Foreigner Maps Part II

In first place, we have a clear winner, such a godly map that I don't know why we should even keep making MOTMs, as this map will blow away future winners indefinitely, hmm.. more on that idea later.
Famous mapper LastCurse gives us: crapshit2.jpg, er I mean (2)DeadSpace 0.98!
This cataclysmically great map starts out with a bang: low ground mains with highground nats! Reversing the altitude I'm sure will be standard in all maps from now on. The nats are pretty wide, making fast expo builds potentially riskier vs trashcan players seeking to all-in early on, further deviating from the norms of comfortable, skill-based gameplay we're so used to. Lastcurse intends with this feature to blow our minds away by forcing new standards in gameplay, an action surely needed with the release of Starcraft 2 Beta, initiating the demise of Broodwar as we know it. "Cliffing" the nat from beneath it lies an islandy pit which doubles as a useless ovy spot to trap noob zergs who think they can scout their opponent, hah!

Just outside the nat we have a path leading to three roads, a LastCurse choke, if you will. The outward path leads to the 3rd gas expansion, a relatively safe base fairly close to the player, and pretty far from your opponent. As the path with the LastCurse choke is higher altitude than this path, it's easier than otherwise to control and secure the expansion, ensuring its defensiveness. There is no safer possible expansion to choose from as your 3rd base. As such we have a more linear expo layout, but let me assure you this is simply another grand feature by our genius LastCurse. Nonsensical features like nontraditional expo layouts, where players have "choice" in where and when to expo simply distract from the game itself. Rather than invoke strategic diversity, making each game truly unique and spectacular as previously thought, the concept simply confuses bad players, reducing the amount of gamers who can enjoy a map employing the idea, how silly! Thanks LastCurse for not using that quaint concept, and enlightening us about its adverse effects on a map's overall gameplay.

The central path from the nat's LastCurse path leads to our 4th gas expansion, well sort of. Instead of a boring antiquated ole' normal expansion, our 4th is a reverse-oriented mineral block. That is to say, it blocks off the path with its mineral formation, and to use its gas (as opposed to just its minerals), you must go around it (or hop over it) and expo on the other side of the mineral formation (don't try to transfer your workers to the expansion after doing this!). Players can choose to take this expansion from the "normal" side and mine it as a mineral-only expansion, but their workers will be vulnerable from behind. For a terran in tvp though, this will probably actually be common. Securing this base, particularly with siege tanks, helps defend the 3rd gas expansion, limits your opponent's mobility to a certain degree, all the while getting more minerals. Siege tanks will easily defend the workers, and the terran can safely rally here. When he chooses to move forward or when the lower mineral valued block is mined out (allowing a potential worker transfer) the terran can easily lift his command center to the gas side.

The inward path from the LastCurse path leads into the center, and into a two-forked path. Counter-intuitively enough, the outward path of this fork leads into the most-center path, while the inward path leads to the outer-central path. The former has another two-forked choke, the inward path thankfully leading to the inner-most central path of the map, the outer path leading into the linear path along the edge of the map leading to the 3rd gas expansion. The gas-side of the 4th gas expansion has a large ramp outside of it leading into this path as well. Going backwards along this path takes you to the 5th gas expansion. It's here we actually have a degree of expo-choice: the expansion is far from everything! It's close by air to one player, and lies along the 3rd gas path of the other, but then lies along the inward-outward path of the first player. It has a fairly large choke, a ramp higher than the ground leading to it. The expansion thus is fairly defensible but not incredibly so. An actual cliff overseeing it can harass it easily, and I'm sure tanks from inside the main by it can hit parts of it. I'm not exactly sure how or when this expansion will be used, congratulations LastCurse, you confused me!

And that's the map in a nutshell, so let's look at it in overview. The map is 128x112, making it taller than many (2)maps, but not as big as the vacuous 128x128. The end result is a very long distance from everything to the 5th gas expansion, but also a wider middle. Aside from the very corners of the map there's basically no wasted space, and the first 4bases are all pretty near eachother, making the distances generally respectable. Personally, I'd have stuck to 128x96. A different middle involving fewer chokes (which use up/reduce space in the middle) especially in conjunction with different shapes for the main and 5th gas expansion to use space a little more efficiently would result in atleast just as open a middle, but with better distances and a higher degree of efficiency as far as space allocation goes. However the map is probably fine as is.
Aesthetically the map is less than perfect. LastCurse opted to use terrains lacking differential decorational terrain-types; there is no low altitude terrain that fits with the lowplatform he used, and while there is high plating, he covered the highground with unbuildable tiles making use of plating impossible. He used such tiles along all of the lowground and normal platform away from expansions as well. Some of those ramps are not great looking as well. Seems like a tileset limitation.
The map probably centers around a fairly turtlish macro play-style. The expansions are close together aside from the 5th, which is hard to take outside of as a hidden expansion, ie hard to take securely. It's hard to be aggressive at all given long nat2nat distances and the close proximity of the first four bases. The middle is fairly linear and tight, although its many paths can be used to a degree of openness and nonlinearity, Bluestormesque. Balance-wise my prediction is that it'll be t>z, p>z, t>p, the classic turtle/tight map imbalances. Terrans will probably mech vs zerg, and play passively vs protoss. Anticipate carriers with the many cliffs. The main/nat layout/shape strikes me as being relatively mutalisk friendly, and the long distances certainly dissuade any lurker oriented builds. Maybe you'd see a lot of crazyzerg. zvp should be pretty standard, I'm just betting on the safe 3/4base of p to beat out zerg in a long macro game. Maybe anticipate Shine-esque lair-based play to abuse the long distances and large mains.