Starcraft II Dev Tracker

On the ancient jungle world Zerus, slavering predators wage eternal war, striving to climb the universe’s bloodiest evolutionary ladder. This is also a great way to visualize the 14th TLnet Map Contest, wherein 163 of the StarCraft II mapmaking community’s bravest submissions were viciously winnowed down to 16. When the mist of combat settled, one submission had emerged above all others: Blackburn, an inventive and action-packed Rush map created by Alexander “Insidious” Hallmann. We reached out to Hallmann, an experienced submitter but first-time finalist, to chronicle the origin story of his 1st-place map.

Pay heed: Many TLnet Map Contest finalist submissions wind up on the official StarCraft II in-game ladder. The StarCraft II dev team’s finest map connoisseurs will be turning a critical eye to these creations in the weeks to come, and you can bet that Blackburn will warrant serious consideration.

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Versus

• Adjusted the threshold at which mineral nodes visual change as they get mined over the course of the game. As a result, the starting 900-value mineral nodes should look more visually distinct from the starting 1800-value mineral nodes.
• Removed the “stop” and “attack” buttons from the Pylon’s command card in the hotkey menu.
• Fixed an issue where the Neosteel Armor upgrade was not affecting Refineries built on rich vespene geysers.

Maps

• General
  • Updated tournament logo position and orientation on all 1v1 maps and prevented foliage from appearing over them as well.
• Arctic Dream LE
  • Fixed an issue where units could be hidden by certain doodads.
• Ephemeron LE
  • Fixed an issue where a critter had a custom name on the map.
• Everdream LE
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2020 Ladder Season 1 brings new 1v1 and Team maps to ladder!

These maps will be available for playtesting or exploration in the Custom Games section of Multiplayer today. Below are some descriptions from the creators of the maps. Please click on the images to see the detailed views.

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Marras: “The map has 16 blue bases, two of which have a single Rich Vespene Geyser. The average rush distance is 37 seconds. There are rocks in the middle path and on the ramp leading into ...

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I don’t know about you, but IEM so excited to watch the world’s best StarCraft II players compete for $400,000 in Katowice, Poland from February 24 to March 1.

(Terrible pun. Sorry.)

I’m referring, of course, to Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice 2020, the first major StarCraft II tournament of the year and the first global event of the new ESL Pro Tour, set to be an electrifying display of interstellar warfare. The competitors are as fearsome a group of generals, executors, and broodmothers as have ever been assembled. There’s Park "Dark" Ryung Woo, arguably the best Zerg player in South Korea, fresh off a victory in the 2019 WCS Global Finals. Also in attendance is Riccardo "Reynor" Romiti, the 17-year-old Italian Zerg prodigy who fell to Dark in those finals and will be looking for revenge here.

With so many top players, it’s inevitable that year-spanning storylines will gain new chapters—and new tale...

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GENERAL

• War Chest 5 Skin Bundles are now available for purchase.
  • Terran Tyrador Units Bundle
  • Zerg Cerberus Units Bundle
  • Protoss Ihan-rii Units Bundle
• All previous War Chest skin set bundles have been made available for purchase in the Featured section of Collection.
  • Terran Special Forces Units Bundle
  • Terran Mira’s Marauders Units Bundle
  • Terran Umojan Units Bundle
  • Terran Special Forces Structures Bundle
  • Zerg Leviathan Brood Units Bundle
  • Zerg Primal Units Bundle
  • Zerg Simulant Units Bundle
  • Zerg Simulant Structures Bundle
  • Protoss Forged Units Bundle
  • Protoss Purifier Units Bundle
  • Protoss Golden Age Units Bundle
  • Protoss Forged Structures Bundle
• War Chest 5 “Classic” unit skins have now been made available for purchase.
  • Classic Marine
  • Cl...

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The signs are unmistakable. The bassy hum of Acceleration Zone Generators… the crackle of deep-nebula electricity… the crunch of unexplored ice beneath Siege Tank treads… the fecund scent of a distant planet’s boiling primordial sea…

That’s right: It’s new map season in StarCraft II. The 14th TLnet Map Contest is underway, with 16 finalists across four categories awaiting your consideration. (Explore the full list here.) Public voting between February 24 and March 1 will determine an ultimate ranking. Though each of these mapmakers will receive $100 for reaching the top 16, additional prizing will be awarded to those whose creations finish in the top 5. Plus, as in previous years, the community’s favorite maps will have a chance to be sel...

