Train to make debut in BLAST Bounty
Train will be a part of the map rotation for BLAST Bounty Season 1 instead of Vertigo, BLAST announced on January 7.
The announcement comes one day after Valve announced that Train would replace Vertigo for the BLAST.tv Austin Major. Other tournament organizers will likely follow this trend as there's no need to force teams to keep playing Vertigo instead of Train.
Train has been out of the map pool since May 2021, when Valve replaced it with Ancient. The classic map was left untouched for the remainder of the CS:GO cycle as Valve only finalized its rework in November 2024, more than one year after CS2's release.
Many pros have celebrated the removal of Vertigo as it was the least-played map in the competitive circuit despite Valve's efforts to improve its design.
BLAST Bounty will kick off on January 14, featuring 32 teams battling through a single-elimination bracket for their share of the $500,000 prize pool. Liquid, Complexity, M80, and Wildcard are the NA teams attending the tournament.
