Granary pro which we play is still being updated tho and prolands is a thing why not give useful criticism on those maps and identify and see if it's possible to fix their major flaws? By the same token we aren't just throwing out bad maps like cardinal why not give specific reasons and things that can be changed? Long post below identifying the flaws I see and potential ways of mitigating them (sorry there's a lot to say maybe I'll edit in bullets/tldr later)

Badlands:
I think there are some key issues by all means but they're definitely workable. I have placed so many super fun close badlands matches I think the flow of the map can be stale and boring but there can also be super back and forth last to last games if teams are willing to do unconventional stuff like push valley into mid and go for 3 man sacks to force them to push our of last and then fight second.
Though as a medic I personally find it super hard to play and I nearly always die on mids, that's not really a reason to just all together scrap it. Yes it is certainly not a fun pug map cause back caps and the need for coordination and slowness making last pushes hard, but in league play with an hour to widdle down their defenses the better team nearly always wins badlands and I don't think this "boring" ness should be the main consideration. Yes most people don't find it fun, whereas EVERYONE though cardinal wasn't fun but vel and froyo would be willing to play it cause they had practiced. Even though it's not fun for me, I think it's good to have it in the pool because it adds variety and if teams want to choose it and play it there can be really good matches often times. I don't like it too much myself but to win sure we will pick it if we are better. It's a map where teams can play methodically and strategically (vs entirely dm you have to play smart) and rewards the best coordination as a team and knowledge of the map/experience doing the various non conventional pushes. It's also a very strong soldier map which is another thing to consider.

Granary is a very slow map yes but I am unsure what exactly is meant by a "modern flow". New maps such as sunshine and metalworks are both known to be INCREDIBLY stalematey, and without uber against a sentry gun their lasts are also very hard to break similar to gran and badlands. Hell even snakewater last can be super hard to break and in Europe people seem to hate that map for the reason that people pussy hold last forever, whereas we generally play it more fast and I don't think invite teams have such a problem with that due to our playstyle and developed meta. We've seen plelenty of matches this season and in the past huge stalemates on sunshine second with a sniper trying to peek and just doing 1 man sacks over and over again, same with process and virtually any map (other than via which is THE MOST FUN AND FAST PACED AND DEF SHOULD NOT BE REMOVED) if it's in an important match and people are afraid of losing. There have also been many granary games that have been super close and interesting to watch (never forget the legendary 5-4 tcm game), which shouldn't be discounted. If people really unanimously agree out with granary (THERE SHOULD BE A POLL ABOUT SPECIFIC MAPS WE WANT GONE NOT JUST #) im fine removing it but I do think there's potential for dagger to fix some of the issues with it (see below)

There were talks to keep the cow mangler in as not to nerf soldier class even more cause it's the worst class, but nobody mentioned the how bad it will hurt soldier class by removing badlands and granary two strong soldier maps (which are by no means super easy to play as a soldier well, just that good experienced players know the intricacies of them and can have lots of impact vs good soldiers who aren't as practiced or knowledgeable in the maps who won't be able to shine as much) and adding a nearprocess/sunshine/snake clone (propaganda) as well as a mid where soldiers literally just get denied entirely by scouts and cannot double bomb vs good scouts cause there's nowhere to properly land on (logjam, people generally thought the mid was bad, esp for soldiers).

I would like to see a poll between invite players, which people legitimately want badlands gone vs granary gone vs cardinal gone (would guess nearly unanimous). I think there are a good amount of people who do actually want badlands to stay for example but maybe I'm the only person who thinks gran is salvageable, need data to see. I can just make a strawpoll for. I think voting is an important thing to do because many people even if we're invite don't get a voice since our team captains night have different opinions from us for example in the meetings. Perhaps lucrative/b4nny are right and the votes are entirely useless because people are "closed minded" and automatically hate new maps, and will end up keeping the map pool, but I think this is VERY MUCH not the case, people hate cardinal and like propaganda almost unanimously.

Feedback on the maps.fod map makers:

the difference is that almost everyone doesn't like cardinal, but propaganda seems to well liked by everyone who played it and the things that they didn't like are being worked on.

Remove badlands and cardinal
add propaganda and logjam
I would like to remove granary as well but logjam feels like a more modern badlands so I can't justify having both

It actually makes an even playing field when everyone has to play a certain map in a week and gives that map a chance to be played. With the current map banning system the new maps don't stand a chance. I guess people tend to like propaganda and dislike cardinal but you're fooling yourself if you think that'll make much difference and that people will choose the new map(s). They will still be banned at extremely high rates. What if my team plans to play new_map a lot but then most other teams ban it? Then what's the point? Is that a good use of my team's time? Of course not so I will be proactive and ban it myself because I don't want to be in the position of having to play some map where I can't find a scrim partner who will play it against me.

The map system with the banning, as it is, gives new maps no real chance so the entire debate is nearly pointless.

I agree with this point on one hand but on the other hand I think it's good to encourage people to be well rounded and good at all the maps as a team, that way if a team fears your viaduct and gullywash or something like that they have to compromise and allow another map like cardinal or propaganda. Granted, you can't really expect every team to get good at all the maps like this and in reality ppl will just ban all the 'unfun' maps anyways. The old system was easier for scrims and though it sucked having to play an important match on via or whatever other map if your team wasn't good at it there's still RNG factors to the pick ban and that shit is really dumb as well. Adding more bans to remove RNG almost guarenees cardinal and new maps to be banned as well so it's hard to say that system is easily fixable. Also really bad that there's no transparency and both teams can waste a ban on cardinal or whatever and then it RNGs out of 4 instead of 3 which is even sillier. Could hypothetically out of six if both teams ban the same three. I think there should probably be a poll about the old system vs new as well because in the invite meeting for some reason everyone seemed to like the new one but according to jags point it really would make no difference cause new maps just get banned anyways. People might complain having to do a week on propaganda but I think overall for the game it'd be good cause people would actually nplau it and learn the map and find flaws etc. I think cardinal should 100% be removed until it gets updated and second is fixed though, I am not at all for playing that for a full week that would be awful

agree on keeping via but also i think 1 koth map is in fact a problem. right now teams can just ban it if they feel like they're not good on the map/on koth maps in general and they wont ever have to play it.

i've said forever mappers need to focus on making good koth maps. way less space/flow to worry about than a full 5 cp map. make a solid mid and a decent rollout and you're done.

Bring Back Gravel Pit