• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 20:23
CEST 02:23
KST 09:23
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro4 Preview: Mirror Mirror6[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: Within Reach5[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: In A Tizzy11[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Holy Diver5[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Rough Waters10
Community News
Rollback Netcode in Brood War695.0.17 Patch Notes - October 7, 202621Weekly Cups Results (Sep 28-Oct 4)0SC4ALL: II SC2 Complete Invited Player Lineup10StarCraft II 5.0.17 PTR Patch Notes (Sept 30, 2026)78
StarCraft 2
General
ESL Pro Tour for SC2 discontinued [Old] StarCraft 3 Reportedly in Development 5.0.17 Patch Notes - October 7, 2026 StarCraft II 5.0.17 PTR Patch Notes (Sept 30, 2026) How do you feel about the mass reverts in the 5.0.17 PTR?
Tourneys
RSL 2026 Offline Finals LCQ Sign-Ups $3,500 WardiTV Not-Summer Championship ScienceCraft (October 24-25) - Live Event Stellar Fest TWO the Moon (Dec 16-20) ISSL (IntoTheTV x SOOP SC2 League): Premier
Strategy
[H] ZvP Mid-Late Game: Stalkers Collossi HT
Custom Maps
[M] (2) Sweltering Sands [M] (2) Frigid Storage
External Content
Mutation # 547 Temple Of Terror Mutation # 546 Catch the Train The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 545 And Drops and Rifts
Brood War
General
Rollback Netcode in Brood War BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BW General Discussion Ziemie's Starcraft 1 Prequel Campaign Mineral Boosting (2 workers/patch)
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL22] Semifinal A [ASL22] Semifinal B [ASL22] Ro8 Day 4
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Cliff Jump Revisited (1 in a 1000 strategy) Replay Review Process - What do you do?
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread General RTS Discussion Thread Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Total Annihilation Zero
Dota 2
Dota 2 Champions League Season 3 Begins April 25!
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Canadian Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Artificial Intelligence Thread
Fan Clubs
Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion! Diablo Animated Series on Netflix
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
Recent Gifted Posts
Blogs
The Link Between Gaming and …
TrAiDoS
[ASL22] Ro4 Day1 Ticket Giv…
bITt.mAN
38 yo Retired SWE loo…
PurE)Rabbit-SF
Can Bots Beat Pros?? Starcr…
namkraft
[meme] I finally understa…
LUCKY_NOOB
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 13804 users

Interesting SC2 statistics?

Blogs > Itsmedudeman
Post a Reply
Itsmedudeman
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States19229 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-24 04:23:06
October 24 2011 03:43 GMT
#1
So first of all, I'd like to make clear that this in no way, shape, or form reflects the balance at the highest level of play right now - that being code S. But because of all the outrage there seems to be and basically ladder woes seeping into just about every LR/HotS thread, I thought I'd do some research and see if I could convince people that in fact, win rates in code S have nothing to do with balance at your level, whether you be GM (unless korean), master, diamond or lower. That if you had started out as another race, there is no guarantee where you would be right now.

Now the stats I'm going to pull out are really straight forward, and anyone can check them out for themselves. They're taken off of sc2ranks.com, and it's basically a number of GM terrans, zergs, and protoss. Also I'd like to note that they don't add up to 200, but that doesn't really matter.

NA GM:

73 terran
71 protoss
71 zerg

EU GM:

70 terran
76 protoss
68 zerg

KR GM:

83 terran
76 protoss
58 zerg

EU and NA ladder seems pretty damn even across the board, and 5 or 6 people off doesn't really mean much because there's going to be an unknown error where some people with GM MMR aren't actually GM.

Some things I didn't take into account - which majority is at the top, middle, and bottom? Why did I note include this? Because it doesn't really matter because ladders don't really indicate who's the best to begin with even if you're at the top. Also, we don't know how many people play each race, and that could also be a hinder to these statistics, but let's just assume that an even number of players play each race.

