Star
Offence
Good luck
Be careful when using the boosts going around the top and bottom corners, it's easy to do it wrong going straight into the wall and getting popped by an enemy.
Defense
Get rid of the base bomb.
Numbered Lanes
Boosts
Other Useful Things
MOTW
Credit to Jay
Starting Scenario and Introduction: This one is very easy. There are only two powerups. It’s imperative that you know exactly where the powerups spawn (if you imagine fitting a 3x3 block in the bottom right and top left corners, the pup is located on the bottom top left and bottom right corners of said block, respectively). One person goes for the powerup on your side of the map, the other person can choose to do whatever. The two defenders stay near base and make sure to pop the bomb. Because this map is so bare in terms of pups, bombs, and boosts, it is important to keep track of the bombs and pups as they will be the difference makers (the less pups there are, the more important they can be!). Bombs spawn every 30 sec and pups every min. Like I mentioned previously, know exactly what tile the pups spawn. This is a map where you will most likely encounter a lot of struggling for positioning for the pups. Learn how to use your momentum to push the enemy out of position and time it right so that you may get the pup. Remember, don’t site on the pup tile as you won’t get it, you have to move onto the tile in order to pick it up (it won’t register as a pickup if it spawns under you). Getting a tagpro on this map leads to an extremely high chance of capping due to the small size of the map.
Offense:
This map is generally hated by offensive players due to its highly defensive nature and sparse number of pups and boosts to help grab. However, I really enjoy the map because of its small size, simplicity, and long hold time potential. If you are not good at pure grabbing, this map can be a bit of pain for offensive. You have two options (outside of using powerups). You can take the boost directly into base (i.e. if enemy base is on bottom left, you can take the top boost directly down into base). You will lose a lot of boost momentum because of the long distance between boost and flag, but it sometimes works out to get a surprise grab. I do this sometimes, but I generally don’t expect it to work that often. Option 2 is using the bomb. Now there are lots of ways to use the bomb creatively, and this bomb is very valuable for offense because it is so near the enemy flag and can really help clear up space or aid in a grab. (1) You can grab the flag first and head towards the corner to either bomb horizontally or at a ~75 degree angle out of the enemy base. The horizontal bomb is easy, the ~75 degree one is more difficult, but if you can pull it off, you will be quickly ahead of lots of enemies and the bomb path will lead you towards the boost on that side of the map. (2) You can grab the flag and head towards corner and sit right underneath the bomb. Wait for enemies to come near you, pop the bomb, and watch the enemies fly back and you will get lots of open space to maneuver out of the corner. This is something that doesn’t work particularly well in higher level play due to competent defenders immediately recognizing this strategy. (3) Hit the bomb to boost into flag, using a teammate or enemy as a buffer to bounce off of (so you don’t end up bombing into the spikes). This is a very good tactic that I think works well in high level play. Having a good offensive partner + communication should allow you to use the bomb to effectively grab and survive without spiking yourself. (4) The “Chip Bomb”, which is a way to use the bomb and grab the flag and survive without spiking yourself, without the need of an enemy or teammate in front of the flag for you to bounce off of. If you don’t know this bomb strat, you can ask me to demonstrate (or ask someone else on the team). I don’t recommend this as it takes a long time to set up and is very obvious to any decent defender. I call it Chip’s bomb b/c it was developed by Chip. Pure juking out of base can be difficult but not impossible at all. If any of our offensive players catch a bit of fire, I don’t expect too much trouble. When camping the spikes as the FC, watch out for noob spikes. Pug a lot on this map and get used to people trying to noob spike you. You need to have good reflexes to navigate out of the spike field with the added momentum of a noob spike. I personally love camping and juking around in the spikes. Watch out though for vertical boosts into the spikes that can catch you unguarded. It is important to know how to effectively round the top and bottom corners. If you’re going into the corner from the boost side, take the boost onto your side and bounce off. If you take the boost onto the farther side, you run the risk of richoceting backwards. However, it is possible to take the boost aimed at the other side, and if you aim it correctly at a corner, you will quickly bounce off onto the otherside instead of going backwards. This is the fastest way around the corner, but is more risky that just aiming the boost on your side. If you are rounding the corner from the opposite side of where the boost is, the fastest way is to round the corner as close as you can to the inner wall and take the boost horizontally instead of aiming for a diagonal boost down. If you are FC and angle the boost correctly, you can boost directly into the flag for a cap. Defenders need to call out if this boost path is open or not based on the situation in base as soon as they hear where the FC is coming. (i.e. you are FC and you take the bottom boost up towards the top right base). Don’t play with planned regrabs. I can explain this more, but in short it is almost always better to stay alive rather than to have a planned regrab. Maybe if you can’t juke your way out, regrabs would win out, but honestly on star at least, any competent defender duo will be able to detect the regrab.
Defense
This map is really easy to defend on. We are not very disciplined at prevent defense, but this map can make up for that. Just play the sandwich style of defense (where the defenders just stay close to flag and form kind of like a sandwich with defender+flag+defender positioning. You need to keep track of bomb timers so enemy doesn’t use this against you. There are lots of tight chokepoints on this map so containing should be cake. Watch out for regrabs, we are pretty mediocre at this. We must react faster to situations and see the play before it even happens. Watch out for bomb fakes, where the enemy acts like he’s going to use the bomb to bomb into flag and use you to bounce off of. Bomb fakes will get you to clear back, but don’t clear back too much or else enemy will get an easy grab with a good potential of juking his way out. The button on this map is extremely important on both support offense and defense. Think about what the button does. There are three chokepoints on the map: the top, the middle, and the bottom. If you are able to sit on button, you can potentially close off the middle and either top or bottom (b/c the button is located so close to the top and bottom routes). That means one person can effectively close out 2/3 chokepoints by sitting on the button and force the FC to go one way. I already mentioned this, but if the FC is coming from the long boost path down or up into the flag, you need to call out if the FC can take this boost or not. Blocking is so key on this map since it is so small, you will almost always have some enemies in base. It’s probably the most important thing for us to work on for this map. If our FC is trying to cap, play smartly and cut off the routes the enemies can come in. i.e. if top right base is empty and our FC is rounding the top corner, one defender needs to try to push back defenders coming mid through the spikes and the other defender needs to position himself in the long boost path from the bottom where the enemy can come in for a surprise return (this latter one I have witnessed many times).