​(Editor’s note: Welcome to “Counter-Strike retrospective,” a new series in which Jarek “DeKay” Lewis will look back at major moments that shook the Counter-Strike world. He’ll investigate what happened, its initial effects, the long-term impact and who ended up better or worse in the end. Check out the first edition, which ​looked back at the Valve coaching rule change in 2016.)





Valve introduced two new maps to Counter-Strike Global Offensive in December 2013: Cobblestone and Overpass. Cobblestone had been a part of Counter-Strike for many years, first appearing in the original game as “de_cstle” by the same creator as Dust/Dust2. Overpass was an entirely new design and the first competitive CS:GO map that had CT players spawning already in a bombsite rather than nearby. The following August, both maps were added to the competitive map pool at the ESL One Cologne Major.





An often forgot fact about the addition of Overpass and Cobblestone is that Train was moved to the reserve section of the competitive map pool and was replaced by Cache. In a span of five months, the Major map pool had grown and changed immensely. Not only did Valve add three new maps, but the move increased the number of maps in the map pool from five to seven. This change paved the way for Ninjas in Pyjamas to exploit the new Cobblestone map and win their only Major in CS:GO.





The new seven map pool changed the way teams vetoed, leaving a ton of room for parity at Majors -- even more so considering the new “randomizer” in both best-of one and best-of three formats, introduced in Cologne. Prior to the introduction of seven maps, top teams would ban the one map they didn’t want to play in best-of threes and were typically very competitive on three to four of the remaining maps.





Following the change, some teams were much more prone to an upset with the possibility of their opponent picking their second worst map. Additionally, the amount of work required to maintain a world class map pool had naturally increased significantly.





The first team to truly capitalize on the map pool change was Fnatic with Markus "pronax" Wallsten at the helm. Many attribute the success of that lineup to the team’s incredible skill and teamwork, yet fans often forget just how complete Fnatic’s map pool was. Fnatic’s Mirage and Inferno were borderline impenetrable and the team was more than adequate on every other map. The Swedish superstars routinely beat good teams on Cache and Cobblestone while squeaking out other key victories from time to time on Overpass, Nuke, and Dust2. Their dominant run lasted the entirety of 2014 and 2015.





Fnatic was so dominant that the core players from that lineup still hold the most Major victories to this day -- years after their prime. Without the increase of maps in the competitive map pool, it’s quite possible that Fnatic doesn’t go on such an impressive run.





Cover photo by Helena Kristinsson/ESL