Ok, so I really don't understand why we have maps disabled when you leave in the maps like Tundra Lake, Sundered Lands and Brood pits. These maps are incredibly one sided and literally ruin the game for X player and I would honestly say that the original K'thir hill map was better than these bunch :L Like how often do we get a new map rotation because it's getting really boresome playing on these 3 crappy maps?
Actually, I really don't understand why there is map rotation at all. Simply have all maps in rotation. It keeps game diversity up.
I'm pretty ok with the Sundered Lands map after the 6/6 change. It can still do some wonky stuff, but it ain't crazy out of line. Broodpits, though, yo -- that tar pit is something else. Broodpits and Lost City are the big baddies from this rotation in my book, Tundra Lake as a runner up. This seems like a good thread to go into why people feel various maps are ass, so lets do that! Broodpits: A single flying deploy, especially a ranged one, can define the entire game by alternating between two otherwise-separate fights at lightning speed. Natural fonts are >8 spaces away, which makes their loss brutal. Those two factors combine to make 7 Spd melee flyers and 6 Spd ranged flyers dominate the map. Tundra Lake: Similar problems with the water pool, and the ice along the lake plays hell with speed (mostly ok with that though, way better than it was). I've pretty much never seen a fight develop along the upper lane unless someone -- usually p2 -- pushes the issue. This map is mostly about the flatland between p1 shrine and p2 natural, which makes for a lopsided and uninteresting battlefield, save for occasional interruptions for those fortunate enough to use the lake itself. I'm ok with large impeding elements that flying units can safely use, but when they fall right in the middle of the map, they have a tendency to act as high-speed highways between fights.
I've always thought maps could use more impassable terrain or maybe even terrain that has a downside for fliers. Perhaps walls of wind that do damage as you fly through them or take more ap. Something to really balance flight on particularly bad maps.
I hate Brood Pits. it's like what I would dream up if I intentionally wanted to make an unfun and unbalanced map. Tundra Lake also sucks. SL is okay, but it heavily favors player 1 usually.
For myself the main problems I have with these maps are the large amount of impeding terrain that benefit ranged champs massively. There are many themes that don't have access to flying champs so whenever you get this map with X theme you're basically a fish out of water. It also doesn't help that some of these maps are 2 font maps so the fighting always ends up in player 2's font simply due to the fact that he didn't get to go first.
Anyone ever gone second against Voil on the big ST 6 map? It ain't in the rotation, but there's an iffy one.
Tundra lake and Brood pits are like near auto losses going against flying without flying champs yourself. The amount of board control you get by having impeding terrain in the middle of the map stopping you from accessing it is insane. One or two flyers in the middle of the map and you have to defend both sides with enough to stop them, then they just group up with the main force where you are most weak and half your army is still chilling on the other side, a few rounds away of doing anything useful. As a chess player, this is called the 'reti' manoeuvre. Threatening two points at the same time while only intending to go to one, forcing your opponent to take both into account, but also not losing any time compared to the manouevre you would make if you had gone for just one from the start. Alright here's a little bit of paint. This is the basics of it. I couldn't get anyone to join a custom or existing games with that map, so I took a wallpaper one. First strategy The idea is you take control of the middle and are then able to attack two points, being the shrine and the font in this case. Force he opponent to split forces and then choose one side to attack. The opponent can't react equally as fast. Shrine pushes are very potent like this. Second strategy: You have two groups of champs that can make use of the impassable terrain. You wait until a skirmish starts on one side and then bring the other group over to the side where the skirmish is. You then have overwhelmingly more numbers because your regroup time is significantly smaller. This forces the opponent to sit back and not engage you, because the regroup time for the defending player is shorter when he's pushed in his font - shrine (because he can cross it over the snow instantly from side to side as well). The problem for the defender is that this tactic allows the attacker to group on the ice again like in example 1 and push for a weakness. This is even worse on brood pits because the fonts/shrine are spaced much further apart and it takes several turns to move from the side to side without access to the middle tar. Ironfirst Pass has the same problem where you have flyers in the middle of the map and threaten both the midfont and the sidefont on the island at the same time. Forcing the opponent to either give up the sidefont or to deploy in the sidefont and lose the midfont battle because he has a champ less there. It's little things like this on maps that create extreme imbalances in games. SL map isn't my favorite, but I can manage. You can only really make use of flying by spreading out and attack from both sides because the font is in the middle of the map. It's still advantageous, but it's playable as the non-flying player. @Sokolov Just wanted to make this little write up to detail why I feel, and why I think most people feel, that these sort of maps are frustrating in certain matchups. I hope you find this useful and interesting to the discussion of the map rotation.
The opportunity to make good posts in good threads is rare lately. But I enjoy doing the write up, if you want to see more, gimme some subjects and I'll go at it.
