CS2 Premier Season 5: Cache returns to Active Duty,Overpass dropped from map pool

On July 9, 2026, Valve released a major update to CS2 and officially ushered in Premier Season 5. Key Mappool Change: Cache returns to Active Duty for the first time since around 2019, and Overpass leaves the rotation. The reason for removing Overpass was the lowest percentage of picks among all cards at IEM Cologne Major 2026. The new competitive pool looks like this: Cache, Dust2, Mirage, Inferno, Nuke, Ancient, Anubis. Seven maps remain the standard, the composition has been updated for the first time in a long time. Along with the restart of the season, Valve added two skin packs - Arabesque and Spy Tech. Players also received two sticker packs: Fruits & Vegetables and Auto Racing. The update included five new community maps, which became available in the workshop. The mechanics of the C4 bomb explosion were reworked as a separate block in the patch. Damage now spreads like a shock wave and weakens around corners - walls and geometry ledges actually reduce damage taken. Before the update, damage was considered spherical and passed through any geometry. Read more about the change in mechanics and its impact on the professional scene in a separate article. Cache has been absent from Active Duty since CS:GO completely switched to an updated engine - the card was removed from the pool in 2019 for a major remake. During this time, the professional scene managed to forget most of the established tactical schemes, so the return of the map will require teams to rebuild their strategy book. The first official Cache matches of the new season are expected in the coming weeks at Tier-1 and Tier-2 tournaments. Stake Ranked Episode 3, scheduled to debut on July 15, will be one of the first major competitions where teams will be required to prepare Cache as a potential pick.