SC2 Post-starleague Balance Report

Ej_

47656 Posts

October 16 2017 15:40 GMT

Nearing Blizzcon, with both SSL and GSL finished, it's the most proper time to reflect on the winrates in Korea. Thankfuly, the amazing liquipedia editors keep map statistics updated in both starleagues so we can even see which maps favor what race.

In the following summary I will be using these pages:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2017_Global_StarCraft_II_League_Season_3/Code_S_Statistics
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2017_StarCraft_II_StarLeague_Season_2/Premier_Statistics
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2017_StarCraft_II_StarLeague_Season_2/Challenge_Statistics

I decided to exclude ST 2 as it, despite providing a fairly interesting sample size, didn't feature matchup statistics on liquipedia. Maybe another day

. Worth to mention that it was won by a Zerg player, while Protoss and Terran split the starleagues.

Let's start with GSL:

2017 GSL Season3

Qualified players:

(9) Classic, Dear, herO, Hurricane, Hush,, Patience, sOs, Stats, Trap

(13) GuMiho, Maru, aLive, Bunny, ByuN, Forte, INnoVation, jjakji, Keen,

Special, Ryung,

TIME, TY

(10) soO, Curious, Dark, Elazer, Leenock, Losira,

NoRegreT, Rogue,

Scarlett, Solar

Overall winrates:

16-17 (48,5%)

25-24 (51%)

21-23 (47,7%)

Incredibly close results in all matchups, the Terran race lagging behind in both TvP and TvZ can be easily explained with their overrepresentation in ro32 and quick elimination of the outliers going into the ro16 (Only 6 out of the 13 advanced, notable dropouts: Maru with 0-4 vs jjakji and Solar and Ryung, with 0-2 vs INnoVation and combined 3-2 vs Hurricane).

The maps behind GSL's succes?
(Wiki)

Abyssal Reef, (Wiki)

Ascension to Aiur, (Wiki)

Frost,

Newkirk Precinct, (Wiki)

Odyssey,

Proxima Station, (Wiki)

Whirlwind, (Wiki)

Acolyte,

Mech Depot

Notable outliers in terms of winrate (maps where the winning race had an advantage of at least 3 games; matchups where 1 race exceeds 80% WR are underlined):
(Wiki)

Abyssal Reef.

7-4 (63.6%),

2-6 (25%)

Newkirk Precinct

2-5 (28.6%),

1-4 (20%)

0-3 (0%)

0-4 (0%)

7-1 (87,5%)
(Wiki)

6-1 (85.7%)
(Wiki)

2-5 (28.6%)

Comment worthy is the domination of Protoss on Odyssey, the only Terran to beat Protoss there was Bunny vs Dear. Zerg obliterating Protoss on Ascension shouldn't be much of a surprise, but their record on Mech Depot and acolyte vs Terran is a sign of the hydra bane era.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

2017 SSL Season 3: Premier

Qualified players:

(4) Classic, Dear, herO, Stats

(3) Maru, INnoVation, aLive

(3) Dark, Solar, ByuL

Overall winrates:

24-29 (45,3%)

18-10 (64,3%)

12-11 (52,2%)

SSL is a more interesting league in terms of data analysis, because of its round robin format, allowing to collect data of ALL matchups, providing a much better sample, despite smaller sample size.
Protoss proves once again to be the leading race, with 3 of the top 4 players representing Aiur. Interestingly enough, the bottom 3 players of the league, ByuL, aLive and herO represented all 3 races. Terran seems to get the short stick overall with their abyssmal TvP record and 0 players in the playoffs.

