Pioneering Legends — the Classic Era

• David Johnston (“DaveJ”) — Creator of Dust, Dust II, and Cobblestone. Designed Dust II at age 16. Set the gold standard for map design.
• Christopher “Barney” Auty — Creator of Aztec, Inferno, and Vertigo. Core to early Valve map design.

Community Visionaries — CS:GO to CS2

• Salvatore “Volcano” Garozzo — Creator of Cache, one of the few community maps brought into the official pool by Valve.
• Shawn “FMPONE” Garozzo — Co-creator of Santorini, Sub-Zero, Thera, and more. Known for high-quality competitive designs.
• Roald “jd40” van der Scheur — Co-creator of Anubis, officially added to CS2's Active Duty pool.
• uLLeticaL & Mrs. uLLeticaL — Creators of Aim Botz, the most popular training map in the CS workshop.

Map-Making Influencers & Modding Heroes

• Ramiro Olivencia (mapper22) — Created de_dust2_long, a grassroots Dust2 variant widely played in South America.
• Iikka “Fingers” Keränen — Designed Canals, Cobblestone (CS:GO), and Piranesi.
• Alex “Hobbit” Manilov — Designer of Office and Prodigy.

Summary Table

Final Thoughts

David Johnston is still considered the most influential map designer in CS history, while modern community creators like FMPONE and jd40 continue to shape the evolving competitive map pool. Behind every iconic match is a mapmaker whose vision defined the battlefield.