I humbly ask the All-Wise to stop flaming and post only on same topic.
Will Rafael Nadal honor the championship with his presence??? Perhaps you invited him as a sponsor??? If not, then why, excuse me, is there such a polemic here about his tennis skills...
As for the game version. When the first TE champ was held in Yekaterinburg—a trial one that Mee and Asm simply struggled through, persuading everyone and anyone to participate (myself included)—I was the one complaining the loudest, saying that it would be a completely different game. Yes, the game has changed. But the gameplay principles remained the same. If we have Bron sitting in the tavern with 7 basilisks, while the opponent only has two stacks instead of three—is that balanced? And what about a Fly scroll taken on the first week? Now that is exactly a lottery.
Now regarding SM. Very rarely have I seen absolutely unbeatable maps. That's exactly why subjective restarts are provided. A player's skill in Heroes consists not only of the ability to conduct a chess-like battle of monsters, the ability to build chains and save movement, but also in correctly assessing the playability of a given map, as well as the ability to choose the direction of expansion correctly.
Nevertheless, I agree to play any version of the game, but if it's classic SoD, we'll need to get several decks of poker cards, because there will be oh-so-many-hours of restarts.