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Beginning with Season 4, we experimented with prioritizing tournament-style maps on the StarCraft II ladder. This has been working out very well not only because it’s allowed pro players better opportunities to practice on the ladder, but also because players across all skill levels can now experience the tournament feel when playing on Battle.net. Given the success of these changes, we’re removing the last two maps in the current map pool that aren’t tournament-viable, and will be replacing them with new, tournament-ready maps.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty patch 1.4.2 is now live! This small patch features several bug fixes, as well as balance changes. Be sure to check out the full patch notes below to learn all about the latest changes.

General

“Alert Fade” under Sound Options has been renamed to Game Volume During Alerts. Its tooltips have also been changed for clarification.
The fade-in for game sound during alerts changed from .5 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Play-Time Schedule under Parental Controls now applies World of Warcraft settings to StarCraft II

Blizzard DOTA is a new official custom game for StarCraft II, inspired by the Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) custom map for Warcraft III. Much like other DOTA-style games, Blizzard DOTA is a team-based competitive game in which each player controls a powerful hero with unique abilities, and works with his or her team to invade and destroy the enemy team’s base.

At the recent G-Star event in Korea, we had an opportunity to talk to some of the GSL’s top competitors and get their feedback on the current state of StarCraft II. This was also a good opportunity to show our players around the world how pro player feedback influences the act of balancing StarCraft II.