Team Liquid has organized a new map contest for aspiring melee map designers. The last Team Liquid map contest yielded some awesome 1v1 tournament maps that made it into the official ladder pool, including Ohana and Cloud Kingdom. We’re very excited to see what people come up with in the first map contest since the release of Heart of the Swarm.

For all of the up-and-coming map makers who are participating, here are a few things we’re looking for:

1. 1v1 maps that are tournament viable.
   • Balance is the most important factor for 1v1 maps.
   • Tournament maps that are new and fair, yet fun to play, are much more desirable than maps that replicate previous layouts with different tilesets.
2. Team maps that bring cool, new ways to play team games.
   • Because team maps don’t need to be so strictly tournament viable, variety is preferred here (rather than perfect balance).
3. Be careful with unusual rules or custom units to your melee map.
   • Generally speaking, we find that these make it more confusing for players without adding much fun to the game.
   • For example, Daybreak with the full expansion plays almost identically to its half-expansion version. Similarly, the rocks that used to be doubled up on Whirlwind didn't change gameplay for the better in any significant way.
   • We don’t use special, custom-made units for melee games for obvious reasons.

Good luck creating new maps. We’ll be paying close attention to what you come up with!