Whenever we play this map, my team totally feels lost. Mid point usually is decided by our DM'ing skills, rather than our teamwork. We've tried swapping out a soldier for a sniper, but that didn't seem to work as well as swapping a scout out, or even just running cookie cutter. Usually we'll send a soldier above catwalk, and sometimes push a combo through the side, but everything has varying degrees of success, and none feel all that "tight" of strategies. What strategies work?

I'm lost on Yukon as well. Mid is quite open so scouts can run crazy here and the long sightlines would seem to suggest a sniper but I have the feeling he'd get mowed down by the scouts. The second point is so confined with chokepoints on both sides while last is half and half with the defenders having a height advantage in most situations. Even knowing all this, I'm still lost. Maybe our teams should scrim one another, Fish, since we're both lost LOL.

A mid strat that i usaully find goes pretty well is to have the demoman go left and try to block off their entrance to the bridge while the rest of the team plays fairly aggressive in pushing the other team back. Make sure to at least send one scout with the demo to the left because he could be easily taken out by spam or opposing scouts.

I've seen demos and soldiers on the roof as well, spamming the enemy side.

Yukon is like Freight to many extents. It really comes down to be REALLY aggressive, or play really passive. Running a sniper seems to happen quite often and when teams run 1 they seem to play far back (behind the rock, near the slope, etc). I've also seen teams run 2 snipers effectively. The passive way is to try and force the opposing team to play aggressive on you, and force them to make mistakes/pick them off 1 by 1.

Then there's the aggressive way. In this way I see the team try and fight and make sure they have control of the bridge area. From here, they have height advantage and try and force the other team to fall back or spam them to death. If both teams run this version the mid is usually over relatively quickly, as there's not much space on the bridge/bridge connectors so the battle is over quickly.

I like Yukon mid because you can re-enter the battle half the time even after you've died. It takes a while for a team to gain full control, and very rarely does a team actually wipe out.

If there's any class specific help just let me know.

In my limited experience with this map the mid battle is horrible and the only way to capture the point is to either wipe the other team out or send scouts down there.

Now if the enemy gets scouts onto the point you to counter this you have only a few options. Because of the little walls a soldier can't really get good spam onto those scouts without going onto the point. Sending a soldier in exposes him to an enemy sniper and massive explosive spam as well as the scouts. Sending a demo into the point is equally suicidal so his best best is to try and sticky them from afar. You can send your own scouts to combat their scouts but with equally skilled teams this is just a coin flip.

Trying to control the top of the bridge as a demo or soldier is just asking for an enemy sniper to charge body shot you and really doesn't gain you that much of a positional advantage. Once the teams have made it into the bridge area you really have nothing left to shoot from there.

To me it seems like this mid battle has the feel of a strict coin flip to me where only a few options are viable and teams will only face a mirror strategy if both teams understand their options.

I didn't understand these mechanics unfortunately until after our early season matches on the map.

Jaeger has it, mid on this map really is bad. Its formed in such a way that nothing seems to mesh together well like things do on badlands/granary. It seems a bit overdone, it looks and feels too "worked" in comparison to granary mid, which in my opinion is by far the most enjoyable mid-point to play.

Sorry for the lack of actual advice in this post, but i do all I can to avoid this map and have really only played it <5 times.

hey guys. i've scrimmed on this map a lot and my team won it during the cevo week (i believe it was week 1) this season. i understand what you guys are saying about how the mid is weird, but when you say that it is bad because the standard way of playing doesn't seem to work i would disagree and say that you guys just haven't found the way to play it yet.


to shed some light, i'll try to share the strategy my team used for the mid fight:

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/6277/cpyukonempty.png

Using the cookie cutter classes, this is the formation we try to have once we come out of the small, side door.

Originally we tried to play with our Soldier in the middle open area of the map to try and support the Scouts because they will almost always fight the other two scouts on point at first, and the extra rockets from behind will help them very much:
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/3385/cpyukoncookiecutter1.png

However we found that since our scouts were pretty capable and our Demoman could just pipe them from the left (in the picture's perspective), we decided to rotate our roamer to the right corridor to protect a flank on the Medic:

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3863/cpyukoncookiecutter2.png


My team never had success with a Sniper in the mid fight, however we scrimmed against a team that had TLR from Team Caboose who played Sniper during the match and he both kicked and scared my Medic ass after he pulled off a crazy headshot on me from about where I put him in the following picture. Incorporating where TLR played with the rest of our team's setup, this is what it would look like:

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/6733/cpyukonsniper.png

As a side note that we didn't really explore... during our scrims in preparation for the match, our Demoman liked to sticky jump on top of the skywalk and pipe/sticky the other side and be as big of a distraction as possible for the other team. As Jaeger said though, if the opposing side has a Sniper this isn't a good idea so if used it wouldn't be the first thing your Demo would do as you come into the middle.

