[Next_rim]

When going into season 3, I thought to myself - well, what can be worse than shattered or metalopolis? Turned out that it can get much worse...

Played just over 15 games last night, most were on all 4 new maps, and I got a matchup in for almost each map. I'd like to share my feel of em' maps and what I ended up voting down.

Abyssal Caverns. For those who don't know the names yet, it's the underground cave one with uber narrow choke, 3rd natural far away, and gold down at the bottom on low ground. In all 3 games, I spawned long-resp, so I can't share anything about close resp or cross resp.

-PvZ.
I enjoyed. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed so much that it makes it my favorite PvZ map now, followed by Shakuras. I can agressive expand towards him, I can grab gold and cannon it, and he can't do anything about it. Once I do have my gold, I can get the 4th natural and downward into bottom main with 0 effort, and I only have to block a 8-square wide choke to make it unharassable. This is a fantastic protoss macro map against zerg. And guess what - once he grabs his gold, all I need to do is fly 1 inch across the tower, snipe hatch, then fly 1 more inch over the water, and I'm now in a position to harass main and bottom expo, and he has to walk miles to cover both. And he can't reach my voidrays from ground. Dreammap, which is perfect for my all-air style

-PvT
To be honest, it felt like any other PvT game on any other map. He went 2-rax into expo, I went 2-gate-expo-DT-warpprism, locked him on 2 bases, harassed the shit outa him and won 10 mins later with colossi. I think my opp was just bad. I first was scared of banshees, because my scouting probe saw a building next to rax, and I didn't get to click on it, so I didn't know if it was factory or 2nd rax. Then I realized that flight distance long-resp is substantial, and he didn't have second gas anyway.

-PvP.
For PvP, map doesn't matter. At least for me. He went 4-wg, I went defensive 3-wg, he outmicroed me and won. Stupid fkn PvP.

Resume: keep it. Just for the PvZ abuse.

Antiga Shipyard. That's the scrapyard one with supposedly 3 easy bases, with 3rd back door guarded by rocks.

-PvZ

Terrible, absolutely terrible experience. Not only natural ramp is stupidly wide, and distance to natural choke (that covers 3rd too) is enormous, 3rd rock ramp is wide too. Unblockable (c) I spawned top left, opp spawned bottom left. He expanded rightwards, grabbed very fast gold, and put a blob of hydra at my 3rd, and some lings at top right. It almost felt like playing Blistering Sands again. It took me forever to fly (!) from my bottom 3rd to my right-most 3rd, while his hydra insta-leaped between my expos. I got contained on 2 bases and lost. This map is very biased towards player with lucky spawn.

-PvT

Not too much to share, as I scouted wrong way, and he went 2-port banshees followed by raven-marine. With my late robo and wide choke in favor of terran, I crumbled apart at my natural without experiencing any macro. I suppose that it will be just as hard to secure a 3rd as vs zerg, especially when drops kick in.

-PvP

Not even worth discussing, 4wg vs 4wg on 1 base, with me losing eventually to his superior micro. Should I even mention PvP in this post?

Resume: remove. I don't want to play spawn roulette on ladder.

Searing Crater. As the name suggests, the lava one.

-PvZ
Not as bad as I thought. I didn't get into a super long 5-base game as I usually do, as I lost to a very well-timed roach ling, but as I skimmed around the bases while planning my 3rd at min 9, I got an impression it would ok. I played long-spawns, btw.

-PvT
I spawned bottom left and really enjoyed the ramp from natural to main. He spawned top left, and had really hard time executing em'drops. My 5 stalkers easily covered both main and natural mineral lines, as my warp prism successfully sneaked DT's into his main. The game ended in his favor though, because he knocked at my natural with perfect emp's.

Resume: Keep for now. There might be some technical issues with 3rd on certain spawn rotations, but I can't say anything specific for now.

