Meta Monday: How Train's early adopters are shaping the meta

Delve into some details from the inaugural matches of the revamped Train.

Another year of Counter-Strike action began with Valve announcing a long-overdue change to the map pool in January by replacing Vertigo with Train. That meant the first tier-one event of the year, BLAST Bounty Season 1, was already played with the map in the pool and gave us the first taste of action in the new environment.

The sample size is small, however. The map was played just four times in the online stage and didn't appear in the LAN portion of the tournament, even though it could have been played as a fifth-map decider in the grand final between Spirit and Eternal Fire.

Tier-one Train matches so far:

It is also worth noting that none of the four teams that picked the map won it, which sheds light on the fact the decision was used more as a roll of the dice by an underdog rather than a well-thought-out game plan. Many teams used to permaban Vertigo, too, and could just change their ban without the need to shake up their pool.

Despite that, the new Train's early days have given us a small glimpse into the map's meta and its differences from the old version.

A-main fights are crucial

The biggest action hotspot, as it was in the old version of Train, is A main. The largest difference is that the timings have changed slightly, which has manifested in the T sides taking different approaches to the problem.

The first option turned out to be giving your sharpest opener, for example, Matúš "⁠MATYS⁠" Šimko and Timur "⁠FL4MUS⁠" Marev, flash support while they run out and try to create space for the rest of the offense or just find an early 5v4.

Falcons, meanwhile, also opted for something similar. They waited out the first wave of counter utility and went for a double pump of flashes and smokes, allowing the more measured Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač to take duels in a less chaotic manner and find a triple.

Late-round A attacks are obviously still viable, but the T side risks losing control of A main if they opt for a more default spread and don't delegate several members to holding the push, something ENCE found out in an anti-eco against Falcons and eventually lost the 5v4.

Ivy not seeing a lot of action

One of the biggest changes to the map came at Ivy, with the area now much more blocked off to the rest of the map. Not a lot of Ivy action happened in the four aforementioned matches, but that doesn't mean that we can't look at some crucial passages of play.

Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander showed that Ivy has the potential to be a prime play-making lurk spot in ENCE's match against Falcons, as he found a fortunate timing to flank all the way around to B and secure the round for his team.

Virtus.pro were the only other team to properly utilize Ivy presence throughout their offensive side and did so with varying success. Their pistol-round attack netted them a bomb plant but not the round victory before a single flash completely dismantled their slow walk in a force-buy round due to Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov's troops not exerting pressure anywhere else on the map.

They learned from their mistakes, though, as FL4MUS threw a Molotov to deny the Popdog push a couple of rounds later and helped Kaisar "⁠ICY⁠" Faiznurov get an opening pick on Ivy.

CTs have more aggressive options

The controversial removal of the ladder in Popdog has been the most high-profile change in Train's new version. The decision has given the CT side an option to fight for extra map control and go for aggressive B crunches into Halls coupled with a Ramp push.

Conversely, the change severely limits the T-side's set of fast plays. B rushes became riskier due to the addition of the new Popdog area, which allows CTs to flank more easily, and the once-popular play barely made an appearance in the four matches.

That gives the offense just one fast option, the A-Main rush, and even that isn't made easy due to counter utility — something Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets found out in Spirit's match against fnatic.

The CT sides, however, have found aggressive plays bountiful. fnatic and ENCE both made the B-crunch play work with flying colors, with the former allocating four members to the move in their force-buy victory against Spirit.

Vitality had a slightly different approach, sending Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool on solo adventures into the B Halls and supporting him with flashes, thus making the most out of his individual skill without assigning too many resources to the play.

Falcons's aforementioned aggressive A main play was also a staple of their CT side against ENCE, as René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen was constantly jostling for control against the offense.

And what about tier-two competition?

The map has been played 35 times at the time of writing in various online tournaments, with Iberian Soul playing it the most (six times). The map remains CT-sided overall with the defense winning 57.1% of rounds across all competitions.

No team has been able to master it yet, though, as the Spanish side only has one victory, and the same can be said for the next two teams with the most appearances on the map, Sashi and JANO.

ECSTATIC and Zero Tenacity are next in line with three Train games and are also the first two to have a positive record, winning all their matches off the back of some solid CT sides (70.4% and 68.6% round wins respectively).

Given we aren't even a month into the re-introduction of Train, the meta is surely set to develop over the next months as the teams gear up for the Austin Major. With more time to iron out the protocols and rotations, IEM Katowice could prove a much bigger indicator of the playstyle adopted by tier-one rosters.