A demo is the game's own recording of a match: every player's position, every grenade and every round's money, tick by tick. Prefire reads the demos of a player's last three matches on a map and turns the few things worth knowing about them into one page you can take in during the warmup.
From match room to study
- You find a match on FACEIT. With the browser extension added and a sign-in at prefireapp.com/web, every player in your match room wears a small Prefire badge.
- The map gets picked. Prefire asks FACEIT's own API, through Prefire's server, for the map the veto settled on and both rosters.
- You pick who to study. Usually their AWPer, or whoever anchors the site you like taking. Press Study on their badge. This step needs an active trial or plan.
- Prefire finds that player's last three matches on this map. Prefire's server goes back through their FACEIT history, up to their last 40 matches, for the last three on this map whose demo FACEIT still keeps.
- The study opens in a new tab, on that player and map. Every match Prefire has already read - for you or for anyone else - counts at once.
- The missing matches' rooms open behind it. For each match Prefire hasn't read yet, the extension opens its FACEIT room behind the study, with Watch demo lit up. Click Watch demo in each: the extension hands the demo's link to Prefire, and the room closes itself. Prefire's server fetches the demo and reads it once (one demo at a time, so yours may wait in a short queue), then deletes the demo and keeps the results.
- The study is drawn once all three matches are read - never from part of them. Until then it shows how many are read.
- You play. Close the tab if you like: Study, or the web app's Player study card, opens it again.
You can skip the match room: type an opponent's FACEIT nickname on the web app's Player study card and pick the map. Or open any match in the web app - drop a .dem file on its home page, or click Watch demo in any match room - and click a player's name for their study on that map.
Where the numbers come from
Every number in the study is read from the demos of the matches it's built from.
| Section | What it reads from the demos |
|---|---|
| Player | Every kill and death, the damage the player did to enemies in each live round, what they bought, and the first kill of each round. |
| Positions | The game's own name for the place the player was in, every few ticks of every live round, split by side and by moment of the round, and where they stood for the heat. |
| Team reads | Where their teammates stood, for the first site the team hit in each round and when; the site of each plant; every round's buy on both sides; and, on CT, where the player started and ended each round. |
| Opening duels | The first kill of each round that involved the player: when, the weapon, and where both players stood. |
| Top flashes | Every flashbang the player threw, who it blinded and for how long, and the kills it helped their team make. |
| Top HEs | Every HE grenade the player threw, where they threw it from, where it burst, and the damage it did to enemies. |
| Kill spots | Where the player stood for each kill, with the weapon, split by side. |
| Force buys | Every round's money at buy time, what the player and their team bought, and a 2D replay of the rounds worth watching. |
Player study says how each one is worked out, and what three matches can't tell you.
What Prefire never does
It never attaches to Counter-Strike 2, reads its memory, draws over it or runs inside it. It reads finished matches only: demos you could download yourself from the match room.