PUBG's new desert map, "Miramar", is still fresh out of the oven since its release on the live servers one month ago. With Miramar being a new map and not many tournaments taking place during the holidays and early part of 2018, we still have many questions considering strategies with their conclusions to be unfolded over time. Getting to know the new map and all of its different aspects can be hard and a lot of information is still pretty unknown. That's why we asked the newest member of #DIGPUBG Asger Storgaard "ZiphoN" Høffner about Miramar's different strategies, how to use the differences between Erangel and Miramar to your advantage, and how/why Miramar fits in the competitive scene.

Miramar's Strategies

There's still much debate about Miramar and what strategies are the best to use for every game mode. Most of the strategies are made up on the go due to the nature of the map but we've got a pretty good idea about the strategies that could be used and should be built upon to make newer and more specific strategies.

Most players at the moment seem to like to play around the edge of the map which is caused by the distance that other players need to cross to even reach the edge of the circle. This especially occurs frequently at the 1st and 2nd circle. Taking the high ground near the edges of a zone is very beneficial, but can become even better when you remember where the enemies are coming from due to their landing spots from the flight route.

Pathing has a larger impact on the new Miramar map than it had on the older Erangel map. This is due to the fact that Miramar is a lot more open but even though it's more open, it has fewer roads. Because of the fact that it is so open, vehicles may be riskier to use and it's recommended to go on foot. It is the preferred method of transport because the terrain allows you to siege compounds more easily and have a lot more options for cover on foot due to the small hills that fill the landscape of Miramar.

In the early game on Miramar, it's even more important to kill players early and fast. This secures the survivability of you and your squad since a lot of larger towns/cities have a lot of buildings with many windows where people can shoot you from the high ground, giving them a high chance to kill you due to them being very hard to hit and you being easier to hit. It's harder to track other players when you're in larger cities due to the density of the city. Don't give them a second chance by letting them run away once you're onto their tail!

The flats of Pecado shown in the image above are a prime example of where you can camp on the high ground without any risk due to the balcony fences.

When you're moving onto the mid-game, the decision of where to go should absolutely be determined by what you're the most comfortable with. In the mid-game, Miramar punishes bad positioning a lot more than Erangel does, so be very careful when you're trying out new routes or when you're going "hobo looting" as people call it. "Hobo looting" is a synonym for scavenging smaller compounds that are relatively far away from larger looting spots.

Shown above is a looting route that starts at Water Treatment and avoids San Martin to the South-West, you can disrupt players' looting routes by looking at the map and thinking about where they would want to loot next.

If you've made it to the end game, you'll be surprised by the fact how different it is compared to Erangel but there are still some similarities. You can still apply the most popular technique that players like to use by flanking other players and playing the edge of the zone. This may make you take more time to move to the next play zone but is very beneficial since you can't get shot from the side where the edge of the zone is at. Be very careful that you never expose yourself on the high ground or an open field since it's really easy to make that mistake on this map, especially the first few times. The main differences between Erangel and Miramar's end game are that Erangel's endgame outside of cities mainly consists of players going prone or hiding behind a tree. On Miramar, you only have the choice between different kinds of altitudes, a lonesome low-hanging tree, or rock. The two last options are worse than using the different kinds of altitude. Try to "head-glitch" and peek above hills frequently to make yourself harder to hit.

Item Importance and Changes

A new map also provides different options to use different items and makes some items a lot more important than they were on the old map. Let's go through the items that you should really focus on picking up and get used to using effectively in your games on Miramar.

Smoke Grenades are a lot more important since 1.0 update and it should be general knowledge to use them a lot more since the change from a cloud that travels in a random direction to a lower altitude circular cloud that is a lot thicker so you can't see through it at all. The Smoke Grenade became much better overall, so this item should be used on both maps and can save you from many different sticky situations. The smoke that comes from the Smoke Grenade also can't disappear from using lower graphics settings when you're distant from the location where the smoke grenade was dropped.

Scopes are substantially more effective on Miramar than on Erangel due to the longer range fights over open areas

The 4x scope got changed to having a cross-shaped cross-hair in the middle instead of the arrow that it still has on Assault-Rifles, making it even better than it was before and easier to use for newer players.

Picking up the 8x scope also allows you to ditch your 4x scope since you can zoom the 8x scope out to the vision of a 4x and zoom back in whenever you want. Just note that when you switch away from the weapon your 8x scope is on, the zooming will be reset to default.

Also, if you use zeroing in the game it's bound to your scope now instead of your weapon.

Long-range weapons like Assault Rifles and Sniper Rifles also have a greater impact on this map. These two kinds of weapons should be prioritized over all other types of weapons since you'll never find yourself in a close quarter combat scenario where a shotgun or SMG is more effective than an AR at short range unless you force yourself in that kind of situation by camping inside a compound that's inside the play zone

When you're running around with an AR, having it pre-set on single fire mode is better than on full automatic since you will not be seeing players at close range on Miramar but rather from you'll see them at a far range, allowing you to tap them with a shorter interval.

The new weapons that are only found on Miramar definitely do have a place for different playstyles on Miramar.

The Sawed-Off is a shotgun that goes into your pistol slot, allowing you to still carry 2 primaries with you as well. The Sawed-Off is very effective in the early game since it's damage is quite high against unarmored players or level 1 armor. Just be careful that you can't put any attachments on this gun making it absolutely useless in the mid to end game.

The Win94 is a high skill cap Hunting Rifle. I wouldn't recommend it to any new player because as mentioned before multiple times the long-range fights that tend to happen on Miramar aren't exactly great for the Win94 since it doesn't have support for a scope. This gun is great fun but try to use it at mid range and hold your breath when using this weapon to compensate for the scope.

The R45 is quite a weak gun due to its fire rate but it is a lot more stable than its Erangel counterpart the R1895. The reload time is a lot better but the six shots that are in your clip just aren't enough after the first minute that everyone runs around for loot to defend themselves.

Overall Tips

There are still some very important tips to cover when we're talking about Miramar.

Learn from every game when you're looking at the circle and think about which kinds of routes other players can take, this can make their rotations a lot more predictable especially on the Miramar map due to the map being very much the same when you're outside of cities and unique areas on the map.

This map can be quite disorienting since it has around 20% more land in total than Erangel does, making it harder for you to determine when you should move before you get hit by the blue zone.

The mountain ranges that are shown above are a very good camping spot, you'll always have the high ground against enemies and a lot more cover due to the shadows and many rocks that are up there.

Due to the map having fewer roads than Erangel, you can get screwed over by going off-road thinking you'll arrive earlier but realistically you won't. Try to go over roads since even the best terrain vehicles like the Pick-Up won't always stand against the rough terrain that Miramar sports.

Running away from other players in Miramar can be extremely difficult when you're in the empty desert part of Miramar, but when you're in the cities you can confuse chasing enemies by running around corners and vaulting/climbing through windows that either don't have glass or were broken before, since it's completely silent when you're vaulting or climbing.

When you're trying to siege buildings, try to avoid using the vaulting and climbing feature that got added in the 1.0 patch. It will render you very vulnerable when you're vaulting or climbing since you can't cancel the animation and can't shoot back until you fully performed the animation.

We thank Ziphon for the extensive input that he's provided for us within this guide. For more Ziphon, you can follow him on Twitter and Twitch, and for more great content stay tuned with Team Dignitas.

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