On January 9th, Counter-Strike announced a map pool change that will reshape vetoes fast: Anubis is back in, Train is out. The timing surprised a lot of people. Anubis was removed just six months ago, and Train barely got a full year in the spotlight before getting kicked back out.
Below is a stats-based look at which teams are the big winners, and the teams that now have a real problem to solve. The change goes live on January 19th, when Premier Season 3 ends. For pro teams, though, it effectively starts right now, BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 1 will be running the new map pool ahead of the official update.
The winners
Aurora
Anubis was Aurora’s go-to pick before it was removed, and the numbers back it up. They played it more than any other top team and farmed wins on it. When Anubis left the pool, Aurora lost one of the few maps where they looked truly elite, not just dangerous.
The concern is still the same going into 2026. The late-2025 form dip was ugly, and a small change like -jottAAA + soulfly does not automatically fix bigger issues. Too often Aurora looked short on ideas and ended up relying on XANTARES and Wicadia to brute-force rounds.
Even with those flaws, they are still clear winners from this swap. Train was never a strength either: 21 games played with an 8W / 13L record. Bringing back their best map while removing a weaker one is about as clean a “buff” as you can get.
Falcons
Falcons are hard to measure across 2025 because the roster changed constantly. The difference between early Falcons with degster and Magisk, and late Falcons with m0NESY and kyousuke, is basically a different team.
What is clear: Train was their least played map of 2025, and in the first half of the year their permanent ban was Anubis. When Overpass came in, that became the new ban.
This change forces Falcons into the same problem NAVI face: either change the permanent ban, or learn Anubis quickly. My bet is they play it. The roster is too stacked to hide forever, and both NiKo and m0NESY have plenty of experience on the map from their G2 days.
There’s also a short-term edge here. A lot of teams are going to “remember” Anubis, but remembering is not the same as being sharp. Falcons could turn it into one of their go-to maps if they show up with real structure while opponents are still dusting off old defaults.
FaZe
FaZe are big winners because Train was basically dead weight for them. It was their permanent ban for most of the year and they played it only four times, winning just once. Two of those games were during the stretch where rain was benched and replaced by jcobbb, before rain had to return for ESL Pro League due to VRS roster lock rules.
Anubis is not some god-tier map for FaZe, but it’s still an upgrade. They played it 14 times, and they were at least competitive. They went 7W / 7L. That is not amazing, but it’s miles better than treating Train like a map that doesn’t exist.
This also gives FaZe more freedom in vetoes. Train was their ban, but has now opened up. The obvious thing to do, was to pivot their perma-ban to Overpass, as it’s one of their worst maps.
Liquid
This is a great change for Liquid after a rough 2025. Train was one of their worst maps, 2W / 9L. Anubis, on the other hand, was one of their go-to maps before it got removed, and it was actually their best win-rate map over the year at 7W / 5L.
This swap does not magically turn Liquid into a title threat – probably not even a playoff contender. A map rotation won’t fix everything, and it says a lot that Anubis was their only map above 50% win rate in 2025. But it does give them a map where they are comfortable and where they can start building confidence.
The losers
Astralis
A terrible 2025 forced Astralis into an international rebuild, adding phzy and ryu as device left for 100 Thieves and Magisk’s loan expired. From a map pool perspective, this change is not great for them.
Anubis returning is a problem as it was their perma-ban. Train leaving is at least manageable. It was their second least played map with 11 games total, with a 4W / 7L record.
The bigger story for 2026 is not the maps, it’s whether the international switch actually revives the team. If you want to go deeper on how Astralis ended up here, we wrote an in-depth piece on the danish-era ending.
NAVI
NAVI are one of the biggest losers on paper. Anubis was by far their worst map in 2025. They only played it six times all year and went 1W / 5L. That is not a “needs work” map, that’s a “we avoided this for a reason” map.
At the same time, NAVI started leaning into Train more and more toward the end of the year, alongside Ancient. They finished 2025 with an 8W / 4L record on Train, and it showed at the Budapest Major where Train looked like one of their most stable looks.
Going into 2026 NAVI have not changed players, but they’ve been hit by the sudden removal of one of the maps they were trending upward on. Their late-2025 permanent ban was Overpass, so now they’ve got a decision: rebuild from scratch on Anubis, or switch the ban from Overpass to Anubis and accept a different kind of weakness in the veto.
Spirit
Spirit are tricky to judge because Train and Anubis were not major priorities for them. The two maps were their second and third least played maps, with only Overpass seeing less play. Their perma-ban of Inferno likely stays the same, even after roster changes.
Still, swapping Train for Anubis could be a problem for Spirit. While sh1ro and donk have looked comfortable on Anubis it’s actually donk’s worst map of 2025 against top 20 opponents.
Spirit also shifted map priorities in the second half of 2025, barely touching Train. So while this is not a massive swing either way, Anubis feels like the kind of map Spirit could struggle with going in to 2026.
