StarCraft II’s competitive play has gotten a sizeable update, bringing a few bugfixes and map changes as well as alterations to the resource mechanics of the game.
The first thing to look towards is the changes in the Versus mode, which are arguably the most important when it comes to a competitive season’s update. Blizzard has adjusted the threshold at which mineral nodes visually change due to mining. The 900-value mineral nodes will now look significantly different to the starting 1800-value nodes.
They’ve also removed the “stop” and “attack” buttons from the Pylon’s command card in the hotkey menu, due to the structure not actually being able to stop or attack. Finally, they’ve fixed issues where the Neosteel Armor upgrade wouldn’t affect Terran Refineries built over Rich Vespene Geysers.
Looking to the maps, we have a considerable amount of changes. In general, the tournament logo position and orientation has been updated to prevent foliage from appearing over them, as well as to give them a more uniformed appearance across maps.
We’re excited to announce the future of StarCraft II esports. Our 3-year deal with ESL will help create a longstanding, high-quality program that keeps StarCraft II esports thriving for years to come.
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— StarCraft Esports (@esportstarcraft) January 7, 2020
Changes came to Arctic Dream LE and Ephemeron LE to fix issues where units could be hidden by doodads, as well as changing the name of a critter. The rest of the changes are decently minor enough to be rattled off in a list, so here are the bulk of the changes:
Everdream LE:
- Reaper ramp size increased
- Repositioned location of Overlord scout platform near naturals
- Adjusted terrain and pathing near third base
- Adjusted terrain to weaken Photon Cannon rushes
- Lowered cliffs to prevent units from being hidden behind them
Golden Wall LE:
- Adjusted terrain, pathing, and unpathable areas to weaken Photon Cannon rushes, prevent hidden units, and make the map less open
- Updated textures and lowered doodads to prevent clipping and provide consistency
- Repositioned light and rock doodads for visual effects and to prevent clipping, as well as updating minerals/vespene at the main base to be Protoss themed
- Added missing trims, textures, and fog for certain areas to increase visuals and visibility.
Purity and Industry LE:
- Adjusted position of unbuildable plates and the pathing around main to prevent wall-off strategies
- Updated pathing to match terrain
Simulacrum LE:
- Added high-ground terrain in front of linear third base to narrow entrance
- Shortened bridge in triangle third and added destructible rocks
- Reduced ramp size at forward base and added rocks
- Updated map info screenshots
Zen LE:
- Repositioned natural base ramp, pathing, and mineral fields to increase the defensibility of natural expansion
- Added unpathable terrain near fourth expansion to increase defensibility
And those are the changes! It looks like a sizeable amount of changes, but a good amount of it is small tweaks for visual effect. If you’re trying to push your rank this season, make sure you play a few practice games on the maps above to figure out the best pathing and defense strategies now that these changes have been made.
