A playbook (from the English playbook, "a book of plays or schemes") is a set of pre-planned tactical decisions that a team uses. The word came from team sports, where coaches wrote down their play schemes in a separate book. In esports it has taken hold in the same sense: it is what a team can do "from a prepared script," without inventing a solution on the fly.
What a playbook includes
The contents depend on the game, but the essence is the same: a playbook answers the question "what do we do in this situation?" It usually includes:
- attack and defense schemes for each map;
- prepared actions at the start of a round or an important moment of the match;
- the order of utility usage: which grenades or abilities are used, in what sequence, and at what moment;
- the distribution of roles among players within each scheme;
- fallback options in case something goes wrong: for example, if the team loses a key player.
In CS2, this is, for example, a coordinated entry onto a site with smokes and flashes following a rehearsed scenario. In Dota 2, the playbook shows up in the draft, in hero placement at the start, and in pre-agreed scenarios for teamfights and lane pressure.
How a playbook relates to the leader's play
A playbook does not replace in-match decision-making. It provides the foundation, while the in-game leader (called the IGL in CS2) chooses which prepared play to use and adapts it to what is happening. A good team does not simply "execute by the book": it can tell when the opponent has figured out a scheme and switch to another. That is why it is often said that a strong playbook is not one perfect scheme, but a wide selection of options with clear conditions for when to use them.
Why a playbook is kept secret
A tactic is valuable only as long as the opponent cannot predict it. If the opponent knows your prepared play, they can set up a defense in advance or prepare a counter. That is why professional teams keep their playbook in closed documents and discuss it in review sessions within the team. Before a match, the opponent's analysts, on the contrary, try to study demos of past games and identify recurring schemes, while the team responds by preparing an anti-strat, that is, a special plan against the opponent's known habits.
Where a playbook comes from
It is built from practice, reviews of the team's own matches, and study of opponents. Schemes are tried out in scrims, that is, practice games between teams, and what does not work is discarded while what works well is polished. The playbook is constantly updated: the meta changes, opponents change, the roster changes, and outdated schemes give way to new ones.
The word "playbook" is also used in a broader sense: it is the name given to any system of prepared solutions, whether it is a team's style of play or an individual player's set of techniques on a particular map.