The 2026 map pool and how to cut it to four

The pool changed twice in a year, which means a lot of players are still making decisions from stats about maps that no longer exist.

Current Active Duty

Ancient · Anubis · Cache · Dust 2 · Inferno · Mirage · Nuke

Recent changes: Train was removed in January 2026, with Anubis returning in its place. Cache replaced Overpass on 6 July 2026. FACEIT mirrors Valve’s pool, so this is what you queue.

The always-current version, with the removal dates, lives on the map pool page.

Your dead data

If you have hundreds of matches on Overpass or Train, those statistics are real and they are also useless. A 60% win rate on a map nobody plays is not an asset, and averaging it into your overall numbers makes you look better than your queueable self.

Exclude retired maps before you make any decision about which maps to play. This sounds obvious and almost nobody does it, because stats pages happily show all of them in one list.

Cache is the interesting one

A map that has just entered the pool is the one place where preparation still buys an edge. Nobody at your level has the lineups yet. Six smokes and four molotovs learned this week will be worth more than they will ever be worth again, because in three months everyone will have them.

The caveat: a map you have played nine times has no win rate. It has a mood. Fifteen matches is roughly the point where the number starts meaning something — below that you are reading a good week, not a good map.

Build the four-map pool

Step one: throw out the dead maps. Overpass, Train, Vertigo — gone, whatever they say.

Step two: throw out anything under 15 matches. Not enough signal. Play them or ignore them, but do not plan around them.

Step three: rank what is left by win rate. Not ADR. This matters more than it sounds.

Step four: keep four. Permanently ban the worst two.

Win rate, not ADR

The single most common mistake in map selection is picking by ADR, and it is worth being blunt about why it is wrong.

ADR measures how much damage you do. Win rate measures whether the damage mattered. A map where you consistently top the scoreboard and lose is a map where you are farming damage in rounds that are already lost — usually because the map’s structure forces you into a role that does not fit you.

Your best map by ADR and your best map by win rate are frequently different maps. Trust the second one.

Why four and not seven

Below Level 10, depth beats coverage.

Seven maps means seven sets of default setups, timings, common angles and utility lineups. Nobody at 1700 ELO knows all of that on all seven. What actually happens is that four of them are solid and three are coin flips you volunteered for.

Cutting to four does three things. Your reps per map roughly double, so the learning compounds. You stop losing the games you were always going to lose. And your worst-case matchup improves, because a banned map cannot be picked against you.

The cost is real but small: longer queue times, and occasionally a map you enjoy that you do not play. Enjoying a map you lose on is an expensive hobby.

What to do about a map you must play

Sometimes a bad map survives the veto. Two things help more than lineups:

• Pick the simplest possible role. If the map forces you to entry and you are not an entry player, the fix is not to learn the map, it is to take a passive position and let the round come to you.
• Buy for the round after. Bad-map rounds are lost more often, so the economy discipline matters more, not less.

Check your own pool

Dead maps filtered, small samples flagged, ranked by win rate rather than ADR, with a pick/ban recommendation: run your profile.