For the Chinese, the Aegean Sea, although far away, is not strange. Whether in Greek mythology or in real life, the Aegean Sea has always been a sea of romance.

Like the blue waters of the Aegean Sea, the map of the Blue Aegean Sea is dominated by deep blue waters. All spawn points are located on the islands at the four corners. In the center of the ocean, there are three separate islands in a triangular shape, each with three resource points.

On this map, all the islands are independent, that is, this map is a complete island war map.

In fact, several years ago, the creators of the map and most professional players agreed that the matches on a pure island map were much less exciting than those on the Peninsula map.

Because the tactics and variations available on a pure island war map are much more monotonous than on the peninsula map. Therefore, WCG has not had a pure island battle map for a long time.

If it weren't for the fact that this map was infused with completely different elements from the start, this map would not be much different from the previous Heart of the Ocean.

However, this map, like the other four maps, has become a milestone in the history of the WCG because of the new setting.

As early as 06, some unique designs have appeared in the professional game map, for example, some of the established buildings in the map have begun to have health settings. In other words, some walls, temples and other buildings that play a role in blocking can be broken. And with these unique settings, it has also caused a lot of tactical changes.

But that innovation is nothing compared to this year's map. This is because the concept of mutation was introduced for the first time in the WCG map adopted this year.

When the moonlight rises, in the depths of the blue water, a mermaid will come to the waves. This is a legend about mermaids in the Aegean Sea in Greek mythology.

And the makers of this map of the Aegean Sea are undoubtedly also deeply influenced by Greek mythology. The map designer from Athens also became famous because of this map.

The most unusual thing about this map is that it was a full island war map when it started, but it doesn't mean that it was always a completely island war map.

The most unusual thing about this map is that when the battle lasts until the thirteenth minute, the music on the map will change to the song of the mythical mermaid. At this time, a passage will suddenly appear between the three separate islands in the center of the map, which are distributed in a triangle. And the duration of this channel is only one and a half minutes.

Almost anyone can imagine what kind of impact the sudden appearance of passages connecting each other on three separate island mines will have on the entire battle situation. Although one and a half minutes is not a long time, in terms of interstellar conditions, it is enough to complete a large-scale battle.

As soon as this groundbreaking map was adopted, it immediately sparked a revolution in tactics.

If you want to expand, you will inevitably find a way to occupy the resource points in the three island mines, and the initial confrontation will inevitably be dominated by air battles, but during the period when the passage appears on the island mines, all the tactics will be designed around how to save your own ore and strike down the opponent's ore distribution.

In other words, the initial tactics will be airdrop harassment and suppression, and in the middle and late stages, they have to prepare for a ground showdown.

It is undoubtedly difficult to handle such a transition perfectly. Because every interstellar player knows very well that if you want to suppress your opponent in the early stage, you may want to focus on the air force or troops suitable for airdrop. However, the Air Force and the troops suitable for airdropping may not be suitable for a ground duel.

Therefore, it is not very easy to reasonably distinguish between resources and troops, which can not only suppress the opponent in the early stage, but also not fall behind in the subsequent ground warfare.

Therefore, most people think that on such a map, experienced players will have a slight advantage. Because they can rely on their experience to make the fastest adjustments by observing the development of their opponents and the changing situation.

Chen Fangyuan's experience is of course much more experienced than Gou Xiaoyun's, and the accumulation of so many years of professional league is definitely not comparable to Gou Xiaoyun, a little guy who has just debuted.

So as soon as the audience saw this map, they were naturally worried about Gou Xiaoyun.

In fact, among the audience at the scene, the number of Gou Xiaoyun's supporters for this duel is definitely overwhelming.

That's what Knife never figured out. Knife is always depressed to find that Gou Xiaoyun seems to be very popular wherever he goes.

In fact, Gou Xiaoyun's popularity has a lot to do with his personality and temperament. Gou Xiaoyun was born in a small Internet café, and he doesn't have all the arrogance of some professional masters, so even if he is an ordinary interstellar player, if he wants to fight Gou Xiaoyun, I'm afraid he won't refuse. Therefore, in the minds of these players, although Gou Xiaoyun is an undisputed top master, he is the "civilian player" closest to ordinary players.

And this is also the key to Gou Xiaoyun's ability to become friends with other players within a few days.

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Because of the relationship between the blue Aegean Sea and its unique setting, it also has another name called the mermaid's song. Unlike this map, which is filled with the atmosphere of Greek mythology, the map that makes Butterfly's eyes shine is a map with a typical Chinese mythological atmosphere.

This map is called Flaming Mountain.

In reality, Flaming Mountain is a tourist attraction located in the middle of the Turpan Basin, and the locals call it "Kiziltag", which means "Red Mountain". It is a young folded low mountain with a length of about 100 kilometers from east to west, a width of 7~10 kilometers from north to south, and an average height of about 500 meters, and the highest peak is located near Shengjinkou, and the altitude is only 851 meters. It is mainly composed of Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary red sands, conglomerates and mudstones from the Mesozoic Era. The mountain is majestic and tortuous, mainly washed by the ancient water current, and the slopes are full of ravines. There is no grass growing on the mountain, the bedrock is bare, and it is often covered by weathered sand. In the middle of summer, under the scorching sun, the red mountain rock heat wave rolls, and the crimson smoke clouds are steaming, just like a cluster of flames burning.

