Three weeks ago, WC3L started a new trend by introducing a new map to its map pool. The move was highly praised all round but, as usual in WC3, everyone said it favoured everyone else’s race. Now, after three weeks, I want to see what we’ve learned about this map from the qualifiers. We haven’t seen the likes of Sky, Moon and Grubby on it yet but we can get a good idea of what to expect from the semi-pros.

The Unpopular new kid

In a regular season WC3L game all five games must be played in order to complete the league scoring. In the playoffs and qualifiers, however, the first team to score three victories wins. Unsurprisingly, Ancient Isle was the map “Not Needed” almost every time there was a 3-0 or 4-0 victory. In the first week of its WC3L life we only saw AI a handful of times.

I don’t believe this reflects badly on the map itself, however, more on players’ and managers’ unwillingness to risk something new. One can hardly blame them after so many seasons with no variation.

I don’t want to over-emphasise this point – it’s still a new map after all, and players are still learning it – but in three weeks worth of games, only one player (apm from Delta) has chosen Ancient Isle as a second map. However, it’s a natural instinct to avoid the unknown and I have no doubt that its popularity will grow as it becomes better known.

Oh, and incidentally, apm’s brave decision led him to a comeback from 0-1 down to a 2-1 win.

Racism and the Numbers Game

One thing that has struck me as unusual about the new map is the number of Undead players being seeded on it. Undead players are usually picked on maps where an Elf is expected, or maybe a Human. Unlike Orc and Human, Undead players are seeded on a wide variety of maps because the advantages a map can give to an Undead player are very matchup-specific. Think gargoyles on Turtle Rock against Nightelf, for example. There isn’t really any map which one would consider innately good or bad for an Undead.

At least, there wasn’t until now.

In the nine games played on AI so far we have seen seven Undead players. Nightelf is close behind, but Undead players have been more successful, winning five of their combined seven games – a 71% win ratio. In one of the earliest games on the new map we even saw an Undead win against Orc.

The closest race to Undead is Nightelf with three wins from six games, with a win against every race except Undead. A couple of losses to Undead doesn’t tell us anything about the map, though, since this is an expected result on almost any map you care to name.

Humans seem to have the worst time on Ancient Isle. Only two Human players have been seeded on it so far and neither of them has managed to win. One of the biggest reasons for this is the goldmines and their creeps. There is only one expansion spot on either half of the map and they are quite difficult to creep, especially early on. The poison creeps are especially nasty against militia and make for easy peasant kills for any harassing hero.

However, it will be interesting to see how higher level Human players cope with this map. If an expansion goes up it looks very easy to defend, protected as it is on three sides by trees. Each spawn is very open to tower rushes too, with a choice of three entrances, all of which can easily be closed off with towers, making Casters and Mortars almost unreachable.

Orc has been similarly unsuccessful so far with just one win from three games. Although we haven’t seen any top tier players on it yet the signs aren’t good. There are few easy creeps for Orc, no health fountain and hardly any open spaces for a melee army. In terms of choke points this map is like a sequel to Turtle Rock for Orc players. It will be very difficult for them to fight a ranged Nightelf army here.

I can see a lot of Humans picking this map second against Orc and towering the hell out of them with all the narrow base approaches. What I can’t imagine is many Orcs being seeded on Ancient Isle in the first place – despite it being a good Undead map. Any kind of ranged army will have a distinct advantage, which is incredibly difficult for an Orc to overcome so expect the increasingly popular Fiend push to become even more popular.

Death is all Around us

We have seen so far that the predicted hierarchy of races on this map will be Undead, Nightelf, Human and Orc. But why Undead?

For starters, the fact that it’s such a good Nightelf map naturally makes it a good Undead map. If there’s one thing that trumps a good ranged army – let’s say, Dryads – it’s a good air army. Not that Undead needs much help in this matchup anyway, but it looks like Gargoyles are going to be very strong here. There is a very deep tree-line around each spawn – perfect for airborne wisp raids.

Against Human the fast expansion route is much easier to defend against. As mentioned earlier, the poison creeps will make it difficult to militia creep early on and the melee creeps are no pushovers either. Add to that the close proximity of both mines to both spawns and it makes it very easy for a Death Knight to race over and snipe peasants. I’m not saying it’s impossible for Humans to expand here but it will certainly be difficult.

With expansions out of the picture the Human-Undead matchup becomes a steep hill for Humans to climb. The common Tower and Tank strategy is much less effective with only one gold source. In the only game of this kind so far, Kemper tried the oldschool Rifle-Caster tactic but was beaten down comfortably by n!faculty’s Crafty. If neither of these strategies is viable it will be nigh on impossible for Humans to triumph. Still, it’s early days and maybe ToD or Sky can prove me wrong.

(With thanks to Hoorai.DNA)