The play-in round of the IEM Cologne 2025 marks the first major tournament since Overpass was brought back to the official competition map group-this map was only added a week ago. We have analyzed the selected rate, the number of banned times and the balance between the two parties (CT - T) to understand how the teams are adapting to new conditions and what maps are being prioritized.

Overview of map pool

Inferno is the most popular map in this round - played 11 times and only banned 7 times. Meanwhile, the train is the least used map - only appears in 2 matches and is banned up to 16 times.

Overpass was immediately included in the main play map: Although it was banned 14 times, but still chosen 4 times - more than the train and nearly equal to the Mirage.

Balance between two sides

Ancient and Dust2 are the two maps with the best balance between the CT and the T side - the difference in the victory rate between the two sides is very small. In contrast, the train records the most obvious imbalance, when the defensive (CT) has won up to 61% of the Round. Notably, Inferno is the only map that shows the advantage of the attacking faction (T-side)-with a win rate of up to 56%, making it special in the current map pool.