Metabenders

A "Metabender," also known as a "bender map" or just a "bender," is a term for a specific style of map that uses cues from the meta but attaches subtle gimmicks that are noticeably different from anything currently being used at the time of its creation. The term was coined by fan-favorite mapmaker Moosen, and applied to a healthy amount of his maps. Its name is derived from the idea that the gimmicks utilized are not powerful or outlandish to make the map "broken," hence the name *bender.* The idea is to bend the meta with new mechanics and ideas rather than to break it or to completely conform and make the same old stale maps with nothing special about them and nothing to learn from.

### **Some of Moosen's Notable Metabender Maps:**

#### **Taurus**

Taurus was the first Neutral Flag map to use shared open portals, meaning both teams had access to and used the same portals behind the goals. This meant that all players would exit from the same portal in mid, and defensive team gates were utilized to decrease the burden this put on defense and give them adequate time to get back ahead. Infamous mapmaker Ball-E actually collaborated with a lesser known and considerably weaker mapmaker Glass Marble to steal a similar open portal idea with a new twist. Moosen's was objectively better.

#### **Beryllium**

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Beryllium was another Neutral Flag map, and saw more success than Taurus, being featured in the Map Test Committee's Top Maps twice. This map featured split endzones that gave offenders two different objective points to choose between, with a strong defensive bomb and a plethora of defensive team tiles to nerf the effect of the split. Beryllium is widely regarded as one of Moosen's more popular maps, and the community was outraged at its exclusion from rotation.

#### **St. Valentine**

   St. Valentine, the first CTF map on this list, was named after the day it was first conceived: February 14th, 2016. It saw several different iterations and a moderate amount of success, making one top map thread. The map was highly regarded as one of the greatest snubs in the history of TagPro as it appeared that the entirety of the community saw its potential save for the Map Test Committee. The "bend" from this map is dead center - two portals that link to each other with a three second cooldown, allowing room for a unique style of play and a troublesome powerup. Moosen was interviewed by reddit user Moosemaster21 about the map in April of that year, where he stated, "perhaps one of the map's best features, aside from the portals, is the hidden boost path that can take you very quickly - and very smoothly - across the entirety of the map in the blink of an eye. By taking your team boost out of base and pairing it with the neutral boost off the wall, you can launch yourself through the portals and into the opposite neutral boost, where you will then roll fluidly along the wall into the opponents base. Right onto the flag if you can believe it," he quipped with a grin and a twinkle in his eye. St. Valentine is remembered as one of Moosen's most simple but effective Metabenders to date.

#### **Nexus & The Last Line**

    These two maps are notable for being some of the oldest metabenders in recent memory - Nexus was created in May of 2015 and The Last Line was created shortly thereafter. These maps are included together because although they used radically different shapes and interior components, the bender in the map was identical - a relatively compact base with a gate. The gate itself was the unique part - it had two separate buttons to serve as activators, and each activator only closed 2/3rds of the gate. When used in tandem, however, the entire gate was closed. This was heralded by the community as one of

        the greatest strides in mapmaking history towards encouraging teamwork in public games without leaving one player on their own entirely useless, as is the case with maps with green gates like IRON and Flame. Once again the Map Test Committee was largely blind to the ingenuity, and while The Last Line was rated very highly following the MTC's solo testing portion, both it and Nexus never saw Top Maps or any other form of success. These maps are particularly significant because the MTC's obliviousness to these objectively brilliant pieces of mapmaking sparked an event known as "*The Carving of the Schism*" in TagPro lore. "*The Carving of the Schism*" refers to the rift that still exists today between the MTC and the community - most community members involved in the mapmaking community still remain incensed that none of Moosen's Metabenders, nor even his maps that fit the meta a bit better, have made rotation. There is great speculation that advancing any one of them to rotation would quell the nearly year-long division between the community and the committee - but the MTC as of yet remains obstinate about their decisions.