has not only high armor penetration, but high base damage, the USP-45 is the most popular choice in the rare instances when CTs are on an anti-eco.
The things that set this weapon way back are its smaller magazine size (25 bullets), low fire rate (the same as the assault rifles FAMAS and Galil) and considerably shorter effective range. You may hear some people call the UMP-45 an underrated CS:GO gun but as much as we want to be romantic about it, the truth is that its use hardly extends outside of the two very specific situations we described in the previous paragraph.
This still keeps it worlds above our final weapon of the day.
PP-Bizon
- Price: $1,400
- Kill reward: $600
I thought really hard about how I can make the PP-Bizon not sound terrible, yet I failed to come up with a strategy. It is simply the worst.
The PP-Bizon has the highest magazine capacity out of all non-LMG weapons with 64 bullets. It is lightweight and has an average fire rate for an SMG. That's about it for positives.
This weapon has low damage, low armor penetration, very limited range and wild recoil. It is not a good pick at any point of any CS:GO match. If you're itching to buy it sometime, slap yourself and buy something else.
Our CS:GO weapon guides are not done yet. Keep up with EarlyGame for the next part, which will focus on assault rifles. Check out our YouTube channel in the meantime.
