ESL and BLAST have officially changed the CS2 mappool before the start of the season

Tournament operator ESL officially announced the change of the active CS2 mappool: from January 19, the Anubis map will replace Train. Shortly after, BLAST confirmed that their BLAST Bounty tournament would also be running with Anubis from the very first day of play on January 13th.

Read more eSports news in the Telegram channel Cybersport on Sport.ua

Thus, the qualifiers for IEM Rio will take place already with the updated mappool, as well as the first major ESL tournament in 2026 – IEM Krakow, which is scheduled to start on January 28.

Despite this, the situation with BLAST Bounty remains somewhat ambiguous. The official date of entry into force of the changes – January 19 – falls in the middle of the tournament, between its online and LAN stages. At the same time, BLAST has already stated that Anubis will be used from the very beginning of the competition, actually ahead of the global update.

Anubis returns to active mappulu after a six-month hiatus. It was removed in July, at the start of the Fall 2025 season, when the map was replaced by Overpass. Now, Valve and leading tournament operators are synchronically bringing Anubis back into the pro rotation, saying goodbye to Train for good.