So what have we learned? KR is imbalanced and they should be removed from sc2 obviously. It's funny how one little portion of a peninsula can be so skewed. If korean players were removed, the game would almost seem balanced. In fact, it seems like internationally all the best players are zerg and protoss. There's select and thorzain of course, but I still can't help but feel the zergs and protoss are ahead internationally. I guess for the most part what I'm trying to get across with this blog is why korean terran dominance doesn't affect you.

Edit: For those of you not satisfied with a small sample like GM

+ Show Spoiler +

NA Masters:

~3800 Terran
~4000 Protoss
~4200 Zerg

EU Masters:

~2800 Terran
~3100 Protoss
~3000 Zerg

KR Masters:

~1300 Terran
~900 Protoss
~900 Zerg


***
Alejandrisha
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States6566 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-24 03:49:28
October 24 2011 03:48 GMT
#2
+ Show Spoiler +
On October 24 2011 12:43 Itsmedudeman wrote:
So first of all, I'd like to make clear that this in no way, shape, or form reflects the balance at the highest level of play right now - that being code S. But because of all the outrage there seems to be and basically ladder woes seeping into just about every LR/HotS thread, I thought I'd do some research and see if I could convince people that in fact, win rates in code S have nothing to do with balance at your level, whether you be GM (unless korean), master, diamond or lower. That if you had started out as another race, there is no guarantee where you would be right now.

Now the stats I'm going to pull out are really straight forward, and anyone can check them out for themselves. They're taken off of sc2ranks.com, and it's basically a number of GM terrans, zergs, and protoss. Also I'd like to note that they don't add up to 200, but that doesn't really matter.

NA GM:

73 terran
71 protoss
71 zerg

EU GM:

70 terran
76 protoss
68 zerg

KR GM:

83 terran
76 protoss
58 zerg

EU and NA ladder seems pretty damn even across the board, and 5 or 6 people off doesn't really mean much because there's going to be an unknown error where some people with GM MMR aren't actually GM.

Some things I didn't take into account - which majority is at the top, middle, and bottom? Why did I note include this? Because it doesn't really matter because ladders don't really indicate who's the best to begin with even if you're at the top. Also, we don't know how many people play each race, and that could also be a hinder to these statistics, but let's just assume that an even number of players play each race.

So what have we learned? KR is imbalanced and they should be removed from sc2 obviously. It's funny how one little portion of a peninsula can be so skewed. If korean players were removed, the game would almost seem balanced. In fact, it seems like internationally all the best players are zerg and protoss. There's select and thorzain of course, but I still can't help but feel the zergs and protoss are ahead internationally.



1. (see bold) can't do that
2. smurfs
3. ladder doesn't really mean much for ??? (i don't know what your goal was in putting these statistics together, but ladder probably doesn't mean much for that)
4. what is your conclusion? you've provided data and wrote some words and said something about kr and mentioned some foreign players
get rich or die mining
TL+ Member
Itsmedudeman
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States19229 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-24 03:51:07
October 24 2011 03:50 GMT
#3
Maybe you could read the first 2 paragraphs? Basically that anyone at a non code S/A level who says they would be higher ranked or win more often if they were playing an imbalanced race (according to code S statistics) is full of shit.
Azzur
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Australia6267 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-24 03:51:52
October 24 2011 03:51 GMT
#4
Don't forget that some high-level terran players (e.g. MarineKing) have several accounts (I think he has like 5?)
Probe1
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States17920 Posts
October 24 2011 03:53 GMT
#5
How many of those accounts belong to the same player or belong to a team? GM is a questionable source of statistics since there is no limit to the amount of accounts imo!
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
Alejandrisha
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States6566 Posts
October 24 2011 03:53 GMT
#6
On October 24 2011 12:50 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Maybe you could read the first 2 paragraphs? Basically that anyone at a non code S/A level who says they would be higher ranked or win more often if they were playing an imbalanced race (according to code S statistics) is full of shit.

