Inferno Becomes Most Popular Map at IEM Cologne 2025 Play-In Stage

The Play-In Stage at IEM Cologne 2025 marked the first major tournament following Overpass's return to the active map pool — the map was added just a week ago. We analyzed map pick rates, the number of bans, and side balance to understand how teams are adapting to the new conditions and which maps are becoming priorities.

Map Pool Overview
The most popular map of the stage was Inferno — it was played 11 times with only 7 bans, while Train, on the contrary, was the least used map — just 2 matches and 16 bans.

Overpass immediately entered the active rotation field: despite 14 bans, the map was chosen 4 times — more than Train and almost on par with Mirage.

Side Balance
The best balance between sides was recorded on Ancient and Dust2 — the difference between CT and T wins here is minimal. The worst imbalance is observed on Train, where the defense wins 61% of rounds. Inferno showed the only skew towards the attack — the T-side won 56% of rounds, making it unique in the current map pool.

IEM Cologne 2025 is taking place from July 23 to August 3 in Germany . The tournament's prize pool is $1,000,000.