Starcraft AI blog

It has been announced that the island map Sparkle will be used in the ASL5 round of 24, to be played starting on 11 March. I first mentioned the map on 13 February. The original announcement by Afreeca (Google translate) goes into some detail on the map and the changes to it (also for the other new map Transistor).

The updates to Sparkle since it was first proposed are substantial, which gives me the idea that the map author is still struggling with the balance. It seems difficult to balance an island map. Also there isn’t much time before the tournament starts, and players need time to work out the best strategies—and sometimes surprising ideas eventually come up on nonstandard maps, like the guardian build on Monty Hall. Still, I hope we get at least a glimmering that play can be made fair for all matchups. I’m looking forward to the strategic variety, and if players believe that an island or semi-island map can be balanced (even if Sparkle never is), then the variety will be around to stay.