Not the main point of the thread as tri said the pool has already been decided, but I'll say this anyways. Viaduct is easily the most interesting/exciting map to spectate because all the fast paced action and fights, and even to play and get rolled by a better team is usually still fun because there are no stalemates and it's so inherently back and forth (unless you get forward held for 3 minutes which is extremely rare obviously). Nobody I've spoken to in invite (besides b4nny and lucrative who have rather extreme opinions on completely changing the map pool) seriously thinks via should be removed, because it's such a perfectly balanced and fun map to play. Maybe in lower divisions where people aren't as coordinated and can't as easily counter a sniper by bombing and proper pressure, I can see people disliking it, but we should balance around the top level not some open team that never learned how to play the map properly or gets tilted cause it's different/they're not used to it.

I think it's the best map in the rotation because it allows every class to shine and show off their mechanical abilities/gamesense (medics surfing/arrows/movement/positioning, roamers going behind/sacking, pockets the same as well as doing good uber trades, scouts/demo clearly being super strong on the map).

Yes it is the only koth map but the fact that it is so good should be plenty enough to make that not matter. I see no reason why the pool must be entirely 5cp or koth or whatever other gamemode, and if anything it would be good to see more koth in the rotation. They add a completely new and unique element to the game and makes it so the team that is best at process/pug maps must also be coordinated and have to adapt to a different environment which is good imo and adds depth.

I do see the problem with the current ban system however, because people generally don't want to be upset on viaduct and unless you're really confident in your ability to play it well it's probably better to avoid the risk of choking and losing. I agree with the above posts about how moving back to a weekly map based system would help on this front and force people to learn to play via/propaganda as well as other less commonly played maps (and this preventing space cadet from having to play one in every three matches on process lol)

It's unfair to draw a comparison to gpit as that map was nearly universally disliked, or at least is now aside from a handful of people who want it back. Via seems to be the exact opposite, with only a select few people legitimately thinking it should be gone. The reason it isn't played is not that it's bad by any means, it's just different and people don't want to get upset. It doesn't help that it isn't played in pugchamp for whatever reason (iirc it was a config issue but I feel like that's not unfixable, maybe I'm wrong tho)

No they won't, if the hypthesis is right that badlands and granary are disliked by everyone they will just get banned instead. Propaganda is a pretty solid map and people already seem to like it a lot. I don't see the problem with what you're saying tho, let the people decide if they want to play propaganda versus badlands/gran/other maps. The same argument can go for any new map that people won't want to play it, but never in the past has there been such widespread support for it that it seems unlikely.

Edit: in ESEA afaik we play the original badlands rather than prolands, which I agree with you didn't fix enough and I personally think did unnecessary changes in removing hiding spots and the ledge on batts which was useful to stand on and nobody ever complained about.
I was talking to botmode yesterday and he talked about some other changes to last that he suggested on the thread but didn't get implemented which I think would be interesting to test. One was changing the spawn doors to gullywash style where they are rotated 90 degrees and moved backwards, which is a change that happened on sunshine and made it harder to just sit in spawn as a medic for example. The respawn timer changes are definitely a big plus as is the extra ammo, but one big issue people talk about is the sniper sightlines from choke and how hard it makes it to push out so maybe it would be possible to block off the sightline to right batts (just an idea, could end up being bad).

Edit2: cardinal was played by 20b vs velocity (show forgot to ban it), and my team (mentality) played it vs velocity as well in playoffs. We didn't think to ban it and they picked it because they had scrimmed it/knew how to play it.

I personally think the most reasonable/best option is to replace cardinal with propaganda and keep the pool the same otherwise.

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