VALORANT’s most hated map is finally leaving competitive map pool in Patch 9.08

Rejoice, agents! One of the VALORANT community’s most divisive maps is finally being rotated out of the competitive map pool in the upcoming Patch 9.08.

Riot Games has announced that in Patch 9.08, the competitive map rotation is being updated with a host of changes, including the removal of Icebox and Lotus. As a replacement, the devs will be bringing back Pearl and Split into VALORANT‘s competitive pool, but there won’t be any design updates to either map.

“Like you saw with Haven earlier this year, maps coming into rotation don’t always necessitate design changes,” lead producer Al Robles wrote in the patch notes. “I want to point out that we make changes to maps that are out of rotation only if there is an opportunity to improve the player experience. Map pools are updated with the intention of changing the overall variety of the pool.”

Although there are a few exciting developments in the patch, the community is celebrating the removal of Icebox from the competitive pool, after the map received widespread criticisms from the general player base.

Whether it was the lack of strategic diversity, the layout of the two bomb sites, or the multiple “awkward” angles that need to be cleared throughout the build, Icebox has divided opinions from casual players to top stars, such as Team Heretics’ Benjyfishy, T1’s xccurate, and G2 Esports’ Valyn.

As a result, these new changes have been highly praised, although there are still some people who are flabbergasted that Ascent will remain in the rotation. Ascent has not been rotated out of the map pool since Patch 5.0, even though other maps have been absent for multiple cycles.