Vicarious Review: Carnage Corners


Welcome back everyone!  I needed a brief hiatus to finish my school semester, but should be back to our regularly scheduled programming.... Which is something new and exciting!  I'm going to start releasing "off the cuff" first impressions on new releases and what they mean for Destroyers players.  Let me know if you like them and I'll make sure they keep coming. 

New maps are going to be important releases moving forward as they have the potential to create entire meta shifts on their own.  Isles of Annihilation was great for slower disruptive Monsters like Krakenoctus that could kill off scoring units and leave players starved for Power Dice in the mid to late game.  Carnage Corners is going to be extreme opposite and I can see this becoming my preferred map for most matchups moving forward.

The very first thing I noticed about this map is how CROWDED it is.  Clocking in at a whopping 22 Buildings, this map has the most foundations to date.  This means you can easily shift strategies away from disruptive tactics and continue to generate power dice at all stages of the game.  Brawling buildings for 2 dice is less painful since there are plenty to go around, and the "back line" buildings are all moved forward making for easier captures on both sides.  If one side gets destroyed or contested, you can jump right over to the other without missing a beat.


The center of the map is my favorite part.  Packed with power nodes to run Units into, but also DOUBLE negative zones.  I'm predicting these to be a huge factor in games because of how inconvenient it's going to be to remove Units from them.  All of the action is drawn to the center and I expect there to be constant drain going on to help mitigate the power spikes this map can bring.  Also take notice of how far forward the center spawns are.  A SPD 6 Unit juiced up from a Taskmaster and Industrial Complex (or just a straight Shinobot) is going to be able to camp on the enemy spawn on top of 1.  Excessive amounts of bushes help make sure rules like Flying and All-Terrain are relevant when crossing the map.


I'm expecting Carnage Corners to reward Monsters that stick together.  This map is the deadliest we've seen to date and you're going to need to be exceptionally careful with Monster placement turn to turn.  One wrong move can get you thrown into the triple buildings in the corner for a mean 7 damage.  Avoiding these corners should be an absolute priority, but will be difficult to stop with so many power dice flying around.  I like the blue spaces I've highlighted to serve as a forward position for Monster pairs.  This map is claustrophobic for pedestrian Monsters and when all buildings are still standing this looks like the safest place to start off.  Yellow spaces are a little more conservative, but can work for slower Monsters.  I'm always cautious of hiding too close to my own power base and prefer to fight on my opponent's side.  Sneaking up the sides will be more difficult because that lines you up with the double building side of the triple foundation

Overall this is going to be an extremely fast map that rewards metered aggression and clever counter-attacks.  The extra foundations will be difficult for pedestrian Monsters to get around laterally, which telegraphs their approach once they've chosen a lane.  High Mobility and Grappler Monsters should be getting excited to pull off some fancy moves when this map goes live!

Thank you all for reading, and feel free to participate!  What has you excited about Carnage Corners and how do you think it will change the meta?

-V

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