• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 19:45
CEST 01:45
KST 08:45
  • 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
Code S RO8 Preview: herO, Zoun, Bunny, Classic2Code S RO8 Preview: Rogue, GuMiho, Solar, Maru3BGE Stara Zagora 2025: Info & Preview27Code S RO12 Preview: GuMiho, Bunny, SHIN, ByuN3The Memories We Share - Facing the Final(?) GSL47
Community News
BGE Stara Zagora 2025 - Replay Pack2Weekly Cups (June 2-8): herO doubles down1[BSL20] ProLeague: Bracket Stage & Dates9GSL Ro4 and Finals moved to Sunday June 15th13Weekly Cups (May 27-June 1): ByuN goes back-to-back0
StarCraft 2
General
Jim claims he and Firefly were involved in match-fixing The SCII GOAT: A statistical Evaluation Code S RO8 Preview: herO, Zoun, Bunny, Classic DreamHack Dallas 2025 - Official Replay Pack BGE Stara Zagora 2025 - Replay Pack
Tourneys
[GSL 2025] Code S:Season 2 - RO8 - Group A RSL: Revival, a new crowdfunded tournament series SOOPer7s Showmatches 2025 Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond)
Strategy
[G] Darkgrid Layout Simple Questions Simple Answers [G] PvT Cheese: 13 Gate Proxy Robo
Custom Maps
[UMS] Zillion Zerglings
External Content
Mutation # 477 Slow and Steady Mutation # 476 Charnel House Mutation # 475 Hard Target Mutation # 474 Futile Resistance
Brood War
General
BGH auto balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BW General Discussion FlaSh Witnesses SCV Pull Off the Impossible vs Shu StarCraft & BroodWar Campaign Speedrun Quest Will foreigners ever be able to challenge Koreans?
Tourneys
[ASL19] Grand Finals [BSL20] GosuLeague RO16 - Tue & Wed 20:00+CET NA Team League 6/8/2025 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues
Strategy
I am doing this better than progamers do. [G] How to get started on ladder as a new Z player
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Beyond All Reason Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Path of Exile What do you want from future RTS games?
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Wizard Hilton Cybertech Crypto Recovery: Proven Re
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine US Politics Mega-thread UK Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Vape Nation Thread
Fan Clubs
Maru Fan Club Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Korean Music Discussion [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion NHL Playoffs 2024
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
A Better Routine For Progame…
TrAiDoS
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Heero Yuy & the Tax…
KrillinFromwales
I was completely wrong ab…
jameswatts
Need Your Help/Advice
Glider
Trip to the Zoo
micronesia
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 29842 users

[GSL] What is the ideal match duration?

Blogs > RoboBob
Post a Reply
RoboBob
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States798 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-29 01:23:18
January 29 2012 01:19 GMT
#1
I've watched a lot of GSL. I've also watched a lot of pro Terrans. But I repeat myself.

There's a ton of posts out there looking at the number of Terrans in GSL. But I couldn't help but feel that the "Terran saturation" in GSL had just as much to do with match duration as the number of players.

So I went through Liquipedia and slapped together a spreadsheet looking at the average match duration in every matchup. The data I used was 6 months of Code S + A. I found some very interesting results.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnLmn5yALkv_dEowUEhjOVRsck0yc2VOalFwT3c4S0E

TvT: 260 games, 21.3 avg game minutes
TvZ: 269 games, 20.9 avg game minutes
TvP: 238 games, 18.3 avg game minutes
TvX: 767 games, 20.2 avg game minutes
Terran is playing in GSL 44.7% of the time

ZvT: 269 games, 20.9 avg game minutes
ZvZ: 49 games, 13.0 avg game minutes
ZvP: 170 games, 19.9 avg game minutes
ZvX: 488 games, 19.8 avg game minutes
Zerg is playing in GSL 28.4% of the time

PvT: 238 games, 18.3 avg game minutes
PvZ: 170 games, 19.9 avg game minutes
PvP: 54 games, 11.2 avg game minutes
PvX: 462 games, 18.1 avg game minutes
Protoss is playing in GSL 26.9% of the time

Here's some observations:

1. There seems to be an "ideal" match duration of about 20 game minutes (which equals 15 real-life minutes).

2. The matchups that do not fit the mold are TvP, ZvZ, PvP, and PvX. I found this personally interesting because those are also the matchups that I think are the most boring to watch.

