The signs are unmistakable. The bassy hum of Acceleration Zone Generators… the crackle of deep-nebula electricity… the crunch of unexplored ice beneath Siege Tank treads… the fecund scent of a distant planet’s boiling primordial sea…

That’s right: It’s new map season in StarCraft II. The 14th TLnet Map Contest is underway, with 16 finalists across four categories awaiting your consideration. (Explore the full list here.) Public voting between February 24 and March 1 will determine an ultimate ranking. Though each of these mapmakers will receive $100 for reaching the top 16, additional prizing will be awarded to those whose creations finish in the top 5. Plus, as in previous years, the community’s favorite maps will have a chance to be selected for the official StarCraft II ladder!

WardiTV Team Liquid Map Contest Tournament #6

If you ask us, this crop of creations is especially gorgeous. It would be difficult to pick favorites without seeing them in action. Luckily, from February 1...

For almost 10 years, StarCraft II esports has stood as the epitome of competition and community in the esports world. We are excited to share with you the next era of StarCraft II esports: ESL and DreamHack, together with Blizzard, will establish a brand-new competitive circuit for the next three years of StarCraft II esports.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO STARCRAFT II ESPORTS?

After seven amazing years, and following Park “Dark” Ryung Woo’s incredible global finals victory at BlizzCon, the World Championship Series (WCS) is being retired. The WCS mobile app will be shut down on December 31, 2019, and the WCS site will be taken down in early 2020.

WCS has been a huge part of the StarCraft II community, and we know just how much it has meant to you all, as it has to us.

But rest assured—StarCraft II esports is evolving, respawning in a new form with ESL and DreamHack.

To replace WCS, we are excited to announce the new ESL Pro Tour StarCraft II and DreamHack SC2 Masters. The two will combi...

GENERAL

• Added 4 new Console Skin rewards for registering a copy of Warcraft III: Reforged Spoils of War Edition. All of these Console Skins can be used for any race in multiplayer games.
  • Alliance
  • Horde
  • Scourge
  • Sentinels
• Added 8 Portraits based on the War Chest: BlizzCon 2019 comics for players who purchased any of the War Chest: BlizzCon 2019 bundles.
• Added a WCS 2019 Champion Portrait for players who purchased any of the War Chest: BlizzCon 2019 bundles.

CO-OP MISSIONS

General

• Brutal+
  • Lowered the difficulty of Brutal+1 through Brutal+5.
  • Brutal+1 through Brutal+4 is now capped at 3 mutators.
  • All Brutal+ missions are now much more heavily weighted towards having fewer mutators.

Commanders

• Mengsk
  • Base Imperial Mandate generation increased from 17 over 240 seconds to 40 every 240 seconds.
  • Imperial Support now increases Imperial Mandate generation by 1 point every 240 seconds, up from 120 seconds.
  • Royal Guards now generate twice the a...

Greetings! Now that BlizzCon is behind us and the post-show patch looms, we’d like to take one final opportunity to examine some tweaks we could make to our initial proposals. As we’ve received generally positive feedback on the direction of the changes we’ve proposed, we intend to make these tweaks as small as possible while we wait for games to play out that will showcase these changes—for instance, at HomeStoryCup XX next week. Below is the list of final changes we’d like to make:

Lurker

• Lurkers affected by Blinding Cloud will now only fire to melee range.

Previously, Lurkers under Blinding Cloud could not target enemies outside of melee range, but their spines would still fire to maximum range if they attacked a unit at melee range. After this change, Lurkers will effectively only shoot out a single spine if an enemy is within melee range. As a result, we believe Ultralisks will become a more competitive option in late-game ZvZ.

Nydus Worm

• Removed the Propulsive Perist...