SSL Map pool
(Wiki)

Abyssal Reef, (Wiki)

Odyssey,

Ascension to Aiur, (Wiki)

Frost,

Newkirk Precinct, (Wiki)

Whirlwind, (Wiki)

Overgrowth

Notable outliers:
(Wiki)

Abyssal Reef

2-5 (28,6%),

7-1 (87,5%)
(Wiki)

Odyssey

5-2 (71.4%)
(Wiki)

Ascension to Aiur

5-8 (38,5%),

5-1 (83,3%)
(Wiki)

Frost

3-0 (100%)
(Wiki)

Newkirk Precinct

3-8 (27.3%)
(Wiki)

Whirlwind

0-3 (0%)

Comments: the winning record of Protoss vs Zerg on Ascension comes as a surprise, and most likely the effect of the birth of mass oracle. At the same time, Newkirk and Abyssal made sure to keep the race lying low while Terrans remained virtually dead on Abyssal and Ascension, WW not helping out. Fun fact: 4 of the TvP losses on Abyssal is aLive picking the map himself and losing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

2017 SSL Season 3: Challenge

Qualified players:

(4) sOs, Zest, Patience, Hush

(3) Byun, Bunny, jjakji

(3) Impact, Rogue, soO

Overall winrates:

10-4 (71,4%)

3-12 (20%)

28-24 (53,8%)

No sugarcoating this: the statitics point out, that despite highest representation, all 4 Protoss players SUCKED in SSL Challenge. In fact, they netted themselves the 4 last spots. Yes, the 2016 GSL winner Zest and the 2017 GSL finalist sOs placed behind jjakji and Impact. So, why was that?

Notable outliers:
(Wiki)

Abyssal Reef

8-3 (72,7%),

0-3 (0%)

Odyssey

1-4 (80%%)
(Wiki)

Ascension to Aiur

2-7 (22.2%)

PvT in Challenge becomes a nightmare on the maps that were favorable in Premier. Interestingly, despite the overall losing winrate, Zerg wrecks Terran on Ascension to Aiur.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

OVERALL STARLEAGUE STATISTICS

50-50 (50%)

46-46 (50%)

61-58 (51,3%)

Amazingly enough, both Protoss matchups were PERFECTLY balanced and the ZvT was only by 1,3 percent point off the perfect balance (3 maps in 119 played).
Despite Protoss massively underperforming in SSL Challenge, it seems that their records in SSL Premier and GSL were enough to elevate the race to reasonable winrates.

Since the Korean leagues use different maps to the ladder, let's look at the maps used in both starleagues.

_______________________TvZ_______________ZvP_______________PvT______
(Wiki)

Abyssal Reef...........19-10 (65,5%)..................5-12 (29,4%).............13-11 (54,5%)
(Wiki)

Ascension to Aiur....7-11 (38,9%)...................14-10 (58.3%)............9-9 (50%)
(Wiki)

Odyssey...................8-5 (61,5%)....................12-5 (70,6%)..............9-8 (52,9%)
(Wiki)

Newkirk Precinct*.....6-9 (40%)........................6-13 (31,6%).............4-4 (50%)
(Wiki)

Frost*........................6-6 (50%)....................... 4-1 (80%)..................2-1 (66,7%)

Newkirk Precinct and Frost, as marked with the bolded asterix, are the only 2 of these maps that weren't featured on the ladder at the time.
Bolded are the matchups where one of the races reached 60% WR or above, Out of these, only PvT on Frost with a sample of only 3 games seems largely irrelevant to any balance statements on the map itself.
Zerg's overwhelming power (and especially power of hydra bane) is well known on Oddyssey and Ascension to Aiur
Interesting seems to be ZvP on Newkirk Precinct, where Zerg holds horrible 6-13 record and, despite that, Zerg players chose to play the map instead of vetoing it. Similar case occurs in TvZ on the map.
Another interesting thing is the TvZ winrate on Abyssal, where Koreans Zergs seemed to struggly greatly. With with hydra bane, it's interesting how the map will play out at Blizzcon.
ZvP on Abyssal also seemed to be a torture, partially because of the mass oracle playstyle that developed in later months of the leagues.

Ej_

47656 Posts

October 16 2017 15:55 GMT

Also this confirms INnoVation wins only when Terran is the strongest race.

ZigguratOfUr

Iraq16955 Posts

October 16 2017 19:00 GMT

Cool statistics. There weren't enough games for statistically significant per map analysis though imo, especially when you consider the bias introduced by players vetoing maps.

