Dust2 gains popularity in the pro scene

Nearly a month ago, coming fresh off of NAVI's win at Copenhagen 2024, CS2's first Major, Valve were cooking behind the scenes and in a massive post-Major update, they reintroduced Dust2 into the active duty map pool, replacing Overpass, a move that no one saw coming.

The community - pros and casuals alike, stood divided on the change. While some saw it as a welcome change, an opportunity to bring new metas to a battle-tested map, others saw the reintroduction as stale, dated and even suggested that it was time for Vertigo to go.

The numbers however tell a different story. TOs made the switch to the new map pool over the week and ever since, Dust2 has seen an overwhelming amount of pro-play. Among top 30 teams, Dust2 stood as the most popular map this week, being picked 12 times, closely followed by Vertigo at 11.

On the Indian side of things, the Dust2 India - 1XBET Cup Open Qualifier 19 was among the first events to run with the new map pool but unfortunately the map received no love without a single pick throughout the qualifier.