Even if they don't have a sniper the position of your medic is at is easy to attack from the enemy combo taking bridge and hard to defend from such and attack.

The positioning of your demo is good though. From there he is safe from an early sniper, cant threaten to flank the combo if they push bridge, can control the medium health pack in the bridge area and can assist a scout fight on the cp. I dare say this is close to the best position for a demo.

P.S. nice screenshots, illustrate your points very well.

on yukon you have to use kriz or you're team is just gonna get rolled if you stick with uber. The firefights are more direct than maps like fright and the mid is huge so kriz should always be the way to go unless your team have a lot of communication and strats

i dont think kritz is all that necessary for mid on yukon but whenever ive played demo on this map i've always tried to control the left side entrance by the health pack and i've always been pretty sucessful at it since theres not a whole lot the combo can usually do to push at you unless they're using kritz/uber at me

a sniper can be useful on this map but i feel like it begins to become less useful on the last the 2nd and last point

as far as putting a soldier up on top of the roof above bridge it can be useful but whenever a team/pug does it against a team im playing with we usually buff a soldier and have him jump up as well to get him off

last thing does anyone feel like there would be a need to take the left route to mid instead of going through the saw tunnel?

last thing does anyone feel like there would be a need to take the left route to mid instead of going through the saw tunnel?

I've seen both done in pug's and seen both work and fail...most go through the tunnel though, but I don't have a lot of experience on the map.

I take the left route because it is easier to get to the bridge that way.

I don't think Kritz is necessary on this mid but it's also not useless.

If you want to see how gay a sniper can be on this map watch Phaser here:
http://www.esportsea.com/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=1319900

Nothing against Phaser but I wouldn't consider him an amazing sniper. Every team should be able to have at least one player that can abuse charged body shots like he did so effectively here.

last thing does anyone feel like there would be a need to take the left route to mid instead of going through the saw tunnel?

my team learned very quickly that the saw tunnel route is the fastest way to the mid. all of us go that way when we race to the midpoint. as with any map, getting the mid first gives you the most significant advantage — the pictures i posted earlier are actually the formation we take immediately after coming out of the saw tunnel (which is one reason why the pocket and I - the medic - camp by it)

if anyone should go through the choke between 2 and 3 it'd be the sniper, in my opinion. but even then that's a good 5-7 seconds they could save by just going through the saw tunnel entrance and then moving backwards to the position in my previous post.

Actually if your goal is to fight for the bridge your medic can enter the bridge faster going the around rather than through the saw tunnel and this route leaves your medic completely safe to enemy snipers.

Actually if your goal is to fight for the bridge your medic can enter the bridge faster going the around rather than through the saw tunnel and this route leaves your medic completely safe to enemy snipers.
i'm sure that's true but i've never seen or heard of a team fighting for control of the bridge or the side rooms that are connected to the bridge. besides that, i think its rare to find a sniper playing in place of a scout or soldier. because of that, i don't see the need to hide your medic in there, away from possible snipers.

Yukon is a relatively young map but even so a sniper is very common. I think the standard lineup is quickly becoming 2 scouts, demo, soldier, medic, sniper.

Complete control of bridge gives you complete control of the important health packs and several options to push aggressively or fall back safely.

Here is a clip from the match I posted in #13 which shows a sniper punishing a medic for taking the lower route to mid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO52HXQmp3k

Yukon is a relatively young map but even so a sniper is very common. I think the standard lineup is quickly becoming 2 scouts, demo, soldier, medic, sniper.

Complete control of bridge gives you complete control of the important health packs and several options to push aggressively or fall back safely.

Here is a clip from the match I posted in #13 which shows a sniper punishing a medic for taking the lower route to mid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO52HXQmp3k

i've never seen that angle before. when i got punished by TLR that one round i mentioned a few posts ago i took the high route to mid. ever since then we took the low one.

are you sure that the medic in that video wasn't too slow? it was a mistake to be drifting that close to where the pocket was in my pictures above.

but yeah i can see how you'd say a sniper would be very useful in the middle fight. and i can see how if snipers do become very common, the combo would have to fight for the inside where there's more cover from them. if that happens, i see scouts fighting over point while snipers try to pick them off from afar since there isn't really anyone to shoot at in the open areas.

