Starting spawns on Metalopolis and Shattered Temple have been modified to prevent close ground spawns.

Starting spawns on Shakuras Plateau have been modified to ensure cross-map spawns only.

I bet those maps with lots of high and low ground areas next to each other would make things way different, could really turn the tide in a battle. 
 
Edit: I was primarily looking at Crossfire, because of the two plateaus on both sides of the center of the map.

Surprised to see Shakuras still being used, as it has been ousted.

A small piece of me was hoping to see Kulas Ravine still on that list lol. Map pool seems fine. Don't really like restricting the spawns though.

This map pool looks pretty good actually. The restrictions on the spawn is actually a great decision considering the match-ups change so drastically depending on whether you're close or far spawn. The spawn change to Shakuras is also good, it's nearly impossible for a Zerg to hold off a Terran siege push or a Protoss push through the back door rocks, especially considering they get a free expo while doing so.

Yeah, I really like the forced cross map positions on temple and metal, good idea.  The building blocker seems weird, just have to see what that changes. I really wish Blizz could put the GSL maps on the ladder, I want to play those so bad.

100% agree with the modifications. Now there won't be any auto-win/losses because of spawn position. It'll make the games a lot less luck based.

" Surprised to see Shakuras still being used, as it has been ousted. "

On March 01 2011 11:56 MLG_Lee wrote:
We do listen. Really, we do. :D As a league, I know we will always be under scrutiny, but hopefully this goes a little way to showing the community that we pay attention and that we often have reasons for the things that we do.

Along those lines, I see a lot of questions about why we chose Crossfire vs some of the other GSL maps. Personally, I love Crevasse, but we're also under some serious time constraints due to our bracket size and format. The average time in all the major competition replays we could get our hands on showed Crevasse exceeding our cut off. Unfortunately, so we really couldn't risk having a map that might delay the progress of the tournament. 5mins more every round ends up being a 3hr+ delay by the end of the weekend. And the schedule is already REALLY long for the players. 

Crossfire, while not as good in allowing the macro-game to be played out as some of the other larger maps these days, has some really exciting elements to it that I'm looking forward to seeing on the main stage at Dallas.   

" @onimonkii: ESL.eu has been using Testbug for some time now on their online cups and tournaments and it seems to be a pretty good macro map from what I've seen, eventhough it does look quite weird at first glance because it is a 3player map. 
 
 
also MLG_Lee on why they chose Crossfire SE as only GSL map:
 

On March 01 2011 11:56 MLG_Lee wrote:
We do listen. Really, we do. :D As a league, I know we will always be under scrutiny, but hopefully this goes a little way to showing the community that we pay attention and that we often have reasons for the things that we do.

Along those lines, I see a lot of questions about why we chose Crossfire vs some of the other GSL maps. Personally, I love Crevasse, but we're also under some serious time constraints due to our bracket size and format. The average time in all the major competition replays we could get our hands on showed Crevasse exceeding our cut off. Unfortunately, so we really couldn't risk having a map that might delay the progress of the tournament. 5mins more every round ends up being a 3hr+ delay by the end of the weekend. And the schedule is already REALLY long for the players. 

Crossfire, while not as good in allowing the macro-game to be played out as some of the other larger maps these days, has some really exciting elements to it that I'm looking forward to seeing on the main stage at Dallas.   

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=197335 "