When the newly revamped Nuke was released back into the wild in April, many in the pro scene weren’t happy. A good deal of that hate was collateral from the confusing, though possibly necessary, act of removing Inferno from the competitive Active Duty rotation. But almost immediately, after checking out what the shiny new map looked like, and more important played like, pros were not on board.
Changes to the yard catwalk, the vents, the accessibility of heaven, it all screamed a full-on switch to Terrorist-favoured play, which is highly out of character for a balanced CS:GO map. But almost four months on, with tournament appearances under its belt, how has the new Nuke fared in pros' eyes? And is it as one-sided as they think?
Probably most surprisingly, worries of an extremely T-sided map have been completely unfounded as Nuke’s win-split over the past four months since its re-release have resulted in the most CT-sided map in active rotation. With a 56.71 percent CT win rate, Nuke beats out even the next most obviously CT-favoured map, Train, by a solid 2.5 percent. This reversal of expectations is actually a lot closer to Nuke’s true nature than the CT stats would have you believe.
Nuke is a map that provides the greatest potential for upsets and reversals of fortune. Ninjas in Pyjamas, though famed for their complete dominance on this one map, actually perform best here because they take advantage of this property.
NiP’s chance of turning around a round after giving away the first kill averages at 28.57 percent across every other map in active rotation, with only Overpass falling greater than 0.5 percent away from that mean. But on Nuke, the undisputed masters find a win 34.7 percent of the time they lose someone first. That’s an unprecedented anomaly, but goes a long way to explaining how their approach to the map works while other teams fail.
In contrast, EnVyUs have had a difficult start to 2016 and despite some internal struggles – notably with the departure of Fabien ‘Kioshima’ Fiey – it’s no stretch to suggest the rotation of Nuke and Inferno could also play a part.
Anyone who recalls EnVyUs’s Major-winning season, culminating with the trophy at DreamHack Cluj-Napoca, will know Inferno was their best map. Perhaps best shown by another DreamHack win around the same time in London with a memorable deagle ace from Vincent ‘Happy’ Schopenhauer.
Happy, despite what his handle suggests, was not best enthused by the move to swap out his best map for his team’s collective worst. “As EnVyUs, it’s a terrible nerf to our team, because Inferno was one of our best maps, the one we practised the most, and it definitely makes us think about our map pool,” he told TopMid at the time of Nuke’s reintroduction. “The remake doesn’t suit me very well, so I don’t really like it.”
EnVyUs have only played eight professional matches on Nuke, four before the refresh and four after. Though their win-rate has risen from 25 percent before to 50 percent after, that’s still a massive hole left in their repertoire compared to the 61.9 percent win-rate of 84 matches on Inferno.
For teams that have chosen to invest time into practising Nuke, results have been mixed. For SK Gaming, rather than risk Nuke becoming a mandatory veto and allowing through other unfavourable maps for them, such as Cobblestone, they’ve put in the hours and found some success. Most obviously in this clip against Liquid, where a well-rehearsed triple-boost let Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo check the sniper nest in heaven from relative safety.
However, more recently the Brazilian world champs suffered a significant upset on the map as the Australian Renegades took a 16-12 win in the ESL Pro League last week.
Though the 16-0 Renegades served up directly afterwards on Dust, and the subsequent outbursts by Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David, suggest their current stand-in may have something to do with the performance. But Renegades’ win proves the unpredictability of Nuke’s general gameflow is a massive tool to be exploited by the right teams.
In addition to the complex layout of the map and large open areas, mind games begin even before teams have loaded in on the server. While it's a much-hated map choice outside of NiP, its very presence in the pool alters the veto stage as teams use it as a free space, often accepting that neither side wants to play until the only remaining alternative offers a more one-sided advantage.
The other option is to veto immediately and risk a more obviously worse map making its way to the final choice, neither of which are easy decisions to make.
For this reason, and many of the more practical in-game ones above, teams are far more likely to hate Nuke than to love it. But there’s certainly no such thing as a middle ground.
For more gaming coverage, be sure to follow @RedBullESPORTS on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
With your consent, this website shall use additional cookies (including third party cookies) or similar technologies to make our site work, for marketing purposes and to improve your online experience.
You can revoke your consent via the Cookie Settings in the footer of the website at any time. Further information can be found in our Privacy Policy and in the Cookie Settings directly below.
Privacy Preference Center
When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.
More information
Manage Consent Preferences
Strictly Necessary
Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
Performance
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Third Party Content Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by third-party providers of third-party content that is embedded on our site. They may be used by those companies to load, display, or in other ways to enable you to use that content. As this third-party content is provided by autonomous companies on their own responsibility, those companies may also use these cookies for their own additional purposes, such as marketing. Please refer to the privacy policies of those companies for that information. If you do not allow these cookies, you will not be able to use this third-party content embedded on our site, such as videos, music, or maps.