New Maps for 2013 Ladder Season 1
As we head in to the new year, we’ll be gearing up for a fresh season of ladder play. Along with the new season, you’ll find two new maps to explore and conquer for both the 1v1 and 3v3 formats.
The 1v1 Ladder Map Pool
The Heart of the Swarm beta has given us the chance to test quite a few new ladder maps, and we thought it would be exciting to bring a couple of them to Wings of Liberty. After reviewing all of the current Heart of the Swarm ladder maps, we narrowed the list down to the two maps we felt would best transition to Wings of Liberty gameplay. To make room for these maps, we plan to remove Shakuras Plateau and Tal’darim Altar LE from the 1v1 ladder pool.
(2) Akilon Flats
Akilon Flats features a fairly standard main and natural expansion. One of this map’s more interesting features is that you can choose from two different locations for your third expansion. Unlike Akilon Wastes in Heart of the Swarm, however, there will be no collapsible rock towers at the choke points leading to possible third base locations. This means the map will play slightly less defensive in Wings of Liberty than it does in Swarm beta.
(2) Newkirk District
Newkirk District is a symmetrical map that has a fairly straight forward flow for taking expansions and is relatively easy to split in half for the late game. We’re seeing this map has even win ratios across all levels of play in the Heart of the Swarm beta so far, and we’re interested to see how these ratios will look in Wings of Liberty.
The 3v3 Ladder Map Pool
In keeping with our goal of providing a variety of map styles within the team ladder pool, we created two new 3v3 maps that will play very differently from each other. In order to bring in these maps in, we will be rotating Monsoon and Ulaan Deeps out of the 3v3 ladder pool.
(6) Backwater Complex
This is a fairly standard fortress map that emphasizes macro play. Each team starts off in their own fortress, with additional expansion locations that you and your allies can work together to defend.
(6) Twisted Vern
The distance between starting bases on Twisted Vern is shorter than most of the team maps in the current ladder pool. This means that teamwork will be vital in order to hold off rush plays made by your opponents. In addition, the main choke point leading into your starting base is fairly small for a 3v3 map, which will make defending together vs. rushing the opposing team an interesting decision. Expansion locations are placed along the edges of the map, which will cause the flow of the game to evolve heading in to the mid and late stages of play.
All four maps have already been published to the custom games list in order to give you a chance to check them out before the season roll. We'll be watching these changes closely and reading your feedback, so let us know what you think in the comment section below.
Good luck, and have fun on the ladder in 2013!
sorry to sound complaining, but i feel there are tons of good, tournament ready maps out there to pick from. kespa maps look amazing, and ESV, TPW, and CruX are excellent sources for quality maps. i feel that they are all being ignored completely. the 2v2 and 4v4 ladder (as unimportant as team games are) haven't been touched or cared for at all. the maps are always too small. i would love to play a multiplayer map that lets me get to 3 active bases just once...
each season should have half of the pool removed and replaced with current tournament style maps. for team maps, PLEASE PLEASE tap into the VAST community of people that want to play a fun, highly-skilled, MACRO team ladder.
jk really I dont play 1v1 much, just 2v2 =D
What about Whirlwind? What about any of the awesome ESV maps from the Korean Weeklies? What about Abyssal City, Bel'shir Vestige or the promised return of Metropolis? Why do you keep shoving these !@#$ty maps down our throats when you have a wealth of community talent volunteering to create them for you?
Do you not listen to people with how much they've enjoyed Daybreak/Metropolis/Ohana (9 months ago) or Cloud Kingdom/Korhal Compound (10 months ago)? I would think the fact that you had to add good WoL maps to the HotS pool because people complained incessantly about the %^-*ty quality of the original maps - but hey, let's just shove those same awful HotS maps in the faces of people who don't want it anyway.
I'd like to play on well designed interesting maps with some flow and thought put into them, but that seems to be asking for entirely too much.
But Blizzard please start using maps that tournaments use like GSL and IPL. Abyssal City and Whirlwind are great maps that EVERY large tourney has been using. Not to mention they just look awsomely sweet :P. And what happened to bringing Metropolis back into the ladder pool after fixing the lag? Just wondering.
Oh and i hope those "unbuildable plates" are brought over for the rest of the maps as well. One last thing, please fix the spawning locations for maps like Antiga Shipyards and Entomed Valley. I know its confusing for new players but what you could do is put spawn location helper in the map veto screen or on the loading screen. You could also go as far as pinging possible spawn locations on the mini map at the beginning of the match for new players and have it an option in the menu.
Either way I'm glad to see Shakuras Plateau and Tal'Darim out of the map pool... But one thing, why get rid of Tal'Darim and keep Condemned Ridge?? Thoughts?
Hope this helps gl hf in the new ladder season everyone! :]
those underwater maps and those used in Korea (seen on kespa)