On May 3rd, Valve added Ancient to the Active Duty map pool, replacing Train. This marked the first time the map pool had changed since March 2019, when Vertigo replaced Cache.
ESL has now added Ancient to the map pool of their events, following discussions with the Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association (CSPPA) and the ESL Pro League player council.
Beginning on June 3rd, Intel Extreme Masters Summer will feature 16 teams battling it out for their share in the $250,000 prize pool. Gambit, Heroic, Astralis, and many others will be among the first to be able to play on the new map Ancient. All EPT events afterward will do so as well.
The announcement came at the same time as ESEA’s tweet that said they would include Ancient as the replacement for Train as of June 1st for their Season 37 matches.
There haven’t been any relevant competitive matches on the new map as it isn’t being featured in the current Regional Major Ranking events.
It remains to be seen if Ancient will see a lot of playing time during the event as teams won’t have a lot of time to adapt to the new map pool.
So far the only somewhat competitive game of Counter-Strike on the new map has been a showmatch during DreamHack Masters Spring where Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill and Alex “Machine” Richardson recruited eight professional players to test out the map.
Also read:
- Changes in new CS:GO update as Ancient is added to active map pool
- Tips and tricks for CS:GO’s newest map, Ancient
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