EPTAncient Cistern: + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/5/55/Ancient_Cistern.jpg)
Altitude: + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/6/60/Altitude.jpg)
Babylon: + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/8/80/Babylon.jpg)
Dragon Scales: + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/a/a5/Dragon_Scales.jpg)
Gresvan: + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/2/27/Gresvan.jpg)
Neohumanity: + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/5/5c/Neohumanity.jpg)
Royal Blood: + Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](https://liquipedia.net/commons/images/7/78/Royal_Blood.jpg)
New Ladder Maps Announced - Used at IEM Katowice - Page 2
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Ronski
Finland266 Posts
Ancient Cistern: + Show Spoiler + Altitude: + Show Spoiler + Babylon: + Show Spoiler + Dragon Scales: + Show Spoiler + Gresvan: + Show Spoiler + Neohumanity: + Show Spoiler + Royal Blood: + Show Spoiler + | ||
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tigera6
3515 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16089 Posts
On January 04 2023 21:31 tigera6 wrote: PiG did a quick segment to look at those maps, and most of them are quite huge, a complete reverse from the current map pool. Dragon scale was the only small one, I think, comparing to Moondance/Waterfall/Inside and Outside currently. So a Zerg favored mappool on top of the Zerg patch? Can't wait for that Zatowice | ||
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KillerSmile
Germany96 Posts
On January 04 2023 20:57 Charoisaur wrote: shouldn't it be the other way? Maps being tested on ladder first before they get played on in tournaments? Imbalanced maps on ladder don't matter, but in tournaments they affect the livelihood of pro players Any problems that arise in testing during a weekly cup can be fixed within hours and the ladder play is unaffected because it's still on the old maps. If a problem comes up on ladder, people are gonna veto the map and it will take weeks to get fixed, if at all. The ladder version of Hardwire still has a tank spot on the reaper cliff. Data-C doesn't have a tank spot on the reaper cliff, because it was caught in a weekly cup and fixed, then blizzard uploaded the fixed version to ladder. Tournaments had to use the ESL Hardwire version, but it's still not great to have a flawed map on ladder, even if it's a relatively small thing. Imagine the same thing with a super broken cannon spot. On January 04 2023 20:54 Vindicare605 wrote: Here's why this doesn't play. The players are qualifying and being seeded for this tournament based on how they performed LAST year, under last year's maps and last year's patch. It makes ZERO sense for any Championship Tournament to completely change the rules of the game during the "finals" of the season. It's completely ridiculous. It's bad enough that ESL has been doing this with maps, including last year's HILARIOUSLY terrible Pride of Aldaris being included in the finals map pool, but now they're going to be opening the finals of the year with a brand new map pool and a brand new set of balance changes that will have no time to be properly settle in the meta before the tournament has to start. Not only is it unfair for the players to have to deal with, but it's an absolute disgrace to anyone that understands ANY sport to call this scenario a world championship. This would be as if the league had introduced a brand new set of regulations for how to referee a game right before the playoffs start, or forced players to play with a brand new ball, or on a brand new surface for the court. It's absurd. I would have hoped that ESL would have learned their lessons about this shit already from 2019 where Nydus Worms took over the tournament out of nowhere, or from last year when the map pool was obviously extremely Zerg favored. But it doesn't seem like they WANT to learn these lessons, as long as people keep giving them excuses to do whatever they feel like. First off, players are seeded by the performance of last year's maps and patch, but back then the meta wasn't settled, was it? It's not like pro players are doing a bunch of friendly matches until the meta settles and only then do the matches count and the tournaments pay out prize money. The meta never settles, it evolves and changing maps plus having balance patches is a sign of a healthy RTS. This isn't League of Legends where we all play on Summoner's Rift until the cows come home. Hell, even that one map has been changed over the years and regular balance changes is what made them the biggest esport in history. | ||
Poopi
France13018 Posts
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buzz_bender
446 Posts
On January 04 2023 20:54 Vindicare605 wrote: Here's why this doesn't play. The players are qualifying and being seeded for this tournament based on how they performed LAST year, under last year's maps and last year's patch. It makes ZERO sense for any Championship Tournament to completely change the rules of the game during the "finals" of the season. It's completely ridiculous. It's bad enough that ESL has been doing this with maps, including last year's HILARIOUSLY terrible Pride of Aldaris being included in the finals map pool, but now they're going to be opening the finals of the year with a brand new map pool and a brand new set of balance changes that will have no time to be properly settle in the meta before the tournament has to start. Not only is it unfair for the players to have to deal with, but it's an absolute disgrace to anyone that understands ANY sport to call this scenario a world championship. This would be as if the league had introduced a brand new set of regulations for how to referee a game right before the playoffs start, or forced players to play with a brand new ball, or on a brand new surface for the court. It's absurd. I would have hoped that ESL would have learned their lessons about this shit already from 2019 where Nydus Worms took over the tournament out of nowhere, or from last year when the map pool was obviously extremely Zerg favored. But it doesn't seem like they WANT to learn these lessons, as long as people keep giving them excuses to do whatever they feel like. Not this time. These are huge changes that even the players themselves do not want included in the tournament. If they are going to push this shit through anyway then they deserve to be criticized for it. Blizzard NEVER did shit like this before with Blizzcon, even if it would have been good for it like again in 2019 because as the "World Championship" event there's an onus on being the fairest representation of the season you are awarding a title for as possible. IEM Katowice has consistently decided they do not believe in this idea, that they can make radical changes to their tournament that negatively impacts the competitive integrity of it, and still call it a World Championship. I don't agree. They only got the title of "World championship" because we as a community agreed to let them have it after Blizzcon dissolved. They only get to keep using it as long as the community agrees to keep acknowledging them as the best tournament of the year. Completely agree with this. It's insane that they are doing this. In fact, Rotterdam once suggested that instead of getting new maps for the World Championships, they could just pick the best or most played maps from across the past year leading up to Katowice, which I thought it's a good idea. Although now the map pool doesn't change that often... | ||
