Zen

This map has been made for the Teamliquid Map Contest 13 for the Challenge #1 – “Something’s in the way”. This contest is organized by Teamliquid at the request of Blizzard Entertainment. It has been added into the official 1v1 ladder map pool on November 26th 2019.

The challenge’s guidelines are the following: “Design a map using mineral nodes or “Reduced Mineral Fields” to alter or affect pathing. Mining these nodes should provide access to new areas or routes. “

Zen has a very short rush path that goes through multiple rows of reduced mineral fields that are one tile wide. Early attacks through these tiny choke may be possible early but moving larger armies will take a very long time even if the distance is physically short.

Players will need to mine these reduced mineral fields to move their armies more easily. Or they can ignore those fields and only use the sides of the map. The two entrances to the natural may scare you at first but remember they are both smaller than a usual natural. They can be blocked faster than a regular natural and very easily. It is also a bad idea to blink directly to the natural through the small direct ramp because they won’t be able to retreat if the opponent has enough units.