CS2 and VALORANT map veto tool

How a map veto works

A map veto decides which maps a match is played on and which side each team starts on. The teams take turns removing maps from the pool (bans) and choosing maps to play (picks). When a team picks a map, the other team chooses its starting side there: CT or T in CS2, attack or defense in VALORANT. The last map nobody removed is the decider.

Both games have a seven-map pool. With seven maps, the alternating orders look like this, team A first:

After every pick, the other team chooses its side. On the decider, a CS2 match can settle sides with a knife round, or the rulebook can give the choice to one team. The tool lets you set either.

The CS2 Major order

Valve's Major supplemental rulebook uses a different order. In a best of 1, team A removes two maps, team B removes three, team A removes one, and team B chooses the starting side. In a best of 3, each team removes one map, team A picks map 1, team B picks map 2, then team B removes a map before team A does. The other team chooses sides on each pick, and team B chooses on map 3. The higher seed decides whether to be team A or B. Choose “CS2 Major rulebook” under turn order to run it.

Pools that aren't seven maps

If you add or remove maps, the tool builds the order from the pool size. A best of 3 always has two picks and a decider, a best of 5 has four picks, and every other map gets banned. In a best of 3 with four or more bans, two of them come after the picks, as in the seven-map order; otherwise all bans come first. Turns keep alternating, so a nine-map best of 3 runs four bans, two picks, two bans and the decider.

The current CS2 and VALORANT map pools

The CS2 Active Duty pool as of September 27, 2026 is Ancient, Anubis, Cache, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage and Nuke. Cache replaced Overpass on July 8, 2026, when Premier Season 5 started, according to Valve's release notes. The VALORANT competitive queue pool is Abyss, Ascent, Haven, Lotus, Split, Summit and Sunset, after patch 13.04 swapped Breeze for Abyss on August 18, 2026. A tournament can set its own pool in the rulebook, so tick the maps yours uses.

Why tournaments use a Discord map veto bot

This page trusts whoever holds the mouse. That is fine for practice, or for an admin running the veto on stream. In a real match the captains sit in different places, and a veto bot in Discord handles what a web page can't:

• Turn enforcement per captain. Every button press reaches the bot as an interaction that includes the member who pressed it. The bot accepts the press only from the captain whose turn it is and tells anyone else, privately, that it isn't theirs.
• Timers. Discord gives a bot 3 seconds to answer each press, and the interaction token for follow-ups lasts 15 minutes. So the bot answers every press by updating the veto message and runs its own clock for each captain's deadline. When time runs out, it does what your rules say, such as a random ban.
• Logs. Each step is stored with who pressed and when. If a team claims a misclick, the admin can check, and the final maps go to the match room and the results channel for casters.
• One message. An action row holds up to five buttons and a classic message up to five rows, so a seven-map pool fits in one message. Banned maps become disabled buttons.

A veto bot I worked on

For an esports tournament organizer, I rebuilt the veto flow of a CS2 and VALORANT veto bot on a codebase another developer started. Admins create a veto channel per match and assign each team's captain with slash commands. Each step is a button press by the right captain, the bot works out the order for best of 1 to best of 5, handles side picks and the decider, and posts a summary when the veto ends. The veto bot case study has the details.

A veto bot fits inside an esports tournament bot with check-ins, match rooms and score reporting, and the guide to running a tournament in Discord covers the rest of match day. To post match times that show in every player's own time zone, use the timestamp generator. If you want a veto bot for your league, send a brief for a fixed quote.