If "The Devil's Playground" really did it for you during your romp through campaign mode in "StarCraft 2," Blizzard's first official custom map for the game should be a good fit for your 3v3 matches. The "Burning Tide" map requires you to race against an opposing team to gather mineral resources in much the same way you did as a single player, and it's now selectable through the game client.

Blizzard announced the map's arrival via the "StarCraft 2" blog on Battle.net, citing "greed" as your fundamental motivation for completing the challenge. "Players hoping to achieve victory on this map will need to work together, carefully managing their team's unit production and safeguarding their vulnerable workers as they defend against enemy forces," the post explained.

From the looks of it, air units are going to be your best friends here, but the timed lava flows will really put the pressure on players to cooperate and coordinate their strategies, since the map will basically create a new ground war every time the tide goes down.

"Burning Tide" looks like it good be good fun, but watch out for those Protoss black hole attacks. I'd imagine seeing a flock of your foot soldiers and SCV's caught up in its pull just as the lava starts to rise would be a major source of frustration on the road to victory.

Have you checked out the "Burning Tide" map yet? Are you glad to see Blizzard breaking out some new multiplayer challenges? Share your reactions in the comment section below.