There was a brief discussion in the 'invite meeting' a little while ago but haven't heard anything since. I noticed pugchamp added logjam and propaganda and removed badlands and granary and remembered that was what some people were pushing for during the meeting but I wasn't aware that it was officially decided by any means.

I remember tri talking about how he was going to look into making the map ban system more transparent (e.g., avoid problem of both teams banning the same map) and maybe even add more bans? Would be good to get an update on what's going on with things.

Installed it to test and it seems to only work on eu pugchamp? I would think the ESEA stats would let it be implemented into NA as well but maybe there's too many people who haven't played or something? Pretty cool regardless

edit: reread post and saw it says " If you would like to add PugChamp-Helper support for ESEA/NA PugChamp" nvm guess it doesn't have support yet

alright can we ban this kitchen spot valve obviously fucked up and re-added it even tho it got removed on the previous versions
shits gay as fuck

safrix is more of a 6th place kinda player

didnt they make a plugin to fix it for RGL tho?
granted, idk if valve will even be able to fix these shadows lol

https://clips.twitch.tv/TalentedCorrectFrogFeelsBadMan

His endgame is him a medic and four other scout mains running around the map LMFAO

For real though who the FUCK wants to play matchmaking with no class limits that'd be so awful
Feel like that's the one surefire way to make everyone who actually enjoyed comp 6s quit and actually kill the game for good

https://www.change.org/p/na-pug-champ-gg-crestrict-milan

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

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:

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).

remove cardinal
add propaganda

I and others have given constructive feedback, many others have simply said it is bad. Saying it is bad is feedback that it is indeed not a good map. Both are valuable to know, if everyone who has played it thinks the map is bad, that should definitely say something.

"the map is universally disliked for the same reason all new maps are universally disliked"
Propaganda was liked by pretty much everyone that played it as much as people do generally like to bandwagon the fact is the map has legitimate problems and people are right to think it's not ready to be played at the current state
That's good to hear she is updating it but that may still leave it with major problems so it definitely should be re evaluated before being put in certainly as a weekly map. I think people can be fine with it as a pick ban map in the rotation cause you can just ban it though

Propaganda is just a legitimately good, intuitive map that plays well already. I think you need to consider the possibility that there's an in between of people bandwagoning against it baselessly and people actually realizing it's a bad map. No invite player who did the cup is "afraid" of playing propaganda it was good and universally liked afaik. Logjam and the others though had some big issues and did not flow well at all.

I know there's gonna be a discussion with tri some time about the map list and stuff (tonight? won't be on unfortunately), but I am VERY hesitant to accept this notion of "modern"-ness and the flow of the map being objectively better than granary and badlands. Yes badlands last is super small and chokey and stalemates a lot but I've also played games like a golden cap vs evl where it went back and forth one last to the other like four different times, there is definitely interesting flow to the map and it's such a staple that to say we should remove it simply because it doesn't play like process seems VERY hasty to me. Most newer players don't like badlands because they don't know how to play it and just jump on the bandwagon of hating it. If anything we should be more skeptical of this sudden bandwagon to purge maps rather than "bandwagons" against adding in new unfinished maps that inherently must be met with criticism because they have to be proven ready to be put in.

Granary as well is very slow and can be stalematey which okay that's unfortunate for spectators but I've had some granary matches that were incredibly back and forth and interesting as well. Slow and methodical team play is rewarded on that map as well as having proper strategy to take left yard and wrap and stuff like that. The main criticism is stalemates but plenty of other maps like snakewater can have huge stalemates mid to second and on last, as well as process second. Like literally every map can lead to stalemates if the team wants to (i.e., 7) yes some are more inherently hard to break than others like gran second but my team found no trouble just two man sacking and baiting the push. Sitting on a sniper is bad on both that and the badlands mid to second stalemate cause there's not too many good angles but that's not to say you can't overload flank and send people behind and stuff like that.
Another thing is that soldier is really strong and impactful on gran and badlands whereas every other map scout class is the king maybe having maps that allow soldiers to actually carry versus the giant open maps like process and sunshine where scouts just rule is a good balance change? Combo scouts on gran and badlands can do tons of work as well though obviously just look at b4nny he still puts out a ton of damage and stuff it's just not always as easy and as simple as sitting on the high ground and props like most maps. Flank scout on granary is usually pretty boring and hard to play and people say it's impossible to have impact or do anything, which is true to an extent but doesn't have to be the case. If you jump on the bandwagon that it's awful and u can't do anything yeah you probably won't, but for example on my team in the lower bracket finals this season reimu went in for aggressive flank plays and double sacks and did a ton of work despite the map making it difficult, I believe she even top fragged.

Fuck that's a lot of words
Anyways tldr there needs to be more thought put into it and backing up statements like maps being "modern" and fitting the flow of the game as if there is some given way that the game "should" be played on any given map. Not everything has to be a clone of snake/process.

This and remove cardinal (or replace it with propaganda which was by far the best of the new maps), the second point is so bad on cardinal it has potential but really needs to be updated. The only reason it was allowed to be added randomly in the first place was because of the map veto system, but it's got some pretty big flaws and I'm pretty sure nearly everyone agrees that it's not good enough to replace a proper map in the pool (b4nny seems to be the only person who wants this and is at a bit of a conflict of interest given he made it with phi lol, it was pretty much universally banned this season cause everyone realizes it's not good)

I posted about this in another thread but I very much don't think we should be forced to play cardinal in the regular season and it should just be removed, it's not even getting updates anymore what is the point? I see zero reason honestly. I suppose if someone else decided to update it maybe then we could entertain the possibility of playing it, but it needs a lot of work first. Aside from the second being a disaster, the last is way too hard to push and there are some pretty broken sniper sightlines that make it aids to push out of last cause the main lane to walk up to point puts you directly in the skghine of a sniper in mid who walked out of forward (imagine badlands choke didn't have a spire to block medics walking out trash and side spire)