This smoke basically never gets thrown in my elo, only window smokes and maybe a con smoke half the time. I've heard its very important, what are some ways I can exploit the enemy not having the top mid smoke?

Well as a T you can pretty much just swing mid freely if you have window and conn smoked and preferably go short pretty fast.

As a CT not having that smoke it's an invitation to push mid from conn. However if T's do smoke that top cat the T's can cross to boxes unnoticed and peek you from the right side (from CT perspective) if you don't have the spawn or your pathing sucks.

the amount of times i've watched a mid player just stand in conn waiting for that smoke and it never comes... free real estate. a lot of Ts in lower ranks don't realize how exposed they are crossing to boxes without it, you can just hold the angle from window or cat and pick them off one by one.

if you're feeling spicy just run down cat at the start of the round before Ts even get set up. half the time they're still figuring out nades and you catch two guys with their knives out.

the tradeoff is if someone on the other team actually knows the smoke, you get to boxes and suddenly there's a guy 3 feet to your right you never saw coming. that's a quick trip back to the lobby.

The AWP can always CAT jump(maybe ladder jump works, but not sure on that timing) or jump down to under to get the pick of the T crossing to boxes. You can also break the window smoke and awp them right after it lands since that's when they'll probably be crossing to boxes. Maybe the AWP can get to Conn before the window smoke lands, but not sure on that one.

Since the CT have to wait longer to go out mid you have time to make an aggressive play and push out window/conn with a nade and flash support.

Those are the main plays that I can think of that the top mid smoke stops. The main use of top mid smoke is to get to boxes quickly and safely. It also lets you bluff that someone is potentially hiding behind the boxes since no one can see you cross.

the point of the topmid amoke is that it allows the ts to cross to the boxes and complicates the round by allowing them to peek from the other angles.

of course there are some plays where you can swing through the smoke onto cat or swing valley with a flash as well, but at the basic level the smoke exists to deny the cts information as to what the ts are doing in mid, so they have to play with the possibility that the ts \*can cross to mid boxes.

so if the ts arent throwing it, it makes your job in mid a lot easier as a ct because you only have to pay attention to underpass and the one angle that the ts can be peeking in top of mid. this possibility of the ts being behind the boxes does not exist as long as you have eyes on the top of mid without this smoke.this makes things like awping con or on top of the bench at the start of the round quite strong. if you can take mid as a ct you get to stack bombsites based on info that you have. remember, the goal of the cts on mirage is to either take mid or a main, if you are taking mid, then you get to eliminate the possibility of splits using connector or mid, which makes the ts job a LOT harder.

The reason top mid smoke gets thrown at higher elo is because window smoke alone doesn't give you safety, the window player can easily blow the smoke open with a nade, he could have just dropped lower, or jumped to ladder/cat railing instead. They have other options to still kill you if you smoke window, top mid smoke makes it so most of those options don't work as easily.

Top mid denies info you can just have someone or yiu moly mid boxes, someone flashes over from a or b and window he breaks the smoke and you kill them or have mid

10/10 answer.

Best T spawn if they +W it can spot the best ct spawn doing the cat jump iirc BUT it's not often Ts +W mid that aggressively without huge risk.

Yeah I was assuming they were waiting for window smoke since otherwise the AWP can just chill window for the free pick with no risk.

The timing is a bit messy. I cant check just now but I believe the insta top mid smokes are fast enough but even insta window smokes don't land fast enough.

If they throw the top mid smoke, can they see you jump CAT, or is their vision blocked by smoke?

Insta top mid lineups?? I don't know and I can't check currently.