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For almost 10 years, StarCraft II esports has stood as the epitome of competition and community in the esports world. We are excited to share with you the next era of StarCraft II esports: ESL and DreamHack, together with Blizzard, will establish a brand-new competitive circuit for the next three years of StarCraft II esports.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO STARCRAFT II ESPORTS?

After seven amazing years, and following Park “Dark” Ryung Woo’s incredible global finals victory at BlizzCon, the World Championship Series (WCS) is being retired. The WCS mobile app will be shut down on December 31, 2019, and the WCS site will be taken down in early 2020.

WCS has been a huge part of the StarCraft II community, and we know just how much it has meant to you all, as it has to us.

But rest assured—StarCraft II esports is evolving, respawning in a new form with ESL and DreamHack.

To replace WCS, we are excited to announce the new ESL Pr...

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GENERAL

• Added 4 new Console Skin rewards for registering a copy of Warcraft III: Reforged Spoils of War Edition. All of these Console Skins can be used for any race in multiplayer games.
  • Alliance
  • Horde
  • Scourge
  • Sentinels
• Added 8 Portraits based on the War Chest: BlizzCon 2019 comics for players who purchased any of the War Chest: BlizzCon 2019 bundles.
• Added a WCS 2019 Champion Portrait for players who purchased any of the War Chest: BlizzCon 2019 bundles.

CO-OP MISSIONS

General

• Brutal+
  • Lowered the difficulty of Brutal+1 through Brutal+5.
  • Brutal+1 through Brutal+4 is now capped at 3 mutators.
  • All Brutal+ missions are now much more heavily weighted towards having fewer mutators.

Commanders

• Mengsk
  ...

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Greetings! Now that BlizzCon is behind us and the post-show patch looms, we’d like to take one final opportunity to examine some tweaks we could make to our initial proposals. As we’ve received generally positive feedback on the direction of the changes we’ve proposed, we intend to make these tweaks as small as possible while we wait for games to play out that will showcase these changes—for instance, at HomeStoryCup XX next week. Below is the list of final changes we’d like to make:

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Lurker

• Lurkers affected by Blinding Cloud will now only fire to melee range.

Previously, Lurkers under Blinding Cloud could not target enemies outside of melee range, but their spines would still fire to maximum range if they attacked a unit at melee range. After this change, Lurkers will effectively only shoot out a single spine if an enemy is within melee range. As a result, we believe Ultralisks will become a more competitive option i...

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The Global Finals are here!

After a memorable year of competition, 16 competitors battled for a spot in the Round of 8 at BlizzCon. The top 8 players from the Circuit and the top 8 from the GSL met at the WCS Global Finals Opening Week in Seoul, Korea. Here’s a look at the players who made it to BlizzCon, and how they’re seeded into the bracket. 

BlizzCon Schedule

Broadcast Day	PDT	CEST	KST
Friday, November 1	12 p.m.	9 p.m.	4 a.m. (November 2)

Streams

As always, English-language coverage will be available on our ...

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Hi all! In the excitement before the culmination of this year’s WCS finals, we think it’s a good opportunity to revisit the proposals made earlier in the month with a fresh perspective. Special thanks to Wardi and his Balance Test Mod Invitational, which showcased these new changes in action. After further watching games and following feedback, below are a few changes we’d like to make to the testing queue:

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Adjustments to Old Changes:

• Reverted: Viking health increased from 135 to 150.

Based on feedback, we’d like to pull this change back for now due to concerns surrounding the Viking’s subsequent increased power in TvT as well as its increased strength in earlier parts of the game. If the Viking has any deficiencies, we believe they exist later on when end-game units and area-of-effect abilities start coming into play. Thus, if necessary, we’d like to instead tackle the Viking’s strength in late-game with alteratio...

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• A Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson Commemorative Bundle that we created in his honor will be granted to every player on log-in, for free, forever, beginning on October 22, PDT.
  • “iNcontroL: Legend” portrait
  • “iNcontroL: Caster Invitational” portrait
  • “iNcontroLTV” spray
  • “iNcontroL” announcer
• Home Story Cup XX bundle has been added for purchase.
  • “HomeStory Cup XX” portrait
  • “HomeStory Cup XX: TaKe” portrait
  • “HomeStory Cup” spray
  • “HomeStory Cup XX” race banners for each race and random.
• WCS 2019 portraits have been added for each of the 16 finalists and a trophy portrait for all “War Chest: BlizzCon 2019” owners.
• “Classic” worker skins from BlizzCon 2018 Virtual Ticket are now available for purchase.
• Following Console skins are now av...

