Ancient at IEM Summer: A Summary

It’s only been six weeks since Valve have reworked the competitive CS:GO map pool. Ancient got introduced, Train had to make way. At IEM Summer, the map has been played in an official capacity and between Top 10 teams for the first time ever. We’re drawing our first conclusions and are looking ahead at the future of Ancient.

The newest addition to the Active Duty Pool has had a whopping six appearances at Intel Extreme Masters. That’s two fewer than Vertigo had, but two more than Nuke. So for the first professional event with that map, it’s already quite a sizable figure and places Ancient right in the middle of the map pool. But what did the first ever games actually look like? And which teams were brave enough to go there first?

THE FIRST GAME ON ANCIENT

On June 3rd, the first ever top teams duel on Ancient took place. We’ve had some encounters at smaller events earlier on, but at IEM Summer, the map debuted between Astralis and FunPlus Phoenix. During the map picking phase, the Danes had the option of choosing between Vertigo and Ancient. Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander probably thought that their understanding of the game and their firepower would carry them over the finish line anyways. However, it turned out that Luka “emi” Vuković had done his homework. He led the FPX guys to a successful 16-7 scoreline, even showing some individual prowess along the way. On the other camp, gla1ve was the only player to keep up with them.

Later, Imperial and Heroic entered the map. There, the Danes demonstrated great preparation and won on a convincing 16-8 scoreline. Maybe Imperial weren’t the right opponents to make this an exciting game anyways. But FPX were bound for Ancient once more! This time around, they had to go up against G2 Esports, who managed to make it a closer affair at least. Pavle “maden” Bošković proved his worth with an insane 2-15 rating. We’ve already taken a close look at his performance in our feature on the best players at IEM Summer.

In the meantime, the Ninjas in Pyjamas faced off with fnatic on Ancient. The game wasn’t as spectacular, though, and didn’t give us a lot of exciting new stuff. The Ninjas overcame fnatic on a 16-10 scoreline. But on the next day, we got to see the first ever overtime on Ancient!

SPIRIT VS. VIRTUS.PRO ON ANCIENT

After a 10-5 CT half, it looked as though Team Spirit could steal away a quick victory and continue in the Lower Bracket. But VP held themselves in the game with a strong defense half of their own. Mounting a comeback, they got all the way to a 15-13 scoreline. Now, they had a chance to close out the third map, but Spirit got the two remaining rounds and dragged the team into overtime. There, Alexey “Quikert” Golubev mounted a 1v2 clutch and got 35 kills to close the game out for Virtus.pro. On a 19-17 scoreline, they came out victorious and moved on in the Lower Bracket.

MORE TEAMS ARE PICKING ANCIENT

At the BLAST Premier: Spring Finals, we’ve already had the next big engagement on the new map. Complexity and the Ninjas in Pyjamas squared off. There, Benjamin “blameF” Bremer proved his talent as the in-game-leader. NiP barely understood what was happening to them. They only scraped together a few kills and were thrown off the server after a 9-16 map.

Even though NiP haven’t found their footing on on Ancient just yet, the map seems to be part of their game plan now. The same holds true for FunPlus Phoenix, who are really digging deep into it. To belong to the pioneers and beat the other teams in the first few weeks is probably a nice feeling. But it stands to question whether that’s necessarily the best course of action moving forward.

WHY THE PRELIMINARY RESULTS ARE BASICALLY WORTHLESS

FPX are some of the more prominent Ancient pickers. They seem to have developed a deep strat pool early on. Of course this is great news for the first few tournaments, but the other lineups won’t wait forever to get to grips with the map. FunPlus Phoenix are in danger of shooting their shot too early. They give teams like Astralis and Complexity food for thought and do groundwork for free. It’s on emi to make sure that FPX continue working on their Ancient approach, extend their strategies, and ensure that they won’t be irrelevant again in a month’s time.

Unlike with the introduction of Vertigo or Nuke, the transition to Ancient has been much faster. This could be down to the fact that Train was quite beloved in the competitive scene. There’s only a handful of teams that have avoided Train, which means that some have lost a very vital map pick. Conversely, this also means that their perma-bans are in danger. For that reason alone, Ancient has already been featured this much at big events.

If Astralis want to continue banning Mirage, they already have to prepare for Ancient. This seems to be their exact strategy right now. Of course some minor teams can hold a candle to them now, but the upsets will fade out in the coming months. As soon as teams have gotten used to Ancient and – just like with Inferno or Dust2 – there’s a basic understanding of the map, the hacking order on Ancient will look a lot different.