ESL has announced that Ancient will appear in the map pool at ESL Pro Tour events, starting with the summer tournament. This decision was made with the participation of ESL itself, the board of players it formed and the CSPPA association.
Ancient was added to the active map list on May 3rd as a replacement for Train, the first change in two years. The last time the map pool changed was in 2019, when the Vertigo map was added instead of Cache. However, then Valve did not change the composition of the maps in the current round of rating tournaments, which made it possible to qualify for the PGL Stockholm Major. This time, the competition organizers decided differently, and changes in the map pool will almost immediately be reflected in major events.
The IEM Summer tournament is scheduled to take place in the first half of June, and its prize fund is $250,000. It will host six teams from the top ten in the world rankings, as well as another eleven teams from the top 20. Earlier on Wednesday, Valve announced that it was collaborating with BLAST to develop "a unified approach to tournament scheduling, tournament rules and fair play policies." It is unclear whether this means that Ancient will appear at BLAST tournaments, in particular at the BLAST Premier Spring finals.