I did.. but linking the ladder race counts for each race doesn't speak to that at all. also who are these players that are saying they would be higher ranked if they played terran? I think that is just a joke people say like "gah i should have played terran"
get rich or die mining
TL+ Member
Itsmedudeman
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States19229 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-24 04:12:11
October 24 2011 04:02 GMT
#7
On October 24 2011 12:53 Probe1 wrote:
How many of those accounts belong to the same player or belong to a team? GM is a questionable source of statistics since there is no limit to the amount of accounts imo!

True, but again, it's really close to even and of course there is an uncertainty, and because there is basically no reason to believe that X race would have a good size more smurfs than another, I'll take the stats for what they roughly are.

Some more interesting statistics:

NA Masters:

~3800 Terran
~4000 Protoss
~4200 Zerg

EU Masters:

~2800 Terran
~3100 Protoss
~3000 Zerg

KR Masters:

~1300 Terran
~900 Protoss
~900 Zerg


On October 24 2011 12:53 Alejandrisha wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 24 2011 12:50 Itsmedudeman wrote:
Maybe you could read the first 2 paragraphs? Basically that anyone at a non code S/A level who says they would be higher ranked or win more often if they were playing an imbalanced race (according to code S statistics) is full of shit.

I did.. but linking the ladder race counts for each race doesn't speak to that at all. also who are these players that are saying they would be higher ranked if they played terran? I think that is just a joke people say like "gah i should have played terran"

Umm well, most of them get banned, but anyone who has played on ladder knows how much people will complain about race imbalance. And if you've ever entered certain threads you'd see them. There's a lot of people who think races are imbalanced and that it affects them, and that code S is the place to look at to see which race is favorable.

Also, by shifting through all the lower leagues below diamond which hold the majority of players, it seems like terran and protoss are the most played with terran slightly in the lead and zerg with the least amount of players. This is for only NA, I might update some more stats later on.
Poo
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada536 Posts
October 24 2011 05:44 GMT
#8
On October 24 2011 12:48 Alejandrisha wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +
On October 24 2011 12:43 Itsmedudeman wrote:
So first of all, I'd like to make clear that this in no way, shape, or form reflects the balance at the highest level of play right now - that being code S. But because of all the outrage there seems to be and basically ladder woes seeping into just about every LR/HotS thread, I thought I'd do some research and see if I could convince people that in fact, win rates in code S have nothing to do with balance at your level, whether you be GM (unless korean), master, diamond or lower. That if you had started out as another race, there is no guarantee where you would be right now.

Now the stats I'm going to pull out are really straight forward, and anyone can check them out for themselves. They're taken off of sc2ranks.com, and it's basically a number of GM terrans, zergs, and protoss. Also I'd like to note that they don't add up to 200, but that doesn't really matter.

NA GM:

73 terran
71 protoss
71 zerg

EU GM:

70 terran
76 protoss
68 zerg

KR GM:

83 terran
76 protoss
58 zerg

EU and NA ladder seems pretty damn even across the board, and 5 or 6 people off doesn't really mean much because there's going to be an unknown error where some people with GM MMR aren't actually GM.

Some things I didn't take into account - which majority is at the top, middle, and bottom? Why did I note include this? Because it doesn't really matter because ladders don't really indicate who's the best to begin with even if you're at the top. Also, we don't know how many people play each race, and that could also be a hinder to these statistics, but let's just assume that an even number of players play each race.

So what have we learned? KR is imbalanced and they should be removed from sc2 obviously. It's funny how one little portion of a peninsula can be so skewed. If korean players were removed, the game would almost seem balanced. In fact, it seems like internationally all the best players are zerg and protoss. There's select and thorzain of course, but I still can't help but feel the zergs and protoss are ahead internationally.



