Mirage and Inferno are CS2 players’ favorite maps

Hype for Counter-Strike 2 in the community is on the rise, and now that we’re closer than ever to the game’s official release, we have players gravitating toward two of CS’s most iconic maps.

With the recent updates and new waves of CS2 beta access for many people worldwide, Valve has caused expectations around the new title to rise. However, right now, two maps are the favorites for players in the new CS2 Premier Mode and are none other than Mirage and Inferno.

Mirage and Inferno are the favorite maps in Premier Mode

According to the statistics page CSGOstats.gg, Mirage, and Inferno are the favorite maps (most selected) by players in the game’s Premier Mode. It should be noted that these statistics are from last September 15, so the percentages may have changed a bit in the last hours.

27% of CS2 Premier Games are Mirage in our first look at play rates, which maps are you banning first?
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Remember that CS2 Premier Mode arrived in the update of last August 31, 2023, where Valve granted many more Beta accesses to the game. This competitive mode features a regional ranking system, very similar to the FACEIT and ESEA systems. However, one thing that caught our attention about this mode is that players can ban maps, meaning no more MM games with random or predefined maps.

As we pointed out in the Reddit post, Mirage is the most popular map in CS2’s Premier Mode, with a 27.12% selection rate. Then we have Inferno, with a 21.44% selection rate.

It is more than logical that Mirage is the favorite map of players in CS2 since it has been a staple in the history of CS:GO during its 11 years of life. However, Inferno has been a popular map since Counter-Strike 1.6, and the rework of the map in CS2 is spectacular, so it is also not surprising that it is the second most selected.

Overpass and Nuke follow in the wake

According to the stats, Overpass and Nuke follow in the wake of Mirage and Inferno as the most popular maps in CS2’s Premier Mode, as they have a pick rate of 15.50% and 12.83%, respectively.

Lastly, we have Vertigo, Ancient, and Anubis as the 3 maps with the least popularity, and this is no surprise considering that many in the community are not at all happy with these three maps.

Casual players often don’t have enough time (I include myself in this) to learn the grenades and some callouts on the various maps, so Mirage and Inferno are the most similar to the ones we’ve played for years.

Lastly, the way to select and ban maps is if you play with one or two friends because then you can ban together the maps you don’t want to play.

Header: Valve