For SC, Paranoid Android and Azalea were removed. Many people thought that even after the v2.0 fix, Paranoid Android still very much an imbalanced map, so WCG removed it. Azalea was removed as well - that left WCG with two maps in the pool - Gaia and Peaks Of Baekdu.

Three maps were added to the BroodWar map pool - Python, Tau Cross which are being hugely overplayed at ICCUP at the moment, and Blue Storm, the very famous Korean Proleague map.

Excello's Tyler "NonY" Wasieleski, one of the best gamers from USA and TOP10 of the TeamLiquid StarLeague at the moment, seems to like the choices:

"I think Blue Storm is an excellent map that is fairly balanced and rewards a variety of skills: micro, macro, cheese builds, timing builds," he said. "Blue Storm has seen it all. I don't think Python is as balanced or exciting, but it's good to have one plain and popular map in the pool. I haven't practiced Tau Cross much, but I guess it's a well-known map that many people enjoy."

This is not entirely so with Dmitry "RoX.Advokate" Demichev, the winner of two Hauppauge Cups. He said: "All maps except Peaks Of Baekdu - Worst s**t ever!"

The WCG 2008 BroodWar map pool:
* Blue Storm (new)
* Tau Cross (new)
* Python (new)
* Gaia
* Peaks Of Baekdu

The new map in the WCG map pool for Warcraft 3 is Secret Valley. The current WCG champion, Olav "Creolophus" Undheim likes the pick but has his own reservations about it as well.

"I think adding Secret Valley is a good move if they add one veto for each player," he said. "Last World Cyber Games you had to play your best and worst map, which could often lead to a 1-1 score and then the third map was chosen between the three remaining maps. It would just be a lot more fair if vetoes were used."

The WCG 2008 Warcraft 3 full map pool:
Secret Valley (new)
Terenas Stand
Twisted Meadows
Turtle Rock
Echo Isle
Gnoll Wood