When Valve removed Dust2 from the active duty pool, plenty of people reacted with shock claiming that Cobblestone or Nuke should have been the map to be replaced instead. Many pros voiced their concern that Cobblestone was the most stale map with no unconventional gameplay left. But plenty others agreed with Dust2 being the most stale map and the only one that hasn’t been changed much since its inception in CS:GO. New outlook and some minor tweaks could really help get a fresh outlook and make the map more dynamic.

Valve have dropped a couple of hints of a Dust2 remake over the past few months. The first one was when MaxReiger investigated the 9/21/2016 patch and discovered some added textures and props for Dust2. Another hint was in a video by Eleague: Counter-Strike: A Brief History, where a couple developers are seen working on what appears a version similar to the layout of Dust2. Redditor /u/Le_BottomScorer and others discovered this and captured some screenshots in an extensive Reddit post. Yet many believed that Valve would never take out and re-do a map that has an unsurmounted legacy. Of course it is one of the most beloved and the most played map in CS history, so any changes surrounding it will be taken with a grain of salt.

Let’s see how Dust2 did in the major and get some context and perspective on this map pool switch up.

How did Dust2 do:

Dust2 was the least played map: 5 times.

It was never picked proactively by any teams, rather it was left as a choice for the end for either the randomizer to choose it, or it remaining as the final map in a BO3.

VP banned it the most: 6 times. Many are claiming that the removal of Dust2 now widens the VP map-pool.

Astralis, SK, Gambit, NV, Mouz and G2 never banned Dust2.

It was banned a total of 28 times, making it the 4th most banned map. So it wasn’t the most banned nor the least banned map.

The randomizer during Swiss System managed to avoid picking Dust2 66.66% of the times, making it the most avoided map.

One game went to overtime on Dust2 and one game was a stomp with the scoreline of 16–3.

Dust2 was the least balanced map with respect to CT/T sides win percentages: 59.54% CT — 40.46% T.

So even if Dust2 was the least played map, the randomizer’s bias toward it balances things out. But that fact that no team proactively chose it during the playoffs meant that those teams were indifferent to it being chosen, they were fine with leaving it to chance if it came down to playing it.

How did Cobblestone do:

Cobblestone was the 2nd most banned map: 30 times, however it was one of the 2nd most played maps as well: 8 times.

Astralis banned it the most times: 8 times followed by FaZe who banned it 6 times.

VP, NaVi, Gambit, NV, Optic and Hellraisers never banned Cobblestone.

Cobblestone was the favorite map of the randomizer as it was avoided only 14.28% of the times.

4 games were really close with 1 ending in 16–14 and the other 3 ending in 16–13. One game was a stomp with 16–3 scoreline.

This shows a love-hate relation of some teams trying to entirely avoid it by banning it and other teams being indifferent to it and leaving it for the randomizer, which picked Cobblestone often.