Now that I've rewatched the stream, I must admit I feel like the blind nature of this tournament is a go-to for future tourneys. I strongly suspect that the PA burnout I was feeling was a large part down to a stale tournament map pool. You can say the meta is stale and sure that can contribute to a lack of intrigue, but the same maps means the same meta will play out pretty much the same each time and so casting is going from A to D via B and C each time predictably. New maps, even if the same meta will make the meta play out differently each time. Indeed they are even more likely to prompt unusual strats as people don't know what to expect on them. I remember way back when FrozenOreoYog was a new map and Qzip did a proxy naval + tele rush in a 2v2... you didn't get that by the end, just your usual stuff as people got savvy to the map strats.

You can argue that even new maps don't get rid of predictability as savvy players will know what to look out for sure, but then you make tricky maps, maps that encourage play for certain areas of interest.

For instance, a lot of people in this tourney REALLY didn't like WAISTBAND, or...'the ice map'. I didn't think it was too bad AND, get this, it had a high concentration of metal in the middle which necessitated a focus around that. AND it didn't have a butt-load of metal in the spawn so you actually had to expand and maintain your expansions. THAT is what made it interesting to spectate.

Take my original 1v1 maps from my map pack, a common criticism was "Where's all the metal???", my reply to that is "well...that's the point; you have to go and get it, I don't want the same game of PA to play on this map as it does on countless others"

Maps are not 'bad' just because you are not comfortable playing on them...



I'd like to know what others think of the blind format. It has to be said that it does require constant new maps if more of these tourneys are to take place.



It should also be noted that I feel the maps made can probably last for 2 tourneys if used sparingly because it would seem that the public lobbies in PA tend to stick to the same maps over and over as well so there isn't really a risk of the new maps becoming outdated/saturated with experience anytime soon.

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