It explains the changes in Rush Hour 3, 815 III, Sin Cultivation, The Eye, Arcadia, and 백두대간.
Read these and post your opinions!
My opinions:
백두대간 (edit: Translated to Peaks of Baekdu) - It's hard to predict what kind of matches we'll see. There are small bridges in the middle to make rushes easy, and there's an expo in the back that could be defended if you have nice defensive strat. I think we'll have to watch and see how things turn out.
Cultivation Period - The changes definately help zerg ALOT. But still the short distance will make pushing terrans hard to block and impossible to buy time. I still think zerg's could do better on this map if they played differently. I like the mineral-hop idea they put.
The Eye - Looks like a macro map. But I don't like how there's not too much empty space in the middle. Taking your mineral only is now harder because they added entrances there. I think this will be well balanced.
Arcadia - Thank God they enlarged those bridges. I was gonna cry if it was going to stay that way (it use to be narrow). Still I think this is a Terran map. Mainly because taking your mineral only is now easier, and Terran's can easily float another CC to the island next to them. That means 3 expos without much risk. Yes, I think T's will have fun here.
Rush Hour 3.0 - Not much to say. In my personal opinion, as a zerg user, Rush Hour 1 was the best version!
815 III - The idea of putting 2 geysers with 2,500 gas each instead of 1 geyser with 5,000 gas, is genious imo. I think it will give zerg's a better chance. Also, July's mass hydra strat he showed vs Oov is imo very strong, and if he didn't screw up a few times I think he could have done well.
I will comment the maps for the z players. Rush Hour III good map, CP very bad for zerg cause of the short distance,815 no comment and for peaks of beakdu i think its not bad.ok we have 2 not bad maps and 2 anti z maps i think the winner of OSL wont be Zerg again but i am sure the MSL winner will be Zerg ( the maps are good )
OSL: Baekdu looks so fucking bizarre I don't know what to think. It just looks ridiculous, but I haven't played any games on it nor have I seen games on it, so I'll reserve some opinion on it until I do. I still have a bad feeling for CP.
MSL: The Eye and Arcadia - I'm really not sure about this whole dual natural deal. Other than that, I love them.
As for the other two maps that are in both MSL and OSL, I've always liked Rush Hour, and I'm glad it's still in rotation. 815 I've never liked playing, but I've seen some interesting games in the past, so hopefully the new changes will keep it fresh and exciting.
I cant imagine ZvT on Baekdu being anything but perhaps the hardest shit EVER. Man everytime I look at it I just freak out aaaaagh;] At least they could have given the nat a small gas or maybe just made it so that a T wont be able to muscle their way above your main every game with tanks and rape you.
I know they want micro games, but making a worse version of Bifrost isnt the answer;[
815 also isnt really "fixed" at all imo. Its just the same fuckin map but with gay islands now. And Cultivation Period really isnt either. I honestly cant believe that a professional organization with the task of coming up with good maps can not find some better than this.
What makes me more upset is that they make the Dual League somewhat easy for Zergs(Get to lose once, I believe helps Z a bit more than TP, macro maps), so that a ton qualify. Then they drop them into OSL which seems to just be Z rape maps every time now. I guess we will see, and maybe it wouldnt be so bad if a couple more Tosses qualified instead of ZT player, but the Tosses always get eliminated leaving a nonstop ZvT TvT semi/final. ;] MSL maps are pretty tight, coulda used a map like Baekdu(Maybe RoV) instead of 815 though.