After joining the map pool a year ago to replace Bank, Theme Park will be replaced by Chalet for the NAL 2021 season, with this change expected to take place across all four regions.
Releasing as one of Siege's initial 10 launch maps, Chalet remained in the competitive pool up until the beginning of Season 8, when the pool was cut from nine to seven, leading Chalet, Skyscraper, and Kafe to be cut and Villa added.
Just over two years later, the map was retooled to fix the issues and now, six months on from that, it will be reintroduced to the pool when the 2021 season kicks off in the following weeks.
The recent rework saw the main additions of two extra corridors between Bar and Gaming Room, as well as between Blue and Cellar, a window overlooking the Garage entrance, the Trophy objective being replaced by a new Kitchen site, and an extra stairway at the back of the Trophy room.
This has definitely made the map more competitive, however it'll likely take some time for the map to be regularly seen in professional play as teams have just a few weeks to figure the map out.
This change comes following a vote by professional players, which has caused a fair amount of backlash as a number of pros and casters have claimed Theme Park was only voted out due to players not wanting to practice on it or it not being as frag-orientated as other alternatives.
The main arguments against Theme Park, meanwhile were its lack of play in the last year with it sitting as one of the bottom three in each region. This, however, is somewhat expected as both Villa and Coastline -- the only non-launch maps in the pool -- saw the same trends as a year after its introduction Coastline was the second-least picked map at the 2018 Six Invitational and Villa was the only map not played at the Season 9 Finals.
Chalet, meanwhile, was also somewhat of a surprise as it pipped competitors, such as the newly reworked Skyscraper map, or even the just-released Border to take this spot for at least the next year. Alternatively, as suggested by G2 Esports and Spacestation Gaming's coaches of Thomas "Shas[O]Udas" Lee and Justin "Lycan" Woods, these new maps could've formed a nine-map pool as was originally seen up until Season 8:
A nine-map pool would force teams to practice on new maps and expand their pool, which many wouldn't like, but would also give viewers a larger range to watch.
Nevertheless, the map pool update means Chalet will likely be seen in competitions starting with APAC South on March 18th (assuming the change comes to all four regions) which could see its first pick since Fnatic's 5-6 loss against Liquid at the Season 7 Finals.
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