Leading tournament operators ESL and PGL added Train to the professional map pool. The new map replaced Vertigo. Earlier, BLAST reportedly did the same. The announcements were released on TO's websites.
Following an update from Valve, the official map pool for Counter-Strike will change with Train replacing Vertigo. This change will come in immediate effect within ESL tournaments, meaning the first tournament of the year, IEM Katowice 2025, will be played with the new map pool.
The new map pool will feature 7 maps: Ancient, Anubis, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, and Train.
Even though ESL's statement linked to Valve's "update," it was only a tweet from the CS2 devs teasing future map rotation for BLAST Austin Major. In the game, Train has yet to be moved to Premier mode, which should mirror the professional map pool. The patch on January 7 didn't include it.
The top teams were mostly well aware of the changes. According to donk and m0NESY's interview given after the recent 2v2 tournament, Valve notified participants of PW Shanghai Major 2024. Some of the players might've started playing scrims on the map. The first top-tier event with the new map will be BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 with online qualifiers starting on January 14. Due to the format, this stage features all the participants.
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BLAST Bounty 2025 Spring
| Start Date | 2025-01-14 |
| Prize Pool | $ 500,000 |