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"KAST in CS2 explained: kill, assist, survived, traded"
Jul 10, 2026
Bottom line: KAST measures the percentage of rounds where you did something useful — got a Kill, an Assist, Survived, or were Traded. Across 204,582 professional CS2 performances in our data, the median is about 72%, and an elite game clears 83%. Unlike kills, it rewards the support players and lurkers who quietly hold a team together, which is exactly why analysts value it. Every figure here comes from the EsportsOdds CS2 data API.
What KAST measures
KAST stands for Kill, Assist, Survived, Traded. It answers a simple question, round by round: did this player contribute? A round counts toward your KAST if any one of those four things happened.
The genius of the metric is the "any one of these" rule. You don't have to frag to have a good round. If you:
- got a kill, you contributed;
- landed an assist — damage or utility that set up a teammate's kill — you contributed;
- survived to the end of the round (keeping your gun and your economy), you contributed;
- died but were traded — a teammate immediately avenged you — your death still bought space, so you contributed.
Only one kind of round doesn't count: you died early, for nothing, with no impact and no trade. KAST is therefore a measure of how rarely a player is a pure liability. A high KAST means you're almost always adding something.
What counts as a good KAST
Here is the distribution across 204,582 professional CS2 performances. It centres on a median near 72%, with the bulk of players between 60% and 82%.
Turned into benchmarks:
| KAST | Read |
|---|---|
| ~58% (bottom 10%) | A poor game — too many empty rounds |
| ~72% (median) | A typical pro performance |
| ~83% (top 10%) | Elite — contributing almost every round |
Because KAST is bounded at 100% and most pro players cluster in a fairly narrow band, small differences matter. A player at 78% is meaningfully more consistent than one at 68% — that ten-point gap is the difference between an anchor and a passenger over a long series.
Why KAST rewards the players kills miss
The reason coaches and analysts lean on KAST is that it surfaces value that a kill count hides. Consider two players who both finish a map with 15 kills:
- One got their frags in clusters — three big rounds, then several where they died early for nothing.
- The other spread their impact: a kill here, an assist there, a survived save round, a traded entry.
Their kill counts are identical. Their KAST is not — the second player has a much higher one, because they contributed to far more rounds. That second profile is what wins Counter-Strike, and KAST is the stat that sees it.
This is also why support players and lurkers often post the highest KAST on a roster while sitting mid-table in kills. Their job is to trade, to take space, to survive with information — all of which KAST rewards and a K/D ignores.
KAST vs ADR and rating
KAST pairs naturally with ADR: ADR tells you how much damage a player did, KAST tells you how often they mattered. A player can have high ADR but mediocre KAST (big damage in a few rounds, quiet in the rest) or high KAST but modest ADR (constant small contributions). The most valuable players score well on both.
Both feed into composite player ratings. In fact KAST is one of the named sub-components of HLTV's Rating — it's part of how "consistency" is priced into a single number. On its own, though, KAST stays the most readable answer to "was this player a reliable contributor?"
Getting KAST from the API
KAST is returned per player, per map and per match through the EsportsOdds CS2 data API, as a plain percentage alongside the rest of the box score — kills, assists, deaths, ADR, headshots, opening duels and clutches. Building a consistency leaderboard or a fantasy model that values contribution over raw fragging is a single request away, delivered as clean JSON on a flat $99/month plan.
KAST is the percentage of rounds you contributed to — by a kill, assist, survival or trade. Pro median is about 72%, elite is 83%+. It rewards the support play that kills miss, which is why it's the best single measure of consistency.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good KAST in CS2?
In professional play, around 72% is average, and 80%+ is elite. Below roughly 60% suggests a player is dying for nothing too often. As with all pro benchmarks, ranked matchmaking looks different and more variable.
What does KAST stand for?
Kill, Assist, Survived, Traded. A round counts toward your KAST if any one of those four things happened — so it captures contribution far beyond just getting kills.
Is KAST better than K/D ratio?
They measure different things. K/D asks whether you win duels; KAST asks how often you contribute to rounds at all. KAST is the better measure of consistency and support value, which is why support players often lead a team in KAST while sitting lower in kills.
How is KAST different from ADR?
ADR measures how much damage you deal per round; KAST measures how often you contribute to a round in any way. They're complementary — the best players rate highly on both.
Where can I get CS2 KAST data via an API?
Through the EsportsOdds CS2 data API — per-map and per-match KAST as JSON, on a flat $99/month plan with a 7-day trial.