![]() All of this plays into Mirage functioning as one of the more skill-dependent maps in the competitive pool - but because that coincided with a rise in parity and skill level among teams, its importance has grown. You have to "take a risk to gain an advantage," SPUNJ said. With T-side's number of attacking options, the Counter Terrorists are put in a difficult position where they have to be hyper aggressive early, retake an area mid-round, or somehow turtle out the round from the very back part of the map. In the same episode of Counter-Points, however, Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill argued the map was a "piece of s-" because of the amount of "theory" needed on CT-side. SK has also demonstrated how valuable boosting a single playmaker into the window room can be: The squad has become famous (or infamous) for boosting Felps up there round after round. Players can lurk on either side of the map in the apartments or in palace, or both, as the remainder of their team occupies mid or elsewhere. And as possibilities have opened up for the Terrorist side, the three-lane layout of the map allows for more individual playmaking and one-on-one duels. In the past Mirage has been seen more as a CT-sided, AWP-heavy map, but the development of better grenades and tactics has made taking mid-control easier, which in turn has made the map increasingly T-sided. ![]() Commentators and analysts quickly took notice in a mid-April episode of the podcast Counter-Points, Duncan "Thorin" Shields predicted Mirage would "massively decide who wins these tournaments" in the future.īroadly, it's a shift that makes sense. In the ensuing vacuum, Mirage started to find traction. And Cache suffered from its increasing position as the "new Dust2," where upsets were far too frequent for it be used by the best teams in the most important matches. FaZe and Astralis banned Cobblestone out of many playoff series. SK moved away from being almost entirely reliant on Train. Nuke disappeared from many playoffs series after Virtus.pro massively slumped in form following their DreamHack Masters Las Vegas win. Overpass declined in visibility as OpTic Gaming and Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz fell out of the picture, and Astralis lost its spot as the clear world No. Neither of these latter two moves worked out, but the overall trend held true.Īlong with the shifting standings came a change in how maps were played. Elsewhere, North brought in Philip "aizy" Aistrup to replace departing support player Ruben "RUBINO" Villarroel, and Fnatic reassembled its former firepower-packed squad. ![]() G2 Esports finally made the French "superteam," FaZe Clan added a superstar in Nikola "NiKo" Kovač, and SK Gaming grabbed the best player on Immortals, João "felps" Vasconcellos, which allowed all three squads to join Astralis as the world's new leading four. In response to a perceivable absence of consistent teams at the upper end of the scene, the top end of the CS:GO shifted massively, with five top-10 teams choosing to change their rosters. ![]() The removal of Dust2 happened just days after the conclusion of the ELEAGUE Major, which kicked off a shuffle season and a very different period of play. Yet Mirage has still become incredibly popular. Following the switch, there has simply been less room for Mirage and every other map. Across the same three tournaments, Dust2 was the second-least popular map with only 15 plays total, while Inferno conversely has become widely played over the past eight months. In comparison, the most popular map of these three events, Overpass, was played 13 times at ELEAGUE Season 2 alone.Īnd with the removal of Dust2 to make way for the updated Inferno at the start of this year, it would have been reasonable to assume initially that Mirage's popularity would only further decrease. It was played just 12 times across 124 possible opportunities (9.7 percent), which is noticeably below the 18 or so plays it would have if all the maps were played equally as often. Across the nine most important LAN tournaments since the change, it has been the most played map overall while also being the most popular map in the more important playoff series.īut over the same period, another map has transitioned from minnow to monster and now threatens to become the most consequential battlefield in LAN play: Mirage.ĭuring ELEAGUE Season 2, Esports Championship Series Season 2 and the ELEAGUE Major, Mirage was the least popular map in the pool. ![]() Since the removal of Dust2 from active duty in professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive play in January, Train has been the top map in the competitive scene. Mirage might become CS:GO's most important map You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser ![]()
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