New VALORANT mode could lead to map bans in the future

VALORANT may be receiving competitive map bans after the release of Riot Games’ newest tournament game mode ‘Premier.’

Premier has been in development for months and while it still has a ways to go until it is completed, it features one major update – map bans. Previously, map bans were exclusive to VALORANT Champions Tour matches which are hosted in the tournament mode of custom matches. These matches are typically either a best-of-three or best-of-five format, allowing teams to narrow down which maps they do and don’t want to play. 

This feature has not been added to the regular competitive queue to allow players to pick and chose which maps they want to play ranked on. Similar titles like Counter-Strike allow players to choose their maps and eliminate those that they are not as familiar with. The addition of the Premier game mode could bring the art of picking and banning maps to the competitive queues when it hits live servers in the future. Ideally, players would be able to set a selection of maps that they feel confident competing on and leave out the maps that they don’t wish to play. 

The previous concern with this was the lack of maps in VALORANT. Since releasing in 2020, VALORANT has gotten a handful of different maps with one map coming out typically every Episode. As Riot continues to expand VALORANT’s map pool, there becomes an increasing need for there to be a pick-and-ban system for regular players not competing professionally. The Premier mode could put VALORANT players one step closer to seeing a map selection in their regular games outside of tournaments.