100 Thieves coach ImAPet thinks CSGO badly needs new maps

100 Thieves head coach Chet “ImAPet” Singh has a problem with CSGO’s map rotation.

In a post on Twitter, ImAPet critiqued Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map choices, calling them “not exciting,” while suggesting that Valve remove Mirage, Overpass, and Train from the current rotation.

CSGO currently has seven maps in the competitive rotation that are used in tournament play, but according to ImAPet, they’ve been in the pool for so long that their metas have become “stale.” When asked which maps he would pick to replace them, the coach offered Canals as an option, one of the few CSGO maps designed internally at Valve.

The game’s map pool has stayed fairly steady since its release in 2012, with a total of nine different maps available to teams since then with seven being played at any one time. CSGO’s first two Majors, DreamHack Winter 2013 and ESL’s Katowice 2014, only had four maps to choose from, all of which are still in the pool today: Dust 2, Train, Mirage, Inferno, and Nuke.

Aside from Mirage, all of those have been rotated out of the pool for reworks and redesigns over the years, while Cache, Cobblestone, Overpass were added in 2014. The game’s competitive scene played a mixture of those maps until developers added the ninth map in CSGO’s history with Vertigo’s March 2019 release.

Fans opinions differ on CSGO map pool changes

While games like Call of Duty refresh their competitive scenes with yearly releases that include new maps, CSGO’s pool has traditionally stuck to the same maps that were present in the original Counter-Strike. While the game’s mechanics have changed drastically since then, strategic concepts that worked in 2001 still broadly work today.

There were hints that Valve had planned to release a remade version of Aztec, another classic Counter-Strike map, alongside 2020’s planned ESL One Rio Major. But since the Major’s delay earlier in the year, the likelihood of an Aztec rerelease to celebrate what would have been Brazil’s first Major hosting has become much less likely.

There are arguments for and against a drastic rework of the pool, with those in support of the plan cite how new maps can allow team’s to innovate and evolve. Those against new additions often complain that with new maps comes several months of sloppy Counter-Strike while teams adjust.

Want to read more about Valve’s hints about a reworked Aztec coming back to CSGO? Check out our report here.