In VALORANT with the release of update 5.0 will change the standard set of cards

The developers of Riot Games shared information about the change in the map set. The much-loved Split map will be replaced with the new Pearl map.

CHANGES TO THE VALORANT MAP SET

Hi everyone, this is Joe Pearl Hogbash Lansford, Map Development Team Lead. Today I want to tell you something about the card set in VALORANT.

Last year, when there were seven maps, it was possible to block two maps in tournaments with matches up to three wins and play the remaining maps without replays. And this year, when Pearl comes out in Episode 5, there will be eight cards. A natural question arises: how will this affect the game?

After discussing the situation with the esports team, getting the opinion of the players and talking with professional organizations, we decided to leave seven cards in the game. To do this, you need to remove one, and in this case we sacrificed Split. Now I will explain why.

• On June 22 (when Patch 5.0 releases), Split will be removed from matchmaking in Ranked and Unranked. The return date of the card is not yet known.
• After that, there will be six maps until Pearl enters the competitive mode on July 12 (when patch 5.01 is released).
• Split will also disappear from the list of available maps in esports tournaments after the August Last Chance qualifiers.
• Split will remain in Spike Quick Set, Custom Game, and other modes.
• In our opinion, this will maintain a balance of variety and skill for new and returning players.

LUCKY NUMBER 7

Learning a new map is one of the hardest tasks in any tactical shooter, and getting used to it and knowing all its secrets is even more difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort to memorize each card well. But at the same time, you still need to learn all the combinations of skills and agents!

Simply put, when there are too many cards, it can already be quite difficult to fully study at least one of them.

My colleagues and I believe that seven cards will help maintain a balance of variety and skill. You don't have to waste time memorizing all the hideouts, routes and strategies. In addition, new players will not be so difficult to get involved in the game, and the pros will have the opportunity to explore all corners of each map. In general, there are some pluses!

"Why not leave all cards in unranked mode?"

We thought about different options, and this one too, but in the end we decided that it was best to make the same set of maps everywhere: if you play on a map, knowing that it is not in competitive mode, then you will most likely find such a game a waste time. If you love Split and you are sorry to part with it, then I will please you: this map will remain in Custom Game and alternative modes!

There will also be no more Split in esports tournaments, but we will remove it later this year. The last official tournament with the Spilt card will be the Last Chance Qualifiers in August. This gives players plenty of time to explore Pearl before it appears in the official card set for Last Chance and Champions.

WHY SPLIT?

We understand that some of you would prefer to exclude another map, but believe us, we did not decide this because Split did not please us in any way.

Before making this decision, we considered many different factors: player preferences, time since release, past and future updates, strategic map diversity, Pearl features, and more.

After collecting all the data, we fed it to our magic algorithm, and it chose Split. But we are sure that in the future she will return. Maybe something new and interesting will appear on it!

Read more about patch 5.0 here.