3. There have been so few ZvZ and PvP games in the GSL, that being very strong in those matchups is practically worthless. Keep in mind that this data *did* include most of the big non-T mirrors in GSL history. Inca's PvP run up to Code S finals is included, as is Nestea vs Losira Code S finals, and the Tassadar vs Puzzle Code A finals.

4. On the other hand, strength in the Terran mirror matchup is incredibly important. It's okay for a top-level Zerg to have a terrible ZvZ (*cough*JulyZerg*cough), however its a career-killer for Terrans.

5. Common knowledge suggests "the longer the game, the greater the probability that the better player will win". According to this data, that's great for Terran and Zerg, but it's bad for Protoss. It could very well be that one part of the reason why there are so few Protoss in the GSL is because the "best" Protoss players are more vulnerable to getting knocked out by lesser skilled opponents than the other races.

****
Alejandrisha
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States6565 Posts
January 29 2012 01:23 GMT
#2
5 is interesting because pvp is pulling down the average. this might lead to the conclusion that because pvp is shorter and thus the better player has less of a chance to win than in other match ups, it's more probable that the lesser protoss will advance, and then lose a non-mirror that the loser of the pvp would have won
get rich or die mining
TL+ Member
Glurkenspurk
Profile Joined November 2010
United States1915 Posts
January 29 2012 01:28 GMT
#3
Are you the same robobob that used to play wow with aquabuggy?
darkscream
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Canada2310 Posts
January 29 2012 01:39 GMT
#4
Blizzard once had a post somewhere about "the ideal length of a ladder game", they said they wanted it to be 20-30 in game minutes, I believe.
Gheed
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States972 Posts
January 29 2012 01:43 GMT
#5
50 minutes. Settle for no less.

Seriously, though, I don't know how you're interpreting the average duration as the "ideal" duration
SenorChang
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Australia4729 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-29 01:56:23
January 29 2012 01:55 GMT
#6
Ideal duration is irrelevant if the game played is terrible.

Nice statistcs though, interesting to see that they all come up around the same length in the respective matchup's (Bar ZvZ and PvP)
ლ(╹◡╹ლ)
UmiNotsuki
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States633 Posts
January 29 2012 02:05 GMT
#7
This gets me thinking how strong an effect on success rates the mirrors have. Using that old adage you mentioned of longer games favoring better players, it seems to me that the best Terrans will advance because on average TvT is the longest mirror match up (and the longest match up in general) whereas the best Zerg and Protoss players are a lot less likely to advance by comparison because their mirrors are very short.

This may result in the higher rounds of the tournament containing Zerg and Protoss players who aren't necessarily the best representatives of their races, as well as Terran players who are, making the Terran players better on average.

Never thought about Terran being overpowered (or at least getting better results) because of TvT
UmiNotsuki.111 (NA), UNTReborn.932 (EU), UmiNotsuki (iCCup) -- You see that text I wrote above this? I'll betcha $5 that you disagree :D
ArcticFox
Profile Joined February 2011
United States1092 Posts
January 29 2012 02:08 GMT
#8
Seriously though, if you ignore ZvZ and PvP, everything looks within one standard deviation or two of "average", meaning that those two matchups are the easiest to win in the early game (duh) and need to be looked at as to how to actually have defensive options other than "do a defensive version of the offense your opponent is doing."

Of course, this is all common knowledge to anyone who's watched or played SC2 ever.

Also being good at XvT will do you well in GSL because most of GSL *is* T (though that number is, slowly, decreasing)

I like knowing the average durations so that's some good work, it just seems your conclusions are, for the lack of a better word, extremely obvious. Is there a point you're trying to make specificially?

Good job with the data though. ^_^
caradoc
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Canada3022 Posts
January 29 2012 02:33 GMT
#9
On January 29 2012 10:19 RoboBob wrote:
I've watched a lot of GSL. I've also watched a lot of pro Terrans. But I repeat myself.

