Map rotation and map changes

Competitive games are not played on every map in the game, but on a small group chosen by the developers: the competitive pool. It is usually seven maps. The pool changes over time, mostly at the start of a new act or episode: one or two maps leave, others come back or arrive for the first time.

The reason is simple: keeping few maps in the pool lets players learn them well, and rotating them keeps the game from always feeling the same. A map that leaves the pool does not disappear completely: it stays available at least in custom games, and it can return in a later season, sometimes with changes.

In the Academy map list, the maps in the current pool are marked. We confirm the pool against the official patch notes every act and update it from the admin panel: the date and version you see on every page tell you when it was last checked.

Besides entering and leaving the pool, a map can be changed. Changes range from small (a piece of cover moved, a door closed, an angle removed) to big (a site redesigned, a new passage, mid rebuilt). A small change alters one position; a big one can change the map's win condition.

When a map is changed, three things happen:

• some callouts change or disappear, and players take a while to agree on the new names;
• lineups you learned before may stop working, because a wall moved slightly is enough to change a bounce;
• defaults get reshuffled: for a few weeks teams try different things, until they settle on what works.

It is a moment when players who study have an edge. If you read the patch notes and ask "which of the ten questions does this change affect?", you figure out what to do before everyone else.

When a map comes back into the pool, do not wait to find it in a game. A short review saves you from losing the first rounds getting your bearings:

1. Read the patch notes. Check whether the map was changed while it was out.
2. Go over the page. Especially the win condition, the callouts and the rotations. The date at the top tells you whether it has already been checked again since it returned.
3. Take a walk in a custom game. Five minutes to walk from one spawn to the other, look at the chokes and remember the names.
4. Go over the notes for your agent and your role. Where you used to play, what you used, which lineups you needed (and check they still work).

For a brand new map that nobody knows, the same method from how to study a map applies: shape, names, chokes and rotations, then defaults. In the first weeks everyone makes mistakes: whoever asks the ten questions first finds the answers first.

Every map page says which version of the game it was checked for, on what date, and against which sources. When the pool changes or a map is modified, this is what we do:

• we confirm the pool against the official patch notes and update it;
• for a changed map, we reread the page section by section, starting with callouts, chokes and rotations, and update the interactive map;
• we remove or rewrite whatever is no longer true, instead of leaving it with a note;
• pages for maps outside the pool stay available, marked as such; they are checked again when the map returns.

We do not write a position, a timing or a number we cannot verify: if something is in doubt, we would rather not write it. If you find something that does not add up, you can report it from the page itself: a report tells us where to look.

If you are short on time, the rule is simple: pool maps first, and among those, the ones you play worst. A map you know badly costs you rounds in every game where it comes up; a map outside the pool costs you nothing until it returns.

One last thing: when a map leaves, do not throw away what you learned. The ideas (how to play a mid, how to delay a main, when to split) apply on every map, and that is exactly what makes you quick to learn new ones.