My first impressions on the new Checkmate modifier in Crucible Labs: - The Special Ammo generation bar is really cool. It takes alot of kills, objectives, damage given and taken, but it gives you 3-4 special ammo shots when it fills, and you keep them through death. They feel very special indeed, and I don't want to waste them. It also means more jousting gunfights with primaries instead of special ammo spam. This also has the side effect of making people clump up, so grenades are pretty powerful when used to break up groups, even if the regen for them is halved. - The slowed ability sandbox actually feels pretty OK. Its nice to have much less grenade spam, less Barricade spam, etc etc etc. They're all more valuable now, don't waste them. Though its hard to get a Super some games. I'm also not sure about the melee damage right now, but that may just be my muscle memory messing me up. Healing Grenades and Overshields are incredibly powerful. - I kinda hated the weapon sandbox damage tweaks at first, because I didn't understand them yet. I think I like them a bit more after about 10 games. What I think happens in Checkmate is we get more HP (I'd guess somewhere around 220-230). Crit damage goes up, so we can still optimal TTK people in about the same-ish time as before (slightly slower in some instances), but body shot damage is way less impactful. This means that most meta guns kill in the same amount of time, but all the emphasis is put on landing your crits, and bodyshots are more punishing. - This, together with less special ammo, turns it into a mode that is a little bit slower. Gunfights can take longer, and people are holding hands more. But really punishes people who miss their crits. I think I like that... It felt really weird for Sidearms to feel so low in damage, but then I remembered there's much less shotgun and fusion rifle ammo to counter them! I think Traveler's Chosen could be powerful in this slow ability economy. However I think 120 handcannons are a bit OP in this mode. They seem to be just as forgiving and high-range as normal with basically no drawbacks... Or maybe its just Igneous Hammer (Adept) being such a stat monster in a dueling-focused mode? Eh. Also I think Fighting Lion might be a problem. It feels like it chunks harder than an infinite ammo GL should. I'll play lots more to gather better feedback. There's lots of testing to be done, and other weird things to check out (Does Sunshot need 3C 1B to kill now, or was that just Titan Resil talking???) but so far, first impressions are good!