lucrativethe whole point of the map system isn't to give you a weeks practice on a map lol the point is that your team can now focus on certain maps you're actually good at while having the option to not focus practice on maps you are bad at (3 Bans basically allows you 1 or 2 or i guess even 3 perma banned maps if you like) no other competitive game in a league based system plays the way the old ESEA map rotation worked.
The system also makes way more sense in the greater scheme of things because it will simulate the maps you end up playing in playoffs way more, and i believe the playoff matches have improved over all the divisions for the most part because of it.
I really don't see how you could find the old map rotation system superior the current one. (Is this derailing?)
The problem is the fact that the bans are completely blind from the other team, which makes it so both teams can decide to ban cardinal and granary, for example, and end up wasting bans and then ending up being RNG'd onto some other map neither team really wanted to play, like metalworks. If they changed it to a system like in playoffs where you just alternate banning until a map is selected I could get behind that, or at least made it so both team can't accidentally ban the same map.
Also, as berg said the randomness is stupid and should be removed imo. I also agree that having to play process/snake/gully all season is super boring and bland. I definitely preferred the old system where you have a full week to map review and perfect your play on each map vs two different teams then know what to expect when playoffs comes around. I for one liked the idea of striving to get as good as possible at every map, but with this system you're better off calling it quits for maps you're not good at like badlands, rather than working through it and figuring it out as a team. As much as it sucks to get the bad luck of having to play your rival team (that you need to beat to make playoffs for example) on a map that you aren't good at, I think it's fair to reward teams that are more well rounded and can win on any map, versus teams that just deliberately autobans 3 maps they're bad at/dont want to bother getting good at. If your team puts in the time and practice to get good at a few select maps that people don't play much or aren't good at,4 it's really stupid to have your opponents simply able to say nope not going to bother and just ban them off the bat.
I think we should be encouraging rather than discouraging teams to excel and get really good at their specialty maps cause it adds variety/depth and makes the game interesting (e.g., vel on snakewater), but allowing people to just ban them even in the regular season is a giant fuck you to teams like this. As much as I hated playing cardinal and think it's a terrible map, I do think it's good to reward teams that take the time and practice and get good at the fringe maps like that. Granted, having to play the regular season again with cardinal as one of the 8 weeks would be awful and I think it should be removed from the pool 100% if the system does end up getting reverted, the only way to justify adding maps like that is if you can always ban them.