I still feel if you're going to run a sniper, your team should play further back (until he gets a pick). And if you aren't running a sniper (and esp if the opposing team is) you need to fight to gain control of the bridge. Just a passive and aggressive strategy.

i made a video about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnspDrSplcU

i don't think the sniper opening would become standard because all i have to do is send one of my scouts to intercept him like in the video, forcing their roamer or single scout to move backwards and either chase me or engage my partner scout on the point. either way, at the very least what will happen is my team loses a scout and their roamer/scout and possibly sniper get delayed into the mid fight.

i don't see sending the combo into the side buildings becoming the standard either because if we assume that the demoman is going to go where i showed in the above pictures (older post... scroll up) — and he will definitely get there first — all he has to do is sticky the health pack to prevent their combo from enjoying that benefit.

pipes going into that hallway will also lower their hp by quite a bit as well, forcing them to either get on the bridge where (if i had a sniper) we could pick them off or to leave the side area and take a defensive position, giving our scouts the middle point assuming that their demoman doesn't annoy my scouts too much.



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but if their side does open with a sniper, the best course of action for the combo would be to retreat into the side buildings until he's gone (which hopefully wouldnt be for long assuming that that one scout rush is successful).

I appreciate the effort, however:

They sacrificed their soldier for a sniper, not a scout. The combo should be fighting for bridge control so your scout can't take that route. If you scout does try to go directly for the sniper you're leaving a 2v1 scout fight on the point or worse.

You can delay the medic leaving that tunnel with stickies but even if he wasn't your sniper still has an opportunity to get a shot off on him by taking the right route at the last fork to mid instead of the left and shooting through the bridge.

Regardless your medic is completely safe from anything by taking the mountain pass instead of the tunnel and heading straight into the bridge.

You have a good point wandderful. That would eliminate the sniper (if you hit your shots on time) and force the opposing team to constantly be reminded of the scout behind them.

To Jaegar: The scout fight at mid usually isn't a battle to the death. It's more of a courtesy thing if you ask me. Both teams do it because they're supposed to and are attempting to make sure the opposing scouts don't push ahead of their side. That 1 scout would just have to adjust and leave the battle earlier while getting supported by his demoman so the other scouts don't push forward.

imo kermit i think the scout fight on middle isn't just a courtesy -- if your scouts can claim the capture point first then that gives them an extra second or so of capping time, which delays their push by another second or so

that's how i look at the scouts on the mid point at least

Regardless your medic is completely safe from anything by taking the mountain pass instead of the tunnel and heading straight into the bridge.

it takes longer to get there but assuming that the combo uses the "occupy the side building" strategy, that would make sense.

in my mind though i just don't see the sniper thing working by default. at best, i think it'd be an alternative opening strategy — which is awesome because i personally love the idea of having to make a choice of what strategy you want to use to defend/attack/fight. i suggest we scrim or something (although i'm sure you guys would win regardless since skill wise it wouldnt be very even, i'd assume) to see what works best.

The scout fight at mid usually isn't a battle to the death. It's more of a courtesy thing if you ask me. Both teams do it because they're supposed to and are attempting to make sure the opposing scouts don't push ahead of their side. That 1 scout would just have to adjust and leave the battle earlier while getting supported by his demoman so the other scouts don't push forward.

I disagree. If you have scouts on the mid point uncontested by enemy scouts they will cap the point. For reasons I've gone over earlier in this thread there is really nothing that can stop scouts on the point except for other scouts. Now if both pairs of scouts get low it is likely that they will break the fight try to heal up and maybe get a buff but they should then come back to directly contest the cp again IMO. It is so hard to stop the scouts on the point and also so hard to cap the point any way other than using your scouts or wiping the other team it seems like the best option. IIRC this is basically what EG did to Loaded in their Yukon match.

Yeah, I didn't mean it that literally. Of course you have to fight for it, but like every map, it's only a fight for a few seconds before scouts move on elsewhere. Also it's really easy for a demoman to lob stickies over there from a safe distance. And it's not terrible for soldiers to considering the downward arch

imo kermit i think the scout fight on middle isn't just a courtesy -- if your scouts can claim the capture point first then that gives them an extra second or so of capping time, which delays their push by another second or so

that's how i look at the scouts on the mid point at least

I never really thought of this until Wand told me about it. It makes all the difference, especially if you lose people and need to delay the cap or get someone out to hold the yard of 2. IDK how this applies to Yukon specifically, but it works on every other map so why not here.

My team always runs two scouts on mid, both on the point capturing. The combo sits back to the front right of the rock and supports the scouts. Once the scouts are done capturing, they go through the saw tunnel and start capping second. It works perfectly you actually let the other team onto mid after the initial capture.

Of course, this is a very passive strategy, and if it works more than once on a team, then shame on them.

Of course, this is a very passive strategy, and if it works more than once on a team, then shame on them.

if it works more than once on mid then you should link them to these forums! (especially this thread and the mentor forum)