1. (see bold) can't do that
2. smurfs
3. ladder doesn't really mean much for ??? (i don't know what your goal was in putting these statistics together, but ladder probably doesn't mean much for that)
4. what is your conclusion? you've provided data and wrote some words and said something about kr and mentioned some foreign players


qft. I agree with Alej, .. I don't see how you can draw many insightful conclusions based on who is in GM at whatever time you decide to do your analysis. To assume that the # of players of each race in GM is actually representative of what the current balance situation doesn't seem very accurate to me (hence masters + gm is used in balance analysis by blizzard). I'm also a little confused about the purpose of this... are you just wanting to throw out the old "P and Z so op!" or something...and try to tie some facts to it?
Try hard or don't try at all.
Djzapz
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Canada10681 Posts
October 24 2011 05:50 GMT
#9
Consider that the playerbase isn't split in 33% for each race. Comparing the number of GM's on its own doesn't mean anything... Hell, because of the stupid way promotions and demotions happen, I would argue that even if you took general race distribution into account, looking at the number of people in each league doesn't say much about balance.

The "stats" brought up here are interesting in that I didn't know, but they don't "say" anything. They're raw.
"My incompetence with power tools had been increasing exponentially over the course of 20 years spent inhaling experimental oven cleaners"
Itsmedudeman
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States19229 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-10-24 06:21:20
October 24 2011 06:01 GMT
#10
Uhh, maybe I should bold my first sentence because people seem to be missing the point despite me telling you my intentions from the statistics I drew. Basically, statistically outside of korea, the races are balanced and have close to equal representation across all races at GM and Masters and therefore the representation in GSL does not affect you in any way when you play on the ladder.

If the terran domination in korea was indicative of imbalance on international ladders then we would have a gross overpopulation of terrans in masters and GM because the race would be easier to get to the top with. I'm not trying to make inferences on the pro scene and its balance using ladder statistics.

However, despite statistically having terran and protoss as most played and zerg least played from bronze-masters, terran representation in the highest leagues is about equal to zerg and protoss.

Here are the rough numbers for NA players, or rather a ratio of players:

Terran - 1206
Protoss - 1217
Zerg - 977

So roughly 28% of all players on the ladder are zerg, and about 36% of all players are terran and protoss. I'll work on EU and KR numbers in a bit.

Edit: For EU

Terran - 1216
Protoss - 1157
Zerg - 932

So 28% zerg, 37% terran, and 35% protoss.

For KR

Terran - 533
Protoss - 500
Zerg - 367

So 26% zerg, 38% terran, 36% protoss.
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Replay Cast
08:00
The QMC Showmatch 1
CranKy Ducklings83
OSC
08:00
Masters Cup #151: Group A
davetesta25
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 7638
Rain 1428
GuemChi 1221
Artosis 730
Dota 2
monkeys_forever254
NeuroSwarm204
League of Legends
Doublelift5567
Counter-Strike
minikerr15
Super Smash Bros
AZ_Axe128
Other Games
FrodaN2262
Liquid`RaSZi1715
Livibee600
JimRising 507
C9.Mang0493
Maynarde136
Mew2King42
ArmadaUGS38
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1102
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Hupsaiya 129
• musti20045 44
• CranKy Ducklings SOOP30
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Other Games
• imaqtpie1388
• Scarra1209
• Shiphtur509
Upcoming Events
OSC
11h 37m
WardiTV Weekly
1d 10h
PiGosaur Cup
1d 23h
Kung Fu Cup
2 days
The PondCast
3 days
Online Event
4 days
Korean StarCraft League
5 days
Afreeca Starleague
5 days
Rush vs Soulkey
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
BSL Open Qualifier
5 days
[ Show More ]
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
BSL Open Qualifier
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Acropolis #5 - GSB
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Copium Cup

Ongoing

ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
Acropolis #5
HCC Season 3

Upcoming

Acropolis #5 - GSC
BSL Season 23
SC4ALL II: Brood War
BSL 23: Non-Korean Championship
HSC XXX
Stellar Fest 2: Lunar Cup
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.