MiBR CS:GO pro Fer slams new competitive map Vertigo

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map Vertigo for being stupid to play and ugly to watch.

Valve made a major change to the CS:GO active duty map pool with the March 29 update, removing Cache in favor of Vertigo, a map that had never seen the light of competitive play before.

Professional players have routinely criticized the map since its introduction, despite not many top-level matches being played out on the map. However, when it has appeared in tournament action, pros have been quick to criticize the map – with some even calling for its removal completely – even when they win.

MIBR’s Fer was left furious the map after taking on Team Liquid in the final of ECS Season 6’s North American week four stage. Despite MIBR winning on Vertigo, 16-11, Fer was not a fan of what he had played and quickly spoke out against it.

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“Btw [by the way] this vertigo map is worse than shit,” he tweeted after the game. “It’s so ugly to watch and even more stupid to play.” Being such a high profile gamer, it didn’t take long for other players to latch on to what Fer was thinking, with many agreeing with his criticisms.

Former Luminosity Gaming pro Gusatvo ‘SHOOWTiME’ Goncalves responded to Fer by stating that Vertigo has a ‘deathmatch’ on the A bombsite, hinting at the fact that it doesn’t play like any other map in the pool.  

Fer seemingly agreed with that statement, adding that any attack onto that bombsite ends up being a 5v5 showdown between all 10 players in the server.

French pro Dan ‘ApEx’ Madesclaire, who dons the colors of Team Vitality, joked about the repetitiveness of the map in his reply – as teams solely target the A site, ultimately playing the same game over and over.

Other pros also chimed in with new criticism of the map. OpTic Gaming’s in-game leader Mathias ‘MSL’ Lauridsen offered some thoughts about pros ‘speaking up’ against recent changes, before turning his attention to the map pool.

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Focusing solely on Vertigo, he posted: “Also vertigo is just not a map that should be played competitive. It’s about planting the bomb and 15 rounds of afterplants. It goes so much against what CS:GO require of teams and players,” before tagging the CS:GO Dev Twitter account.

It remains to be seen if Valve will shake up the map pool any time soon following the numerous calls from pros for a change, especially with the StarLadder Major on the horizon.

Other tournament organizers like ESL and FACEIT have only just cycled the map into their own event map pools, even though actually seeing it in competitive play is – of now – a rare occurrence.

Valve has been quick to respond to player feedback with CS:GO in recent weeks, pumping out regular updates taken. They do take on pro player thoughts at their Major events so it may be a case of holding out until Berlin before a change is made.