There's a ton of posts out there looking at the number of Terrans in GSL. But I couldn't help but feel that the "Terran saturation" in GSL had just as much to do with match duration as the number of players.

So I went through Liquipedia and slapped together a spreadsheet looking at the average match duration in every matchup. The data I used was 6 months of Code S + A. I found some very interesting results.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnLmn5yALkv_dEowUEhjOVRsck0yc2VOalFwT3c4S0E

TvT: 260 games, 21.3 avg game minutes
TvZ: 269 games, 20.9 avg game minutes
TvP: 238 games, 18.3 avg game minutes
TvX: 767 games, 20.2 avg game minutes
Terran is playing in GSL 44.7% of the time

ZvT: 269 games, 20.9 avg game minutes
ZvZ: 49 games, 13.0 avg game minutes
ZvP: 170 games, 19.9 avg game minutes
ZvX: 488 games, 19.8 avg game minutes
Zerg is playing in GSL 28.4% of the time

PvT: 238 games, 18.3 avg game minutes
PvZ: 170 games, 19.9 avg game minutes
PvP: 54 games, 11.2 avg game minutes
PvX: 462 games, 18.1 avg game minutes
Protoss is playing in GSL 26.9% of the time

Here's some observations:

1. There seems to be an "ideal" match duration of about 20 game minutes (which equals 15 real-life minutes).

2. The matchups that do not fit the mold are TvP, ZvZ, PvP, and PvX. I found this personally interesting because those are also the matchups that I think are the most boring to watch.

3. There have been so few ZvZ and PvP games in the GSL, that being very strong in those matchups is practically worthless. Keep in mind that this data *did* include most of the big non-T mirrors in GSL history. Inca's PvP run up to Code S finals is included, as is Nestea vs Losira Code S finals, and the Tassadar vs Puzzle Code A finals.

4. On the other hand, strength in the Terran mirror matchup is incredibly important. It's okay for a top-level Zerg to have a terrible ZvZ (*cough*JulyZerg*cough), however its a career-killer for Terrans.

5. Common knowledge suggests "the longer the game, the greater the probability that the better player will win". According to this data, that's great for Terran and Zerg, but it's bad for Protoss. It could very well be that one part of the reason why there are so few Protoss in the GSL is because the "best" Protoss players are more vulnerable to getting knocked out by lesser skilled opponents than the other races.



You say 'terran saturation' has to do with average game length, but in your own stats, theres almost twice as many terran games as games in the other matchups. If you multiply the number of minutes by matchup by the number of T matchups vs. Z and P, you'll see even more 'terran minutes' of gameplay. Even if terran matchups were say 25% lower than the average, there would still be more total terran minutes overall.

1. What does 'ideal' mean? Does it mean most entertaining? does it mean 'average'? If it means something like 'optimum', then optimum for who? for what? what purpose?

3+4. This is kind of interesting, but the relatively lower number of ZvZ and PvP games is almost totally related to the lower percentage of total players that Z and P comprise relative to terran. In a situation where there are more terran overall, of course your skill vs. terran will be relatively more important.

5. I'm not sure if this is true. Why do you think so?
Salvation a la mode and a cup of tea...
Zallkar
Profile Joined June 2010
United States449 Posts
January 29 2012 03:01 GMT
#10
Ugh ideal is a really bad choice of word here.
Understand.
RoboBob
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States798 Posts
January 29 2012 03:09 GMT
#11
On January 29 2012 10:28 Odal wrote:
Are you the same robobob that used to play wow with aquabuggy?

Nope, afraid not =/
RoboBob
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States798 Posts
January 29 2012 03:13 GMT
#12
On January 29 2012 11:05 UmiNotsuki wrote:
This gets me thinking how strong an effect on success rates the mirrors have. Using that old adage you mentioned of longer games favoring better players, it seems to me that the best Terrans will advance because on average TvT is the longest mirror match up (and the longest match up in general) whereas the best Zerg and Protoss players are a lot less likely to advance by comparison because their mirrors are very short.

