Showcase: Smooth Killing, Best Of, 30 May + 3 June

I guess my Paleto Gas Station ought to be vetoed, or at least in a separate event at a later date. I'll put something back where have put the invisible props on A Walk...

1) de aztec - carambazmg

2) Arcadius by prototypetom

3) Merc arena II J2010

4) $ Hookah Palace - Scam144

Video:


1) de aztec - carambazmg

2) Merc arena II J2010

3) $ Hookah Palace - Scam144

4) Beau Gardens - agrajag

I might add reviews later, but i'm struggling to find the appropriate pitch which isn't too campaign-y. Really i'd like to see other votes first, and ideally some reviews by people without a horse in the race too, before adding my more detailed assessment. Because having reviewed all of these already, this just seems like posting justification for my order more than review; I see all these maps as largely complete and robust contenders.

1)Beau Gardens

2)Hookah Palace

3)de_aztec

4)Merc Arena


Im strictly stating my opinion, I did not attend deathmatch college, I am in no way an expert such as tom, but I did enjoy all of the maps, they have all obviously had time well spent into them.
personally I liked the aesthetic and atmosphere of Beau Gardens... it took the "place" out of the place, and converted it to something anew - same as in Arcadius,
although I felt somewhat claustrophobic... which is funny coming from a creator such as myself as i tend to sandwich my jobs...
$ Hookah Palace seemed like the younger brother of Destructon site, de aztec was a well built map and was fun to play but i have it listed last because it is a CS map and the "creative" element to me is missing... carambazmg no offense, you are an awesome creator, with extreme attention to detail!... Merc Arena, i really liked the toxic feel it gave me, i thought it looked great, but the area with the fence kinda threw me off a little, idk if its placed a little rough, i cant put a finger on it... but i remember the fence sticking out in my mind...

Attendees of Saturday's Smooth Killing Showcase. Thanks for joining and a fun night! If you could vote for your top 4 DM's that'd be grand

Host: DlSBY
prototypetom
@zkevin2002
jjn1lfc
AJ
Tesseractor
agrajag
@ljbarca
charmingdude
@dudanheld
wan_kororin
o_ManOfFire_o
@saffier80
mickey1356
BH_TB
@ichi08
lajones
@arasely08
@ruw
KM86REDDEVIL
hyjkd
@reallachsack
@ottobrenner
xiarno
Sy_RnG_Sx (YRA7)
ice_queen28x (YRA7)
Onursal_K (YRA7)
Franzi_222 (RIDE)
rodentracing (RDRL)
Kruption (PBNK)

1 ) The Aztec

2 ) Arcadius

3 ) $ Hookah Palace

4 ) Beau Gardens

1)  Arcadius by prototypetom - Perfect blend of the old, new and familiar in this perfectly propped TDM around Arcadius plaza. It's a reasonably well-used area for a TDM but this is focused without becoming too cluttered, fast-paced without making you scream "spawn kill" yet true to the original area. As good as TDMs get. 


2)  $ Hookah Palace by Scam144 - A more sprawling map, again very much the in RNG style but this time allowing more flanking opportunities and 2-dimensional playing styles with a condensed prop-heavy centre high-ground and more open outer allowing for plenty of tactical exchanges.  


3)  de aztec by carambazmg - A purpose built while walled arena, aesthetically as pure as it gets but also as pure a TDM experience as you can wish for. No props cluttering the area, but yet still oozing with enough character to make you want to play this again and again. 
Bits I didn't like - The doorways are sunken into the wall, while looking great they do provide traps on either side as they provide little real cover when you're through them which makes camping near them rather too easy. If it were me I'd probably just get rid of them. 


4) Mercenary Arena II by GoldGun - It's amazing how different an experience I had on both playthroughs. Tuesday was a hectic fast paced bullet-fest, but this played rather more sedate as I struggled to find anyone (I spent 2 minutes just running around at the beginning of the map without seeing a single enemy, which is amazing given how small this arena is). The propping with the uses of black/yellow stunt blocks is great as they're used to provide cover in 2 directions even when flipped 90 degrees and the map has a great ebb-and-flow to it (weird playthrough this time aside). 

Top notch selection, sorry I'm a dope using kill limits. Probably won't use them again as I vastly underestimated how kill hungry GCCC are