With Rainbow Six coming into its 7th year, Ubisoft has made some radical changes to the game for every aspect of play. From balancing to attacker repick, its clear the developer isn’t shy about making changes and worrying about repercussions later. One such change is the new 9 map pool, adding 2 extra maps to professional play. This is noteworthy for a few reasons, for one, this makes Siege an anomaly in tac shooters, as both Counter Strike and Valorant have 7 map pools. But breaking away from the industry standard isn’t the only reason 9 maps matters. Small as it may seem, an extra 2 maps drastically changes the way that Best of 3s are played and the way map bans are approached gets completely shaken up. Even if they’re rarer than unicorns, Bo3s are one of the best ways to run matches in the tournament. Sure, Bo1s might be faster, but Bo3s guarantee that the better team comes out on top more often. It’s harder to win through gimmicks on 3 maps in a row than winning 1 map off rat plays. But before even getting into the server for a Best of 3, teams have to figure out what maps they’re playing and which ones they aren’t. And it’s in the map bans where the 9 map pool shows its greatest effects.
In a traditional 7 map pool, map banning has been refined into a near problem free process. Flip a coin to see who bans first, they ban, the other team bans, they pick, the other team picks, they ban, the other team bans, and the last map left is the decider. Or, put more simply, this graphic:
Each team gets a map ban before and after the map picks, leaving one last map as the decider that is “left in” by the Tournament Organizer. I say left in loosely because the teams try to control what map the decider is much more than the TO does, but from a conceptual level, this is the map ban phase for a 7 map pool. It’s simple, quick, and effective. It’s also symmetrical in that the map bans are balanced between the map picks which while not necessary is kind of satisfying. The only shake ups to map bans come when a new map is introduced, and even then, its only the teams that have to adapt, not the ban phase. So what happens when 2 more maps are introduced to this system and where do they even go?
Worry not my friend, I’ve done the research and found…absolutely nothing out of official sources regarding map bans in a 9 map world. I guess since Best of 3s won’t happen until the first Major Faceit and Ubisoft are just…not worried about updating the rule book until we get there. Which is a choice to be sure. Regardless, that doesn’t mean that theory crafting is off the table so why not look at the 3 ways these new maps could be integrated into the map bans.
Model 1: More bans before Map Pick
The first potential model for a 9 map ban phase is admittedly somewhat lackluster. While the teams may be happier with being able to ban out more maps before picking where they’ll play, it has the potential to ruin the viewing experience. See, the basic approach teams take to map bans is either banning out their own worst maps or getting rid of the opponent’s best maps. Essentially maximizing the comfort of their own team by keeping as many maps they’re good at on the board or trying to unbalance the opponent by forcing them onto maps they’re weak at. This is all well and good in a 7 map pool because there’s only one ban before the opponent can pick their map, so teams have to choose if they’re going to protect themselves or punish the opponent with the first map ban. This is balanced out because teams can’t have their cake and eat it too, so both teams are usually going to end up with at least one map that they’re pretty good at.
With a 9 map pool and 2 map bans before the map picks however, this changes. Now maps can remove their perma-ban/weakest map and still have room to ban out the opponent’s best maps before map picks are selected. Alternatively teams could ban out 2 of their weakest maps or 2 of the opponent’s strongest maps. Two of the three choices will effectively mean that the teams are playing at a lower level than what they’re truly capable of. In this system teams with strong maps but shallow map pools get rewarded heavily as their expertise on small selection of maps is rewarded by being able to ban out multiple weak maps before the opponent can pick. This is less impactful with the 9 maps of Siege than it is in a 7 map pool, but it still ends up punishing teams which devote time to playing a majority of the map pool at a competitive level. And while it may seem like an inconsequential point, Seeing teams with shallow map pools get rewarded could lead to dangerous territory that Siege already escaped long ago, the Boregon meta, which featured Bo1s with only Border and Oregon played. For the teams with deep map pools, why bother with those other maps when you could just master the few that get played, especially when the map bans will give you ample room to do so? For every team involved its simply easier and better to master the commonly played maps like Clubhouse, Border, and Oregon rather than show off strats for other maps that might be useful later. This would also have the knock on effect of lowering viewership as watching a small pool of 2-3 maps played tanks viewership, which is an essential part of the ecosystem for any functional esport. Plus, Siege already learned that lesson from Boregon, why bother learning it again when this model has such clear flaws?
Model 2: More bans after Map Pick
This is probably the way that Bo3 map bans will be run in the future, as it is the best way to add the 2 new maps into the 7 map ban system without fully changing the general strategy of the old ways. Now teams still have to choose between an offensive or defensive ban before the picks come in, but can make sure that the decider is a slightly more advantageous map than was previously possible. This will likely punish teams with shallow map pools and reward those with deep ones, but in my opinion that results in a more interesting competition for both the players and viewers, as the map bans become an even more integral part of the match. There isn’t really too much to say about this model, it only affects the decider map without making the map picks any less consequential, which maintains the benefits of the 7 map pool while adding new wrinkles in with the new maps. I’m sure coaches like Shas and MeepeY will create new strategies around this system that weren’t possible in the old one, but I can’t think of them.
Model 3: Split the extra map bans up
This would be a more complicated way to adapt map bans to the 9 map pool. In this model one team would get their 2nd map ban before map picks, and the other team would get theirs before the decider. How to decide which team gets to ban their 2nd map? There’s two possible ways. The first is by letting the team that won the coin toss to ban first gets the 2 map bans before map picks. This way the team that is actively choosing bans changes every time. So the team that bans first would also ban third, right before map picks, and the other team would get to ban 4th and 6th, right after map picks. If implemented this way, the map bans would be giving too much of an advantage to the team that wins the coin toss. Having an extra ban early is powerful, as already discussed, but it’s especially powerful when the other team cannot respond. Whis model would also interact poorly with the way that Grand Finals work, where the upper bracket team gets to pick their first map before the ban phase starts proper. This would mean that the lower bracket team would ban twice before the map picks begin, but the entire situation gets messy because of the way the Grand Finals works. Of course the rules could be changed to alter the way Grand Finals map bans work, but a speedy decision making process has never been this game’s strength. It only took 4 years for the 6th pick to be recognized as near useless after all.
Alternatively, the team that wins the coin toss could choose whether they get their 2nd map ban before or after map picks. While I’m sure creative strategies could be introduced by choosing before the decider map, the problem once again comes from the absolute strength that can come from banning out two maps before map picks begin while the opponent can only ban one. No matter the way it’s handled, this model is a lot like the 6th pick: it offers increased depth and strategy at a surface level, but ultimately has huge issues that aren’t worth the trouble once actually investigated.
While better than model 1, model 3 has enough issues of its own that its almost unrealistic to be used as well. That would leave only model 2 as a potential option for Bo3s. But, this is only what I came up with. There may be other ways to work a map ban phase around 9 maps that I missed. Or I simply didn’t consider something with one of the models mentioned above. Regardless, this is all speculation as Ubisoft has not revealed how Best of 3s will be handled in this 9 map pool and given how Stage 1 only just begun for some regions, they won’t have to release any news until the Major.