The guys at the wT Weekly have been having some behind the scene discussion lately about the map pool used in tournaments, and are looking for community feedback.
We feel that the same maps have been used for what feels like a very long time, leading to a slight stagnation in emerging strategies and tactics. However, we've found that many players are opposed to change. A current idea floating about is to cycle out the three oldest maps, replacing them with new ones after ever Major (or perhaps second) tournament. To create diversity, of the new maps, one would be a standard ladder map, one would be a standard tournament map and the final being a more "interesting" tournament map (think GSL Icarus or Neo Bitfrost). This would leave two of each map "genre" in the pool.
Pros:
Keeps things fresh
More diverse games
Local tournaments may feel more free to use these maps knowing that some people have played them before
Cons: Players have to learn new maps that may or may not be played on ladder
Possible balance issues
Please let us know your thoughts and suggestions. All feedback welcome!
wT Weekly is proudly sponsored and run by Hyding Breed and generous community donations
Including some Kespa maps to your tourney will really act as a double edged sword - playing on those maps can either be the most frustrating and imbalanced experience for some players or it could really create a lot more dynamics on gameplay
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Formerly known as neozxa
Instead of complaining about balance, try, try again.
Earlygame ZvZ is basically a knifefight with suicide bombers.
I suggest initially a major change to the map pool (3/4 map changes) then 1 map filtered out after every major this way players get a better chance to play on the new maps and so you don't run out of maps very fast, you could even 'recycle' maps after they have been filtered out previous once they have been out awhile.
The best way it could work is cycle maps out after each major, so for each round of weeklies and its corresponding major, have 1 map pool. Then change it, this will give a few weeks on those maps before the big tournament.
perhaps keep the maps players have likely not played on out of the BO1 matches
it would be pretty sucky to die to a weird map specific all in that you have never seen before and then be out of the tourney
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