Cen Shen, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, has a poem: "The volcano is abrupt and the mouth of the Red Pavilion, and the volcano is thick in May. The fire clouds are full of mountains and have not yet opened, and the birds dare not come for thousands of miles. Another poem: "The volcano should be hotter in June, and there are no pedestrians at the Eating crossing." Chen Cheng, a great poet of the Ming Dynasty, wrote a poem: "A piece of green smoke is red, and the scorching arrogance is about to burn out." Spring is not half as muddy as summer, who has Zhurong in the West. ”

Although these poems describe the magnificence and strangeness of the Flame Mountain, what really gives the Flame Mountain a strange color is, of course, the Journey to the West, which everyone in Chinese knows and everyone knows.

The legendary Flame Mountain is when Sun Wukong made trouble in the Heavenly Palace, he kicked down the alchemy gossip furnace of Taishang Laojun, and several refractory bricks fell to the ground with the embers and were reborn. At that time, there was a saying in the Flame Mountain that "eight hundred miles of flames, and there was no grass around".

And even with the magic power of Sun Wukong in Journey to the West, he had to use Princess Basho's banana fan to extinguish the boundless fire on the Flame Mountain.

Today's Flame Mountain, of course, there is no longer the legendary eight-hundred-mile flame, but the legend of the Flame Mountain makes this name have a strong oriental mythological atmosphere.

And this map, named Flaming Mountain, is, of course, like the blue Aegean Sea, not an ordinary map.

If you just pay attention to the terrain of this map, you may not see anything special. This map is not much different from the previous Luna, except that the entire map uses a flaming red as the main background.

But this map, as this year's WCG map, of course, has its own unique place, just like the blue Aegean Sea.

The unique feature of the blue Aegean Sea is the abnormal terrain, and the element introduced in this map is the concept of accidental damage by a third party.

In fact, it has long been proposed to add elements of randomness similar to Warcraft to the interstellar map. For example, if a neutral third-party unit is placed in the map, but when the player's unit comes into contact with it, the neutral unit will automatically return fire. Although this idea was good, it was rejected by almost everyone at the time. The reason is very simple, the most attractive thing about the interstellar is precisely because of its extremely perfect balance, and these unexpected factors can easily destroy the original balance and fail to reflect the true strength of the warring parties.

So this kind of creativity has not been adopted in map making, and more map makers are just constantly improving the terrain changes in the map, so that the two warring sides can play more subtle tactics.

However, this map of Flaming Mountain has been recognized by most people and has been successfully selected for this year's WCG competition map.

Because after testing by a large number of players, it was found that this map, which added accidental damage from a third party, did not bring any injustice, on the contrary, it also brought more changes to the two sides of the war.

Many people believe that the reason why this map is accepted by the majority of interstellar players and interstellar enthusiasts is that instead of the widely criticized practice of joining the neutral forces, the map change was adopted. In this way, it is easier to accept.

The unique feature of the Flaming Mountains map is that there are many places in the center of the map, large and small craters. And the most exciting thing is that although these craters can be passed, these craters will not only spew flames that are more brilliant than fire bats, but any class affected by these flames will bring substantial damage.

This means that if you want to advance from the center of the map, you can choose to pass through these craters, but you'll have to watch out for the fire damage from the craters.

Although the damage of different craters in the Flaming Mountain map is different. However, the eruption time and interval of the crater are fixed, so when the crater erupts flames and the interval between the eruption can be predicted by calculation.

So that's fair for both sides. But this map is fair for both sides of the game

For both sides of the game, the difficulty of the operation has been greatly improved. Because as you can imagine, in the process of advancing, you must always pay attention to the route of the troops, and even more importantly, you must anticipate the time of the eruption of the crater. Even in the first peasant pathfinder, you have to be careful that your SCV or Probe is accidentally burned to ashes by the flames. Not to mention the time when there is a large-scale engagement, when a large number of troops exchange fire.

Therefore, when they come into contact with this map, the first reaction of many professional players is that in order to play well on this map with such a unique setting, the first thing to study is how to quickly and effectively pass through the midfield and avoid their troops being burned by the flames in the engagement.

This unique third-party kill setting not only makes this LUNA-like map as fascinating as the mythical Flaming Mountain. It also made many players who want to achieve good results in the WCG rack their brains.

Of course, Butterfly has racked her brains for this map, and in fact, this map is the one that Butterfly has spent her best efforts studying carefully. So when she saw that in the first duel between herself and Wang Feiyu, this map appeared randomly, and Butterfly couldn't help but be a little happy.

Of the five maps, Butterfly spent the most time on this Flaming Mountain, and it also has its own reason.

The reason why many people think that a map like LUNA is not very beneficial to humans is that there are no buildings in the center of the map, there is no protection of the anti-aircraft turret, and if the initial army is not enough or the protection of the robot giants, it will be much more difficult for the Terrans to advance than on a normal map.

However, this map of the Flaming Mountains makes up for this to a great extent.

The tank erected next to the crater is equivalent to having an anti-aircraft turret that does not require resources to build, although this "anti-aircraft turret" is not controlled by anyone, but in the early stage, it can greatly limit the activities of the Protoss transport aircraft.

Position advancement is a specialty of the Terrans, so the Terrans can slowly extend their tank arrays from the volcano without worrying about their tanks being damaged by the flames. And although the Protoss' troops are strong, they are not good at fighting this kind of positional warfare, because I'm afraid that no Protoss master will treat his troops as sentries standing guard.

And in Butterfly's view, there are more advantages of the Terran than that. The speed and size of the minelayer can ensure that the minelayer can pass through the volcano very quickly, and with the highly mobile transport aircraft, it can play a good role in suppressing the Protoss if it is used as a harassment in the early stage. But the Protoss didn't have it so easy. If you want to pursue the harassing forces of the Terrans or organize an attack, you must be careful not to attack your troops by the volcano while guarding against mines.

So in Butterfly's opinion, this map is simply tailor-made for the Terrans, and Butterfly even wonders if it is the Terran players who created this map.

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