New Official map 'Taebaek Sanmaek' - Page 2

Can we agree on that the base at 3 o clock is extremly hard to take for any race, because its very open? At the same time, base at 9 o clock is also very open, but considering how close it is to both long ramp expos, this looks pretty doable.
But first, lets look at the map in total to determine where we should expand.
If we split the map in half and remove main/nat, we can see that the left side of the map has 5 bases to take, while the right side has 3 bases. This means if you manage to occupy the left side, you already have access to more bases compared to the other one.



What about general map features around those expos?
Trying to expand to the right side secures you lots of random ridges, but the bases itself are hard to secure. If you take right side corner expo as a 3rd base, your direct path to that expo is only through small ramps, while the enemy can attack you at 3 locations through big chokes. At the same time, your main can still easily be dropped from every angle and the access to your back to very open. So for terrans in tvp its a nightmare to take this corner expo.... small attack at corner expo, then recall into main and terran army is stuck at ramp.... same with zvp, defiler/ling attack at corner into doom drop.



Trying to expand to the left side, you first have to take a mineral only, but this is also the base furthest away from your enemy, so its the easiest 3rd base to defend. You reduce the surface where your main can be dropped, you secured your backdoor. Disadvantages are, that he can contain you outside your natural, or focus on gas at natural/temples behind.
after you took the 4th on the left side, you can defend the big ramp and your natural and only have to worry about recall/doom drop in a small area. it may be hard to reinforce through the backdoor, but tanks can support from main and sunken/cannons at high ground 4th are still good.



Conclusion: left side has 2 more bases to take compared to right side, taking bases on left side is easier to do and gives you more benefits (imo). Can we agree on that?

So imo, everybody should focus their mid-lategame plan to secure the left side (red) while stopping the enemy from doing so (ground attack = yellow, drop/recall = blue).



lets look how i see the matchups being played out.
TvP:


(PS: picture is missing a pylon wall below the 3 o clock base AND a blue arrow over the cliff at 9 o clock to terran 4th)

The mains are close by air distance, open backdoor... terran should open vulture drop and take advantage of that. Afterwards they can defend early reaver drop by p with wraith. not exactly sure how survivability for terran is against proxy stuff, but if the game goes into some sort of standard mid-lategame, terran should be expanding to left side, securing his highground triangle outside his nat, and then focus all his pushing efforts along the red line in order to secure base 5 and poke at base 6. Red dots for turrets, Red lines for depot placement.
Protoss can decide between taking 3rd at top right for 3rd gas or 3rd at top left to reduce vulture harass potential, with Blue Lines for Pylon walls. But after protoss has 4 bases, what is his 5th base? Taking terran base 6 is hard to defend because terrans main focus is taking red base 5 and 6, so even if protoss can take it, it easily gets destroyed. the only other 5th base left is the 3 o clock base (bottom right is too far away and is next to terrans door), but as said earlier, this base is rather open, and lots of dead space around it, while terran gets red base 5 and 6.

Because of that, protoss has to stop terran from getting a secure position near red base 5 or he loses the economy war.
He either attacks on ground or recalls into main, nat or 4th base. If protoss decides to ge carrier, he might have a chance to take red base 6 as a 5th while trying to get the carriers into terran backdoor.

TvZ



Actually after making the map i realized that this MU isnt that bad. TvZ best MU anyway :D
Ok, close air means 2 hatch muta or mass muta and terran might have problems defending mass ling when going 1 rax cc, or defending mass muta with that open main..... But this map feels like destination, vultures are your friend, especially behind zerg nat. Because its a 2 player map, ebay block is also effective in detering zerg from going 2 hatch muta.
Against 3 hatch zergs, vulture drop/fantasy build is still really good because of close air/big main/space behind natural.
So imo, terran should open 1 fac with vulture into drop if possible and defend with valkonic.
Now Zerg decides to either mass muta it or switch into lurker. With mass muta, zerg just takes gas bases and terran tries to kill mass muta.....
If zerg goes lurker, game should go like my map shows. zerg takes 3rd with lurker and defends tank/vessel push with lurker/defiler. terran can try to go for drops into main, while changing targets between nat and 3rd of zerg (not indicated on map) or push the natural from the highground to kill gas.
after that if terran goes late mech, he should take 3rd/4th while zerg takes 4th.
Now zerg can either make fast muta switch (its only 3 gas, but bases are already secured and terran is spreading wide + still has open main) or pushes forward with lurker/swarm towards 5th/6th at left side and to the ramps. (purple arrows/lines)
If terran decides to expand to the purple X, zerg can easily swarm push it from his 3rd, but at the same time, zerg cant take this base without queens (or drops) because tanks from main can deny mining.
Now it looks like terran can attack mineral line from 9 o clock with tanks from middle, but i still think that the advantage in lategame goes to zerg, because just by securing the 9 o clock base with lurker/swarm, he can send in lings to the 3rd of terran and easily deny this base and by that time, zerg has drop + ovi speed finished and can start doom dropping into main while getting base at 9 o clock and the purple X.

ZvP




This is like Chain Reaction all over again... except you dont even have to mine out the backdoor.... and your hydras can attack the mineral line.... from the high ground.....
I first thought about doing a map for lategame, but then i realized that 3 hatch hydra is just too strong. if p defends with mass cannons, he gets dropped or has lurkers behind his nat from either bottom left or temple......
If p somehow denies that strat, with like idk.... 1 base stuff with probe/pylon blocking that bottom left base and the game somehow evens out, zerg can still take his 2 backdoor bases as 3rd/4th and then use his secured spot at the left side to take the other 2 left bases and start pressure with mass drops. only solution then for p seems to start with heavy cors/reaver, take both backdoor expos himself and then leapfrog the left side.

in the end, all MUs come down to:
TvP: can protoss stop terran from securing the left 3 bases?
TvZ: can terran stop zerg from securing his 3rd base at the left side/ drop him while pushing to kill his 3rd base at left side?
ZvP: 3 hatch hydra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Proposed changes try to bring more focus to the right side of the map,
in TvP, protoss gets an easier 5th base, while terran cant just blindly push to left side.
in TvZ, terran gets an easier 5th base, while zerg cant just blindly push the left side.
and in ZvP, if 3 hatch hydra somehow isnt an option anymore, protoss has easier 5th base while zerg cant just blindly push the left side.

when you split bluestorm, the split line consists of "cliff---- very long low ground with high ground ramps leading to it---cliff"
so you either drop/recall over cliff where 1000 turrets are or you w8 for enemy to attack you up the high ground....
on this map, if you split top vs bottom, the split line consists of (left to right) "cliff--- low ground with 2 bases close by---cliff---- big low/highground space again with my new bases close by----cliff---low ground".
Just getting into a real split map state will be very hard except for tvt, because the bases at left or right side are not that far from each other, while getting from left base to right base is harder. And you can still recall over middle cliff into main because of unbuildable space or runby at right side into corner expo.