First of all, congrats to the Finalists of TLMC#18! It has been quite the process internally and none of it would be without the work of Waxangel and thank you to the assistance from TL alongside Monster Energy's sponsorship!
Just like previously in TLMC#17, this time around TeamLiquid will be releasing the spreadsheet with the comments that we ask our panel of Judges to write about what issues they see on the submissions delivered to them.
Like always there is a foreword on what is actually included on this sheet:
FOREWORD
The entirety of the TLMC#18 submissions are not included on this sheet, only maps which passed an early stage filtering, which is used to reduce the workload for judges, sadly judges can't review upwards of 180 maps on a single week, so around ~1/3rd of the overall lowest reviewed maps don't make the cut. TLMC will **always** try to default onto passing the maps onto the judges rather than filter them, but because of workload, schedule, costs, this step was added in the first place, after all TLMC is a community run project, with limited budgets and limited scope.
IMPORTANT:
Judges can be both casters or progamers or invited special judges, the races shown, do not necessarily represent that they only play a single race or that they vote with a singular mindset, but the race that they are "generally known" to play, their thoughts ought not be thought that they are therefore "maximizing" their own views of what the map pools ought be for them to "win more games", these thoughts and ratings are dedicated to improve the overall landscape of the map pool, and more can be read on the Rating Guidelines tab on this spreadsheet.
The entirety of the TLMC#18 submissions are not included on this sheet, only maps which passed an early stage filtering, which is used to reduce the workload for judges, sadly judges can't review upwards of 180 maps on a single week, so around ~1/3rd of the overall lowest reviewed maps don't make the cut. TLMC will **always** try to default onto passing the maps onto the judges rather than filter them, but because of workload, schedule, costs, this step was added in the first place, after all TLMC is a community run project, with limited budgets and limited scope.
IMPORTANT:
Judges can be both casters or progamers or invited special judges, the races shown, do not necessarily represent that they only play a single race or that they vote with a singular mindset, but the race that they are "generally known" to play, their thoughts ought not be thought that they are therefore "maximizing" their own views of what the map pools ought be for them to "win more games", these thoughts and ratings are dedicated to improve the overall landscape of the map pool, and more can be read on the Rating Guidelines tab on this spreadsheet.
Download links:
And alongside the same vein, TLMC will be releasing Quality Assurance (QA) comments which might be helpful commentary on best practices to mapmakers to make sure that their maps pass QA with flying colors

QA Comments can be found near the bottom on the spreadsheet below, which is the actual spreadsheet used during the QA process by me and other helpers:
Beyond these documents, I will be answering general questions that submitters be them finalists or otherwise might have regarding the maps sent. Be advised that sadly the official TLMC Feedback Threads are not a thing anymore, but I'll give best efforts to respond questions such as why X Y Z map might not have made it to the proper judging steps, and hopefully ensure that next that the map, or some other new map is sent that it fulfills some of the requests on what it takes to reach these stages
