Valorant players react to unexpected map rotation

Riot Games surprised the professional Valorant community by announcing that Ascent will remain in the map rotation for the next few months, despite the upcoming map rotation.

To keep the game exciting and to focus on improving FPS arenas, Riot regularly switches maps in and out of the competitive pool. Over the course of the game’s lifespan, most maps have been refreshed in some form.

However, Ascent remains an exception.

Having been added to the game when Valorant exited its beta period on June 2, 2020, Ascent is one of the oldest maps in the game. It has remained a staple at the competitive level and has not undergone any significant changes by the developer since its addition over four years ago.

Upon rotation, Valorant professionals were surprised to find that Ascent remained in the map pool while Icebox and Lotus were removed. This decision was met with disappointment by many, as the map is often deemed as stagnant and in need of updates.

“Despite being replaced by Fracture, Ascent remains in the map rotation for some unknown reason. It continues to have a dull meta, with the most commonly used comps being either OG comp or double sentinel with Deadlock Cypher,”stated DarkZero Esports player Matthew ‘Wedid’ Suchan on social media.

Im beginning to think ascent is just hard coded into the game… maybe it can’t be removed???? https://t.co/9IsW8Fg26b pic.twitter.com/uTnbaave3A

— Sean Gares (@seangares) July 30, 2024

Sean Gares, who previously served as a coach for 100 Thieves in Valorant and also worked as a VCT analyst, contemplated if the map was possibly frozen within the game.

For the majority of professional teams, Ascent is the preferred map and their agent composition typically includes Omen, Sova, Jett, KAY/O, and a Sentinel of their choosing. While some teams may occasionally make substitutions, this lineup of characters has remained constant for several years.

According to Fnatic coach Martin ‘Anderzz’ Schelasin, the only plausible explanation is that Riot intentionally wants players to dislike Ascent. The purpose of rotating maps is to add variety and excitement, yet Ascent, which is widely considered the most uninteresting map, has been in rotation for 3 years. Schelasin shared this opinion in response to the announcement on Twitter.

It is uncertain if Riot will ever remove the map. As opposed to maps such as Icebox or Breeze, which have noticeable problems, Ascent consistently performs well even with the introduction of new agents and updates.

Despite being unexciting, this is the only issue with the map, which is not significant enough for Riot to remove and revamp it.