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Rob-Zero
Germany460 Posts
This pool looks like three easy bases for everyone once again. Damn it was so exciting to watch what Kespa did with the maps in BW back in the days. Even though I know it was a different game, and maybe still not always good for the meta, it was entertaining as hell to watch the players find out how to play on a wild map. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9331 Posts
On January 04 2023 21:12 Ronski wrote: Just putting pics of the maps for people curious Ancient Cistern: + Show Spoiler + Altitude: + Show Spoiler + Babylon: + Show Spoiler + Dragon Scales: + Show Spoiler + Gresvan: + Show Spoiler + Neohumanity: + Show Spoiler + Royal Blood: + Show Spoiler + Am I wrong to say that those maps have way more good spots for siege tanks in TvZ than the current map pool? | ||
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dysenterymd
1250 Posts
Even if there's a month to prepare I don't think it's fair to spring a map pool like this without any major tournaments in between. Yes, players will have time to develop strategies for maps, but without high stakes matches they won't be tested in the most meaningful way and all kinds of potentially broken strategies may be hidden. There will always be a bit of initial unfairness in this regard when introducing a new map pool, but there's a difference between introducing a new map pool before a big tournament like DHM and the literal world championship, which has a larger prize pool than many tournaments combined. Before HSC (or even better before DH Atlanta) would have been a good time to introduce a new map pool, now not so much. | ||
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Nakajin
Canada8991 Posts
On January 04 2023 22:31 Poopi wrote: I am really out of the loop about sc2 atm with the holiday season and all that, will they play Katowice on the new patch + new map pool? Not sure that it has been confirmed for the patch, but my understanding is that it's the plan. | ||
Mizenhauer
United States1960 Posts
On January 04 2023 20:04 Vindicare605 wrote: lmao. The patch just got an update like a couple days ago. Everyone knows the patch isn't ready yet and yet they are not only going to push the patch out for IEM but a brand new map pool as well? Seriously what the fuck is ESL thinking?! Do they think they need to do this shit to get people to watch? It's fucking Katowice OF COURSE we're going to watch but now we're going to watch knowing that everything that happens in this tournament is a gigantic asterisk because it's being done with a huge set of massive changes right before it. This is stupid. I no longer consider Katowice the "world championships" anymore. They keep doing shit like this that completely compromises the competitive integrity of the tournament. They don't deserve to be called "World Championships" if they are going to do shit like this consistently. And so the lesson to be learned is that we're going to do that AGAIN? Oh and that balance patch? Massive favor to Zerg, just like this one is. Typical. Typical. Bummer, but you're wrong. The balance patch in question was introduced days before soO and Stats played in the semifinal in season 1 of 2018. The patch was completely justified as it nerfed the totally unfair ling elevator Scarlett used to demolish sOs at IEM PyeongChang. The patch made it so you needed a lair to pick up lings and carry them into the main. This completely changed the matchup as soO lost access to a frankly op mechanic. The change needed to be made, but it shouldn't have been instituted one or two days before the match as soO had a week to prepare for the match and all of that went out the window with the balance change. | ||
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TossHeroes
281 Posts
On January 04 2023 20:04 Vindicare605 wrote: lmao. The patch just got an update like a couple days ago. Everyone knows the patch isn't ready yet and yet they are not only going to push the patch out for IEM but a brand new map pool as well? Seriously what the fuck is ESL thinking?! Do they think they need to do this shit to get people to watch? It's fucking Katowice OF COURSE we're going to watch but now we're going to watch knowing that everything that happens in this tournament is a gigantic asterisk because it's being done with a huge set of massive changes right before it. This is stupid. I no longer consider Katowice the "world championships" anymore. They keep doing shit like this that completely compromises the competitive integrity of the tournament. They don't deserve to be called "World Championships" if they are going to do shit like this consistently. And so the lesson to be learned is that we're going to do that AGAIN? Oh and that balance patch? Massive favor to Zerg, just like this one is. Typical. Typical. If you gonna whine and complain about Zergs, at least get your facts right The patch in 2018 GSL was a direct nerf to Zerg’s dropalord strategy | ||
BluemoonSC
SoCal8933 Posts
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ZeroByte13
799 Posts
Otherwise, combined with a clearly Z-favoured patch, Katowice might get really boring and sad. | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4280 Posts
On January 04 2023 23:25 Rob-Zero wrote: Wow, the map pool looks boring. Is it like 6 times the same map plus Dragon scales? I wish they would go wild on at least three maps per pool. I know it is bad for the balance, but it would keep the game interesting, at least for me. This pool looks like three easy bases for everyone once again. Damn it was so exciting to watch what Kespa did with the maps in BW back in the days. Even though I know it was a different game, and maybe still not always good for the meta, it was entertaining as hell to watch the players find out how to play on a wild map. Could not agree more.. It's still the same as it was before with the maps but it's Afreeca (ASL) not KeSPA doing it atm | ||
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ShowTheLights
Korea (South)1717 Posts
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Weavel
Finland9224 Posts
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ZeroByte13
799 Posts
On January 05 2023 16:05 Weavel wrote:Makes watching Katowice much more interesting imo. Even if it's ZvZ finals with 3 Z in semifinals?  | ||
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derkopf
Germany90 Posts
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ZeroByte13
799 Posts
On January 05 2023 18:33 derkopf wrote: What do you mean?Well nothing happened, no new maps, no new balance patch. Katowice page on Liquipedia shows new map pool. Though it also mentions current patch version, not a new one... | ||
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