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When Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson passed away earlier this year, the StarCraft community lost someone incredibly special. Geoff was a competitor with unparalleled work ethic. He was ambitious and motivated, always looking for opportunities to learn and improve himself. But he was also the kind of one-in-a-million human being who genuinely cared about every single person he met—no matter who they were, or how unlikely it was that he would see them again.

Few people have had more of an impact on StarCraft than Geoff. As a player, he found success as early as 2007, when he won the national WCG Championship, catapulting him into a long and storied competitive career. He hosted podcasts like State of the Game and, more recently, The Pylon Show, which he co-founded. He shoutcasted major tournaments, demonstrating deep game knowledge, passion, and a preternatural ability to find the hilarity in any situation. In StarCraft, no matter where you looked, you found Geoff, and the commun...

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The StarCraft II War Chest returns with new skins and a whole new way to earn free goodies as we ramp up to the World Championship Series Finals at BlizzCon 2019. The War Chest is an exciting way to engage with StarCraft II and earn early access to in-game items for all three races at a remarkably low cost. As a bonus, a portion of your War Chest purchase goes toward supporting StarCraft II esports. Read on to learn more about what’s inside, and how you can get in on the action!

How It Works

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The Terrans, Protoss, and Zerg each have their own War Chest available for purchase, and you can get access to all three with the Warchest Complete Bundle. You can earn more than 80 new items in total, including unit skins, decals, sprays, emojis, and portraits. You’ll also receive a co-op XP boost for the duration of the War Chest period with your purchase.

The progression path for the War Chest begins with a single unit skin, an exclusive portr...

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Hey everyone,

Each year, we take a step back to evaluate what improvements we could make to the game for a post-BlizzCon design patch. As we come closer and closer to stability with each passing year, for 2019, we’ll be focusing more on tweaks and refinements to existing units. Some themes in this year’s patch include:

• Introducing new upgrades designed to gate the full power of certain units and improve late-game usage for others.
• Strategically reducing ranges of key units and abilities to encourage greater interaction in late game.

Before we start, please bear in mind that this update contains many experimental changes that we’d like to try and test, and we’ll do our best at highlighting which ones we’re especially wary of.

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Terran

Hellion/Hellbat...

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Updated November 1:

New in-game extras have been revealed, including the Hearthstone Golden Legendary card, Diablo III wings, and the addition of Deathwing the Destroyer for Heroes of the Storm. Read on for more!

The most epic family reunion on the planet is just a month away! BlizzCon® 2019 kicks off in earnest on November 1–2, when the Blizzard community around the world comes together in person, in-game, and online for two days of games, cosplay, contests, esports, and so much more.

Everyone’s invited to join the fun from home, with more panel content from the main BlizzCon stages available to watch live online for free than ever before, along with the opening ceremony and esports tournaments. But if you want to take your BlizzCon home experience to the next level, you can pick up the ...

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WCS Global Finals - Opening Week Unveiled

For the 9th instalment of the WCS Global Finals, we have a special event planned for the first round of competition. From October 24-27, sixteen of the best StarCraft II players in the world will compete for glory in the birthplace of professional StarCraft: Seoul, South Korea.

Seoul of Competition

For the first time, anyone will be able to attend the Round of 16 of the WCS Global Finals at AfreecaTV’s ...

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• Standardized the product purchase flow to use the Blizzard checkout process.

• Screenshots for Disco Bloodbath LE are now properly appearing in game and in the editor.
• Adjusted mineral locations and pathing to prevent mules from getting stuck on Jungle Depths LE.

It all comes down to this! After a year of near-total domination by the Zerg powerhouses Serral and Reynor, WCS Fall represents the final opportunity for StarCraft II players to claim a vaunted WCS trophy in 2019. But there’s even more on the line this time: with BlizzCon rapidly approaching, WCS Fall represents is the last chance for players to show their mettle and qualify for the WCS Global Finals with a big finish!

Beginning September 6, WCS Fall features a return to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, with 80 players duking it out for the title of WCS Champion. Last year’s event was remembered for two story lines: Italian Zerg Reynor’s rise to the top, making the finals in his first-ever year of WCS competition at the age of 16; and the Finnish powerhouse Serral’s absolute domination of the StarCraft II pro scene, as he defeated Reynor in a tense finals match that gave him a complete sweep of the 2018 Circuit. 

While many are eyeing ...

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