This may result in the higher rounds of the tournament containing Zerg and Protoss players who aren't necessarily the best representatives of their races, as well as Terran players who are, making the Terran players better on average.

Never thought about Terran being overpowered (or at least getting better results) because of TvT

That is a really good point, I didn't think of it that way. But it makes sense, especially because TvT is almost 2x as long as the mirrors.

I guess its like saying that MVP is less likely to be KOed by a noob in a 20 min TvT than it is for MC to be KOed by a noob in an 11 min PvP.
RoboBob
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States798 Posts
January 29 2012 03:31 GMT
#13
On January 29 2012 11:33 caradoc wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 29 2012 10:19 RoboBob wrote:
I've watched a lot of GSL. I've also watched a lot of pro Terrans. But I repeat myself.

There's a ton of posts out there looking at the number of Terrans in GSL. But I couldn't help but feel that the "Terran saturation" in GSL had just as much to do with match duration as the number of players.

So I went through Liquipedia and slapped together a spreadsheet looking at the average match duration in every matchup. The data I used was 6 months of Code S + A. I found some very interesting results.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnLmn5yALkv_dEowUEhjOVRsck0yc2VOalFwT3c4S0E

TvT: 260 games, 21.3 avg game minutes
TvZ: 269 games, 20.9 avg game minutes
TvP: 238 games, 18.3 avg game minutes
TvX: 767 games, 20.2 avg game minutes
Terran is playing in GSL 44.7% of the time

ZvT: 269 games, 20.9 avg game minutes
ZvZ: 49 games, 13.0 avg game minutes
ZvP: 170 games, 19.9 avg game minutes
ZvX: 488 games, 19.8 avg game minutes
Zerg is playing in GSL 28.4% of the time

PvT: 238 games, 18.3 avg game minutes
PvZ: 170 games, 19.9 avg game minutes
PvP: 54 games, 11.2 avg game minutes
PvX: 462 games, 18.1 avg game minutes
Protoss is playing in GSL 26.9% of the time

Here's some observations:

1. There seems to be an "ideal" match duration of about 20 game minutes (which equals 15 real-life minutes).

2. The matchups that do not fit the mold are TvP, ZvZ, PvP, and PvX. I found this personally interesting because those are also the matchups that I think are the most boring to watch.

3. There have been so few ZvZ and PvP games in the GSL, that being very strong in those matchups is practically worthless. Keep in mind that this data *did* include most of the big non-T mirrors in GSL history. Inca's PvP run up to Code S finals is included, as is Nestea vs Losira Code S finals, and the Tassadar vs Puzzle Code A finals.

4. On the other hand, strength in the Terran mirror matchup is incredibly important. It's okay for a top-level Zerg to have a terrible ZvZ (*cough*JulyZerg*cough), however its a career-killer for Terrans.

5. Common knowledge suggests "the longer the game, the greater the probability that the better player will win". According to this data, that's great for Terran and Zerg, but it's bad for Protoss. It could very well be that one part of the reason why there are so few Protoss in the GSL is because the "best" Protoss players are more vulnerable to getting knocked out by lesser skilled opponents than the other races.



You say 'terran saturation' has to do with average game length, but in your own stats, theres almost twice as many terran games as games in the other matchups. If you multiply the number of minutes by matchup by the number of T matchups vs. Z and P, you'll see even more 'terran minutes' of gameplay. Even if terran matchups were say 25% lower than the average, there would still be more total terran minutes overall.

1. What does 'ideal' mean? Does it mean most entertaining? does it mean 'average'? If it means something like 'optimum', then optimum for who? for what? what purpose?

3+4. This is kind of interesting, but the relatively lower number of ZvZ and PvP games is almost totally related to the lower percentage of total players that Z and P comprise relative to terran. In a situation where there are more terran overall, of course your skill vs. terran will be relatively more important.

5. I'm not sure if this is true. Why do you think so?

Well, I see two ways to look at "Too much Terran". Is it just because Terrans play the most games? Or is it also that Terran games they do play take a longer time to finish?

There's been a ton of threads about the first question, and the results are fairly obvious (just look at tournament results). But I couldn't find anything on the second. That's why I made this thread. And it was kinda cool to learn that Terran games lasted just as Zerg games. And it was also cool to learn that Protoss plays the shortest games, which I didn't expect at all.

