Hey everyone, I had a match last night where I accidentally sprayed into a teammate's back during a firefight and got hit with a $300 penalty, which stung but I understood. What I'm less clear on is how close I was to getting kicked, because I've heard people say you can get booted for team damage or for killing someone at the start of a round. Is there a hard number I should be watching, and does it reset each match or carry over? Also, does it even matter in Casual, or is friendly fire off there? I'm not trying to grief anyone, I just want to understand the rules so I don't accidentally get myself a cooldown over a stray nade. Would appreciate someone explaining how the system actually works.

You're right to want to understand it, because the penalties escalate quickly. Killing a teammate costs you $300 on the spot, and the kick thresholds are based on damage actually dealt after the friendly fire reduction. Bullets only do 33% damage to teammates in Premier and Competitive, but HE grenades still hit for 85%, which is why a stray nade is so much more dangerous than a stray bullet. You get a chat warning at 200 team damage in a match and an auto-kick past 300, and killing a teammate in the first five seconds of a round kicks you immediately regardless of damage. Once kicked you can't rejoin, it counts as an abandon, and the cooldown ladder runs from 30 minutes up to a week. Casual and Retakes have friendly fire completely off, so no damage and no penalty there. One tip, don't shoot back at a team killer, because your bullets go on your own damage counter too. If you want the full table of damage percentages by mode and the exact kick rules, there's a detailed breakdown here: https://dsgamix.com/en/articles/cs2-team-kill-penalty/ . Worth a read so you don't get caught out by a spawn nade.