Mapcore has crowned the mini-golf-themed map de_grail the winner of its Mapcore CS2 mapping contest for 2025. The map, created by Lizard, Radu, and flowlee, pushes the boundaries of what is possible in the Source 2 engine, and takes home the $7,500 grand prize.
The winning map was announced in a showcase YouTube video, detailing the top contenders for the Mapcore contest winners, with de_grail coming out on top. It has been a long road to find a winner, with the contest initially being announced back in February 2024.
The full rankings of the finalists for the Mapcore CS2 mapping contest can be found below:
- de_grail (Lizard, Radu, and flowlee)
- de_alpine (Lukyvald, zavaro, Twinnie, and g3om)
- de_palacio (Slimek, KlixX, and Coachi)
- de_stronghold (T-Rexer, Squidski, Haaselh0ff, and Kale)
Mapcore previously won by Anubis – will de_grail come to CS2?
The Mapcore CS mapping contest was previously won by Anubis back in 2019, with the map now a staple of the CS2 map pool. However, without the existence of Mapcore, it never would have gained Valve’s attention, showcasing the power of contests like this.
The question now is simple: will de_grail come to CS2? If it does, it won’t be added directly to the Active Duty map pool for use in CS2 tournaments. It will likely go into Competitive first, where we can get a vague idea of how it plays in matches. Then, it could go through some rounds of changes before Valve even considers it for Active Duty. Then, there’s just the small case of Valve actually buying the map, which it has insisted on doing for every map that goes into the game post-Anubis.
So the answer is maybe. We might see de_grail come to CS2 in the future, although there are no guarantees. Considering how awesome it is, we can only wait and see.