The most heavily discussed topic in the Overwatch pro scene as of recent is the one of map drafts, and primarily players and community figures going out of their way to criticize the format MLG, accompanied by Blizzard, released previously this week for the MLG Vegas 2016 Overwatch tournament. It’s a topic that has been brought up numerous times in the past, to a milder degree and mostly internally, but with the MLG Vegas 2016 Overwatch tournament featuring pre-determined maps, for each series throughout the event, it got to a boiling point for the Overwatch professional scene.

The topic itself is one that a lot of players hold close to heart, the map draft as seen in CS:GO, and it’s importance primarily brought to light by Duncan “Thorin” Shields, is sort of like a mini-game itself, and the map draft can dictate the end result of series alone. The suspense of having a graphic slowly unfolding what maps are about to be played, trying to get into the players heads and trying to figure out and understand why a map was banned or picked, it’s a very small part of a broadcast, that often goes under-appreciated.

However, the spectator experience is most definitely not what players are concerned about. They’re concerned they won’t be able to show their capabilities, what their hard practice has lead to, they’re concerned they’ll look back at MLG Vegas thinking “We lost a grudging series, we should have won, because we had to play our worst maps. How unfair.”.

The format 1.0

Before this blog post was written, it’s important to highlight that MLG and Blizzard did take action and changed the map pool, but let’s go back to the initial announcement, and what it featured.

Now the most important thing I’ll highlight here is the actual map count, we know the format of pre-determined maps already, and we know it’s bad, there’s no need for a further explanation, but what did MLG and Blizzard initially have in mind?

MLG Vegas 2016 map pool 1.0:

Ilios: 9

Anubis: 5

Hanamura: 5

Eichenwalde: 3

Gibraltar: 3

King’s Row: 3

Route 66: 3

Volskaya: 2

Hollywood: 2

Dorado: 2

Numbani: 2

Lijiang: 2

Nepal: 2

Well, it’s pretty clear from the get-go that Blizzard and MLG both want to show off Ilios on the broadcast. A bit of catching up to do after Lijiang and Nepal both have, throughout the life-span of Overwatch, been the two go-to maps when it comes to playing control maps in official tournaments. The heavy inclusion of the least well liked control map, dare I even say the least liked map in the entire game from professionals who have stayed away from Ilios for the longest time, is also a rude awakening for teams participating at the event. The least practiced map in Overwatch history among top teams, now becomes most influential map in one of the most exciting Overwatch LAN’s of the year. Players have the right to be upset.

Things also noteworthy is the fact that both Anubis and Hanamura, two capture point maps places 2nd and 3rd. A pessimistic way to look at it is that Anubis and Hanamura will both be played more than any other “payload” map, not to mention that a lot of group stage matches were initially decided by playing “Temple of Anubis”, following by “Ilios” as the first two maps in the Bo3 series. While an optimistic way to look at it, is that there’s 18 maps of payload featured, to capture point’s 12.

The map pool… 1.1.

Now Blizzard as previously mentioned took action as per teams request, but maybe not in the way professionals would have liked. However, there’s a small silver lining, over-shadowed by the fact that the dreaded format of pre-determined map pool stands.

The updated map pool now scheduled for MLG Vegas 2016.

Now when reading the updated map pool, my initial reaction was “Wow, the person in charge really said “fuck it” when it comes to capture point maps”. And it’s an understandable reaction from a community that has taken disliking to the map format itself for the longest time, and the taste has soured, as the very dominant triple tank meta has risen to absurd levels, the possibilities of stalling of the last point on all three maps has risen to levels that go against competitive integrity. I do hope though for future reference that it is a game mode that stays in the map pool, because it has potential in a favorable meta of the game mode, and it encourages teams to specialize and innovate.

Now, let’s talk about the silver lining. One thing that goes unnoticed is the fact that Eichenwalde, Hanamura and Lijiang Tower will see no play what so ever at MLG Vegas 2016. A 13-map pool has become a 10-map pool. And that’s great.

A pre-determined map pool gives the players a sense of fear about what maps are about to be played, “we haven’t practiced X and Y as much, I really hope we don’t have to play them”, but reducing that map pool gives teams a chance to excel more, and worry less.

The fact that no team participating at MLG Vegas no longer have to spend hours upon hours trying to be good at Lijiang, Eichenwalde or Hanamura saves a huge amount of practice time, that can now be used to get good on others. My initial suggestion to Blizzard was just to decide a 9-map pool prior to an event and release the map pool roughly 1 month prior, because that way you’d have enough time to properly figure the 9 maps out in the current meta, while having something in your pocket, and peaking performance-wise for the tournament itself. Now 9 maps is still a lot, compared to CS:GO, but in the current nature of Overwatch the level of strategy involved is far less and time-consuming, so I still find it realistic that any top team should out-perform their lower tiered teams consistently on 9 maps with enough time to prepare.

I’m not happy about using pre-determined maps as a format, but I can in the moment appreciate the small things they do to make life easier for us when asked for. Blizzard has given me the feeling that they’re doing everything to control every minute of a Blizzard-sponsored broadcast, perhaps caring a bit too much, but it’s all for the healthiness of the game. They’ve been wrong before, but implying the Blizzard development team is incompetent would be an unwise way to start a discussion, and trying find change.

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