Valorant coaches and players unhappy with planned Pearl and Fracture removal

Riot Games has announced that Breeze is returning to the competitive Valorant map pool with some changes in tow, while Pearl and Fracture are leaving. This has left some in the competitive community unhappy.

Breeze is returning to the competitive Valorant map, Riot Games announced on August 18, with Pearl and Farcture rotating out. This has confused some professional players and has left some coaches unhappy.

Those voicing their concerns point to both maps having decent strategic and compositional diversity compared to other maps in the pool. They have pointed to maps like Ascent and Haven as ones that Riot should have removed instead due to their lack of innovation and the staleness of their meta.

Bro, no words

Removing the two best/most interesting maps where teams had different approaches

Time to just go simple booring valorant with fixed meta 🙃

(I'm salty, don't listen to me) https://t.co/sE32Npoy2e

— NAVI Erik (@d00mbr0s) August 18, 2023

“Bro, no words,” NAVI head coach Erik ‘d00mbr0s’ Sandgren said about the changes. “Removing the two best/most interesting maps where teams had different approaches. Time to just go simple boring Valorant with fixed meta.”

Fracture and Pearl are on their way out of the Valorant map pool

Other coaches echoed d00mbr0’s sentiment, calling for other maps to be removed and potentially reworked ahead of Fracture and Pearl.

Taking out fracture.. That map was designed for creativity and agent diversity. Why not take out Ascent? That map is extremely boring. https://t.co/cApzaK5iwO

— FOKUS Johnny (@JohnnyLobsterGG) August 18, 2023

“Taking out fracture. That map was designed for creativity and agent diversity. Why not take out Ascent? That map is extremely boring,” FOKUS head coach Sjonnie ‘Johnny Lobster’ Kreeft said.

NAVI star Mehmet ‘cNed’ İpek also chimed in on the map rotation, asking for another map to be looked at.

i dont know why haven is still in the rotation? https://t.co/B7jR1KUKTv

— Mehmet Yağız İpek (@cNedf0r) August 18, 2023

“I don’t know why Haven is still in the rotation?” He said.

Fracture and Pearl are also two of the more recent map additions to Valorant. With Fracture releasing on September 8, 2021 and Pearl coming out on June 22, 2022, Lotus is the newest map to Valorant, joining the rotation on January 10, 2023.

With Pearl and Fracture out of the rotation, Lotus and Breeze will be the two newest maps in the competition map pool. Breeze was first released on April 27, 2021. The changes will go into effect at the start of Valorant Episode 7 Act 2, and they will hit pro play after the conclusion of Valorant Champions 2023.