Catallena

Catallena is yet another finalist of the TLMC4, who unfortunately came in dead last in the vote. Luckily, Blizzard has seen the untapped potential in this map and given it another shot at fame and glory. A typical problem that three-player maps face is that one or both players feel forced to play a hyper-aggressive style in order to take advantage of the asymmetrical spawns, but Catallena dances around the issue by sheer map size while still managing to incorporate enough interesting terrain features to keep games exciting. With main-to-main distances that are considerably large, many gimmicky rushes are immediately removed from play, and with a very defensible natural most games can be expected to have quick second bases from both players. For a third base, players have the choice between a forward third base that extends toward the middle of the map or a safer pocket expansion to the side of the map, but both are located somewhat far away from the natural. As a match heads into the mid game, the fairly large distance from the natural to the third as well as the proximity of the forward third bases helps to create a faster-paced game. With a short walking distance between the two central bases, one can expect frequent and fierce conflict between these two points, but it’s not as clear cut as other maps that put an emphasis on these third bases. Due to the ramp structure, the defending player will always have a superior positioning advantage, making it quite difficult for the attacking player to cause significant damage. With cliffs and air space galore, (and no border like the one seen in Merry Go Round), drop and air play are extremely potent weapons. Doom drops are especially terrifying because of the long travel distance by ground from the third to the main and the choke point of the main base.

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Due to the abundance of ramps, cliffs, and air space, there are an incredible amount of ways for the opponent to defend an incoming attack at any point. The only truly open parts of the map are between central ramps and between the isolated side bases; otherwise, any choke or cliff can be used by either player as a very powerful position. From a Terran perspective, the movement options are numerous and fascinating, as there are several ways from which to attack the central third bases, and the other pocket third base is vulnerable to being cut off from reinforcement. Protoss players will also enjoy the varied terrain and fairly tight chokes which will provide them many opportunities for clever movement and positioning. However, the key concern for Protoss will be securing and defending a third against the myriad of mid game pressures available to the other races, which may be solved by using more aggressive builds on this map. The varying pathways also provide Zerg with plenty of room to maneuver, flank, and counterattack, especially toward the more open center. Zergs may struggle a bit with getting the necessary creep spread to the third and fourth bases, making aggression in the early and mid parts of the game extremely potent. However, if the Zerg is able to secure their third of the map with creep, they have can create a very defensible cluster of bases.

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By:Thaniri


Due to the difficulty in defending either third base on this map Terran players can very well go back to the days of heavy pressure on Zerg’s third base with hellions and banshees. It’s been a while since this strategy has been in vogue, so perhaps we need a quick recap which can be seen here to the left.

That’s the bare-bones of the build, and from there a Terran player can go down many routes. This build is perfect to follow in the footsteps of ForGG's revolutionary TvZ style. ForGG's strategy features a focus on drone kills, but let’s not disregard the other possibilities. Another powerful option is to go the spoon Terran route and get some hellions and a banshee out just to keep the Zerg player honest and deny creep, then follow it up with a group of marines and medivacs to do some serious damage to the third base. Bomber might go straight into bio tank production in preparation for a big 2/2 push. MVP would probably favor going for a mech followup to the harass.

The first two hellions are scout out the map, find the third base and try to deny a few creep tumors. Being too aggressive early on leads to a big loss of map control for the Terran player and the first four hellions need to be babysat constantly to prevent losing them. In comparison to WoL, the hellions become much more important later on due to their ability to transform into hellbats in HotS, as opposed to simply becoming more and more useless as the game goes on. The damage of this build comes in when there are at least six hellions on the field, as at that number it begins to get difficult for zerglings to cause any serious damage to them unless they are in overwhelming numbers. At this point, the armory isn't quite complete, but once it is, 6 hellbats can destroy countless masses of zerglings. This magical number of six hellions doesn't answer the queen however, and that’s where a banshee’s great DPS comes into play. While a regular hellion group can’t engage queens directly, and hellbats being very kiteable with their pitiful range, the banshee raining damage down from the sky forces the Zerg player to micro his queens a lot more and can even get a kill.



Deciding when and where to transform your hellions into hellbats is a very important decision. The transformation time is four seconds, which is not a big deal when going from hellions into hellbats, but is a huge problem if zerg has pulled away his drones already. Missing the drones, and having to transform back into hellions to chase them creates a huge vulnerability; the Zerg player has four seconds to surround your now hellions with zerglings and take advantage of their different area of effect attack being much less effective. As such, hellions should only transform into hellbats when zerg has already committed his zerglings to killing them. 6+ Hellbats have the potential to kill innumerable zerglings when positioned in mineral lines, so even if the hellions don’t end up killing too many drones on their own, the zerg player is forced to spend a lot of larvae rebuilding zerglings or roaches to defend the attack.



Stemming from all of this damage, the flexibility of hellion banshee openers comes back into play. Most builds that rely on timing attacks after the harass will hit between 11:00-12:00, and, with any luck from an effective hellbat harass, mutas will be delayed for a full minute after that, allowing for an easy denial on the Zergs fourth base and definite denial of creep spread. However, this timing attack style should not be expected to outright kill the Zerg player as even on only three bases Zerg can produce an overwhelmingly large army.

Alternatively, as Artosis says, when you are ahead, get more ahead. A mech style with a heavy emphasis on upgrades is perfectly reasonable after a hellion banshee opening. The Zerg player will not be behind in tech, and will likely catch up quite quickly on economy, but the one thing they will lack is an army. Take advantage of this weakness with a little bit of greed, but be wary of mutalisks and get some thors out.

Don’t think however, that the hellion banshee openers will be the end-all be all of this map. With such isolated third and fourth bases, any timing attack related style will prove to be extremely effective on this map. All I do is stim, stim, stim, no matter what.