Vertigo to Return to FACEIT Map Pool in Season 9

FACEIT has announced the results of the vote for the map that will return to matchmaking in Season 9. Vertigo won the poll and will be added to the pool on August 5, 2026.

The map received 97,421 votes, comfortably beating its competitors. Train finished second with 64,744 votes, followed by Overpass with 49,900 votes, Fachwerk with 11,933, and Boulder with 10,918.

As in previous similar cases, Vertigo will not replace any map from the main pool. Instead, it will become the eighth optional map in FACEIT matchmaking. Players will be able to remove it from their queue manually through filters, similar to how it works with Cache in the second half of Season 8.

Matches on Vertigo will be played with Elo enabled. This means that wins and losses on the new map will affect player ratings in the same way as games on standard active-pool maps.

The start of Season 9 will also coincide with a soft rating reset and ten calibration matches. Season 8 will end on August 4, 2026, after which FACEIT will go into maintenance.

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Vertigo has been absent from Valve’s official map pool since the beginning of 2025, so its return to FACEIT could become a good opportunity for players to practice the map again in competitive conditions.