Hm I wonder if the shorter game time for Protoss is partially because of warpin negating defender's advantage. I don't know why it would result in a "short" PvP and PvT but not PvZ though.

Oh and for the record, when I was talking about "ideal", I meant ideal for pure spectators to watch. It's the goldilocks principle: you don't want a game that's too short like a 7 min PvP, but you also don't want a game that's too long like a 30 min TvT.
K3Nyy
Profile Joined February 2010
United States1961 Posts
January 29 2012 04:30 GMT
#14
o.o I'm surprised. It's nothing like BW's average game length of like 12 minutes or something.
Yaki
Profile Joined April 2011
France4234 Posts
February 04 2012 17:25 GMT
#15
interesting stats, already kinda knew terran play longer games though overall
MC ■ MarineKing ■ LosirA ■ To someone who has lost after trying his best, no words from the winner can console him.
d9mmdi
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany179 Posts
February 05 2012 07:18 GMT
#16
can you show histograms for all data? using averages can sometimes hide that there is more than one peak. you would exspect one around macro games and another earlier peak for rushes timings etc.
You gotta step over dead bodies - Momma Plott
Telcontar
Profile Joined May 2010
United Kingdom16710 Posts
February 05 2012 07:56 GMT
#17
I would dearly love to see Goody's average game length.

For me, there is no ideal duration as long as the game itself is entertaining. However, this usually means most of the games ending in the first 10 minutes are underwhelming.
Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta.
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
GSL
23:00
Replay Cast
Rogue vs GuMiho
Maru vs Solar
PiGStarcraft391
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
PiGStarcraft391
RuFF_SC2 88
CosmosSc2 76
EnDerr 30
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 13788
Rain 1373
Artosis 723
Aegong 54
Dota 2
PGG 114
LuMiX0
Counter-Strike
Stewie2K1378
flusha519
Foxcn307
Super Smash Bros
hungrybox474
AZ_Axe153
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor154
Other Games
tarik_tv12745
summit1g12164
Grubby3131
shahzam1570
ViBE211
Maynarde107
UpATreeSC103
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Main Stream7454
Other Games
gamesdonequick893
BasetradeTV113
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 20 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH260
• RyuSc2 52
• davetesta50
• Hupsaiya 40
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• sooper7s
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Migwel
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 7
• blackmanpl 3
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
League of Legends
• Doublelift5557
• TFBlade1304
Counter-Strike
• Shiphtur317
Other Games
• imaqtpie968
Upcoming Events
Online Event
15m
Replay Cast
2h 15m
GSL Code S
9h 45m
herO vs Zoun
Classic vs Bunny
The PondCast
10h 15m
Replay Cast
1d
WardiTV Invitational
1d 11h
OSC
1d 13h
Korean StarCraft League
2 days
SOOP
2 days
sOs vs Percival
CranKy Ducklings
2 days
[ Show More ]
WardiTV Invitational
2 days
Cheesadelphia
2 days
CSO Cup
2 days
GSL Code S
3 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Wardi Open
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Replay Cast
5 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Cure vs Percival
ByuN vs Spirit
RSL Revival
6 days
herO vs sOs
Zoun vs Clem
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Season 17: Qualifier 2
BGE Stara Zagora 2025
Heroes 10 EU

Ongoing

JPL Season 2
BSL 2v2 Season 3
BSL Season 20
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 2
NPSL S3
Rose Open S1
CSL 17: 2025 SUMMER
2025 GSL S2
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025
PGL Astana 2025
Asian Champions League '25
BLAST Rivals Spring 2025
MESA Nomadic Masters
CCT Season 2 Global Finals
IEM Melbourne 2025
YaLLa Compass Qatar 2025
PGL Bucharest 2025
BLAST Open Spring 2025

Upcoming

Copa Latinoamericana 4
CSLPRO Last Chance 2025
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
K-Championship
SEL Season 2 Championship
Esports World Cup 2025
HSC XXVII
Championship of Russia 2025
Murky Cup #2
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
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 © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.