“These maps are considered a little bit favored for the terran, at the moment, is the consensus among the pro gamers. [The consensus] is that the current map pool [has] lots of good terran maps and, you know, the zergs are so afraid of Maru’s turtling they have to get rid of Neo Humanity, but these maps -Babalyon, Dragon Scales- have some fantastic aggressive pushes from the terran.” - PiG.
Hat’s off to PiG for stating the obvious. I took one look at this map pool and was like “This is probably the most terran favored map pool that I think I’ve seen since Wings of Liberty days”. Back then, terrans could lock zergs into their main by walling the ramp with a barracks and a depot. That’s how busted the maps were back then. In this map pool, they are small maps that allow the terran to siege your third or fourth, and give a direct doom-drop path into the main. They have lots of hiding spots for medivacs that can’t be reached by ground units, meaning the medivacs have “safe zones” they can run to which is equivalent to risk-free harass. All the bases are curled together by ridiculously long ground travel times between the bases yet extremely short air travel times. The maps are also “squatted”, meaning you have to expand towards your opponent rather than away. A single one of these would make the map pool good for Terran, but they’ve got it all. It’s like Avilo’s christmas list come true. This is obviously going to favor terran. Anyone with eyes could plainly see that would be the case.
Nonetheless, everyone’s like “nah man, you’re crazy, it was the balance patch that nerfed zerg”. Except, here’s the catch, the balance patch was a huge net buff to zerg. The ghost nerfs and brood speed buffs make late game zerg frankly busted (did you see Gumiho vs Dark in the ESL Summer – yeah, exactly). It’s obviously the map pool that creating the issue. The typical terran GM went from being a free win to feeling like you are 1v1ing maru for crying out loud. I am like playing vs this Masters-1 terran who can barely stutter step and it’s herculean effort to win a macro game.
So here I am with everyone telling me I am cray-cray and suddenly we have an all terran semi finals in the GSL. Huh. How about that. Now a top WCS caster is calling out the obvious. I guess I win again. Barcode: 1000 to 0 vs forum whiners.
You guys didn’t think I wouldn’t cash in with yet another “I told you so”, did you? I mean, who’s even keeping track at this point. We’ll just assume you guys lose future debates by default.