EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/fusion.png)
The fusion of two distinct elements has always amused me. The new and unique things that present themselves to you when you have the merging of two distinct identities is always a wondrous thing. This week my life has been completely entranced by my recent discovery of a band that draws together two completely different music genres into something brilliant. Those who know me will know that I love metal, particularly melodic death, and that i love trance and yet it has never crossed my mind about what would happen when these two things met.
This is the product
As far as I am concerned, its a brilliant masterpiece and indeed Blood Stain Child's most recent album has been spinning on repeat for the majority of this week.
Fusion in starcraft comes in slightly different forms. Very often we are presented with maps which are the fusion of two ideas or multiple ideas into a single entity. I love new maps, and the new set of maps has certainly lifted the bar in terms of fusion of concepts. The next most common is the fusion of styles; Jaedong is often referred to Savior with JulyZerg control (or at least was), Best can be thought of as PuSan with +10 Intelligence, Flash can be thought of the macro of iloveoov coupled with the mechanics of Nada and so on. But now we are faced with a new kind of fusion, the fusion of a map designed in spirit of the pre-2004 macro invasion with the macro intensive play of progaming today.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/maps/53_Raid%20Assault%202.jpg)
That's right, as we all know raid-assault is coming back with it's freakishly outdated design which is just so outdated it mayaswell be a concept map. Nevertheless, the map provoked some interesting play, particularly during UZOO MSL, perhaps the best MSL in history. One rather cool aspect about the map, is that it favored air units because of the short distance between mains, but long travel time. So that meant that in TvZ Terrans were always going to open with tech -> wraith or some variant. Zergs had their fair share of cool counters, but none quite the magnitude of JJu's epic counter
+ Show Spoiler +
Truly one of the most inspirational counters seen in ZvT. But it does pose an interesting question; if Terrans play with air like oov did, will Zerg's opt for queens more often? Could this path the way for queens to actually enter the mainstream of gaming? Yours truly doesn't have high hopes, but obviously any Zerg mastering queen usage will have an advantage
But Raid-Assault has also been home to the making of legends. It was instrumental in YellOw's victory over Nada in the snicker's league. The opening game of the Savior vs Reach final was also held on this map, and with it ushered in the era of Savior dominance.
Even Boxer left a favorable impression on the map
GoRush also cited his favorite game that he played on MBCgame as being one on Raid-Assault;
But at the end of the day I have to wonder how exactly progamers are going to tackle this map. Will we see the same old same old, or will we see even more evolution? My gut tells me we are going to see player still try and use their macro hungry builds with expansions far too early than they should be and to that effect I dont think we'll see many non-Terrans around. Sure PvT/ZvT are playable, but given how the new Terrans are playing this map should be a haven for them. But at the same time, maybe the advances in muta micro may make this map more playable ZvT?
With proleauge imminent, this is one map to look out for and I will be following each game with interest