Nerazim crypt. The last and least explored map by me. I only got 1 game on it, and it was a fast and dirty PvZ. I forge-FE, scouted his hatch first, and proceeded to cannon his ramp. Instead of common drone response, he canceled hatch, and placed a creep tumor + spinecrawler up top to prevent further canons. I got overconfident and invested in full block of ramp, while expanding behind it. He teched to nydus, and with my minerals statically useless at his natural, I couldn't repel a 1-base roach bust.

Map felt ok, somewhat like XNC, but longer walk distance. I'll keep it for now pending further investigation.

2 other votes went to Shattered (hate it) and Backwater (I'm ok with it, and might unlock it in favor of Nerazim or Searing).

/discuss

Quick Comments

TAavanar:

yeah...no your wrong on most of the post

[Daboo]

I've actually vetoed searing crater for the moment, I have a feeling close spots in pvt might be extremely vulnerable to marine scv rushes. but the sad part is close spoots on that map might give you free wins against zergs, all you need are a few sentries...but whatever, nothing else is vetoed.

Antiga shipyard...is the ramp wider than the ramp in shakuras? As in, you cant wall off with forge/gate/core?

I havent actually played proper games on the other maps, during the ptr all I got were pvps.

question:Why hate shattered?

[Next_rim]

Daboo,

yes, Antiga natural ramp is wider by 2 blocks (need extra pylon or gateway). The choke between main cliff and 3rd base cliff is standard wall with 9 blocks though, but the 3rd rocks ramp is as wide as Shakuras. It is possible to wall the choke, then defend at rocks, but walk distance for attacker is faster between those than for defender, as you have to pull all the way upwards and back to climb the ramp up to 3rd, then walk diagonal all the way down to the ramp.

I guess their idea was somewhat like Scrap Station, with rocks at natural, but Scrap rocks part was 5 blocks wide, which is 1 pylon and 1 gate, or 2x gates with pylon behind. Scrap natural ramp was wide, yes, but the wall was only 2 pylons + 2x buildings, which is fine. Here you need 3x buildings + a pylon (11 blocks), and widest wall ever on any map so far has been 10 blocks (Shattered and Scrap bottom ramp)

add: I never liked Lost Temple, and when they made a Lost Temple with a wide natural choke, a part of me protoss died inside

[Xeen]

Searing Crater reminds me of Tears of the Moon from BW for one simple factor - the natural has two entrances on opposite sides.

Well-executed aggression is going to destroy.

All the new maps except Searing can be realistically and safely Forge FE'd on from first glance. Some of the maps don't look perfectly symmetrical, though, as the natural chokes on some of the maps look to have varying sizes (I think Nerazim is a little off). Have to take another look and test to confirm, though.

[Meatex]

lol i disagree with your antiga shipyard thoughts on PvZ
its really easy for you to play greedy and harass the zerg get 3 bases etc

Searing crater is really bad ZvP on some spawns and 6 gate timings are super effective - same as shipyard
basically all new maps are good for you if opponent is Z ;')

[nGenLight]

Abyssal Caverns: I'm going to have to disagree with you here, this is a big map but nowhere close to a Macro map. There is no way you can take/hold a third against any good quality players who multi-prong attacks. The large open areas between expansions means that your choke-favoured-immobile protoss army will absolutely fall apart to the other more mobile-open-area-favoured races. I personally have it thumbs down as it encourages 2Basing bad habits.

Antiga Shipyard: Again, disagree. This map is one of the easiest to macro on for Protoss, very accessible third with only 1 choke to really defend. Also if you attack the opponent, and manage to sit between his 3rd and natural with some sentries along with your army, gameover. Thumbs up.

Searing Crater: I looked at how close the distance was close spawns and thumbs it down immediately. This is going to be the biggest TvT map, because no Protoss or Zerg should have this map thumbs up.

Nezarim Crypt: Probably the best of the new maps, easily macro-able, many strategic points to hold, many wide open areas, many chokes also. Simply a very dynamic map that will gauge the skill level of players in numerous different areas. Thumbs up!

[AxSGRiM]

Waiting to look for HuK's choices or just follow Light's choices.