Icebox to leave Valorant map pool to make room for Bind

The competitive map pool for Valorant will soon see Icebox depart, making room for Bind’s return with patch 6.08.

Riot Games recently revealed that Episode 6 Act III will mark Bind’s long-awaited return to the game. Bind was one of the original Valorant maps that were long regarded as one of the most beloved, hence its removal from the game sparked a good amount of community outrage. However the map will soon be back, and in keeping with its seven-map concept, Icebox will be sitting in the stands.

Similar to Split and Bind, the removed maps won’t be gone forever and might make a return to the active map pool after some essential changes. Riot Games designed the seven-map pool to enable players to adapt to the shooter’s continuously expanding meta without putting too much pressure on them to master every map.

Riot often introduces new maps and swaps them out with the ones presently in use. Lotus, which was based on an Indian location, was the most recent addition to the map collections. To make room for the Lotus and Split’s reintroduction, Breeze and Bind were taken off of the competitive queue. Like most new maps, Lotus was only accessible for a week in the Swiftplay queue before being introduced to the active pools for both competitive and unrated play.

The Valorant community will bid farewell to Icebox soon

While many players find Icebox’s layout and appearance to be unappealing, many professional players openly love it, especially the players of Fnatic, who were upset to learn that Icebox would no longer be available. Nikita “Derke” Sirmitev, a prominent player for Fnatic and an absolute menace on Icebox, has also voiced his displeasure at the map’s departure.

According to the competitive analytics aggregator Spike.GG, the squad had a 76 percent win record when playing on Icebox. Although it’s obvious that the players want the map to stay, the developers feel that it needs a few changes before it can be deemed viable.

The Valorant community can anticipate a fantastic year in 2023 as both the professional scene and the game itself will experience significant developments. Fans will be happy to see Bind back and expect to see some Bind plays in the Valorant esports scene as well.

With the rollout of patch 6.08, Bind will take Icebox’s place in the queue map rotation for Competitive and Unrated games. Riot, however, will make the map available for all other game modes, including Deathmatch and Swiftplay with the release of patch 6.07 to test the upcoming Bind map changes.

Header: Riot Games