DieuCure

France3713 Posts

October 18 2017 08:44 GMT

On October 17 2017 00:55 Ej_ wrote:
Also this confirms INnoVation wins only when Terran is the strongest race.

Yes , he is abusing the huge imba, unlike Mvp

bduddy

United States1326 Posts

October 18 2017 10:16 GMT

I used http://appincredible.com/online/coin-flipper/ to flip 20 coins a bunch of times.

9-11
11-9
13-7
4-16
11-9
12-8
16-4
8-12
15-5
12-8
11-9
10-10

Imagine these are map winrates. Do they look balanced to you?! Well... they are. Drawing conclusions based on a sample size like this, especially at a ridiculously low threshold of 60%, is absurd and pointless. There is simply no evidence that this is down to anything but random chance (which doesn't mean that they are all perfectly balanced, either - it just means nothing)

Executer08

Germany163 Posts

October 18 2017 10:24 GMT

Fun fact: 4 of the TvP losses on Abyssal is aLive picking the map himself and losing.

lol, frigging aLive scewing the statistics on purpose kek.

On October 17 2017 04:00 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Cool statistics. There weren't enough games for statistically significant per map analysis though imo, especially when you consider the bias introduced by players vetoing maps.

for more games you would have to look further into the past and then you have to also consider meta changes and stuff like that in the analysis. you arent gonna get as much data as you'd need for statistical significance because you'd have too many other factors with influence on the result. this is just a look at the "best" data we have available in prospect of blizzcon

Vedeynevin

United States431 Posts

October 18 2017 12:08 GMT

Very interesting. Btw, you have the ascension to aiur zvt stat listed as 7-11 (28.9%) when 7/11= 63.6

Ej_

47656 Posts

October 18 2017 15:27 GMT

On October 18 2017 19:16 bduddy wrote:
I used http://appincredible.com/online/coin-flipper/ to flip 20 coins a bunch of times.

9-11
11-9
13-7
4-16
11-9
12-8
16-4
8-12
15-5
12-8
11-9
10-10

Imagine these are map winrates. Do they look balanced to you?! Well... they are. Drawing conclusions based on a sample size like this, especially at a ridiculously low threshold of 60%, is absurd and pointless. There is simply no evidence that this is down to anything but random chance (which doesn't mean that they are all perfectly balanced, either - it just means nothing)

This is obviously all correct, but it's also the best we can do. And it does allow you to track performance of given race on given map. In fact, this entire blog was prompted by Zerg constantly losing to Protoss on Newkirk and my interest in the winrates on all maps

.
I'd say that Abyssal and Ascension winrates reflect the balance on the maps quite accurately (as they should do, with the most games played). The rest is just a "why not?" and more of a fun fact than anything.

On October 18 2017 19:24 Executer08 wrote:

Show nested quote +

That I agree 100% with.

On October 18 2017 21:08 Vedeynevin wrote:
Very interesting. Btw, you have the ascension to aiur zvt stat listed as 7-11 (28.9%) when 7/11= 63.6

It's 7 wins to 11 losses. 7/18=38.9% You actually found a typo tho :D

Ej_

47656 Posts

October 18 2017 15:49 GMT

Here's some more statistics for everyone:

SERIES WINRATE IN STARLEAGUES

2017 GSL Season 3

Ro32

3-5 ||

8-3 ||

8-5
Ro16

2-0 ||

3-2 ||

0-2
Playoffs

0-2 ||

0-1 ||

1-1
TOTAL

5-7 ||

11-6 ||

9-8

2017 SSL Season 3

Premier

5-10 ||

8-3 ||

5-4
Challenge phase 1

4-2 ||

0-6 ||

3-1
Challenge phase 2

0-0 ||

4-4
TOTAL

9-12 ||

8-9 ||

12-9

STARLEAGUE TOTAL

14-19 (42,4%)

19-15 (55,9%)

21-17 (55,3%)

Interestingly enough, while game winrates were virtually even, Protoss outperformed Terran and Zerg. That lies in line with Terranless playoffs of SSL and no Zerg starleague champion this season.

Edowyth

United States183 Posts

October 18 2017 15:57 GMT

#10

On October 19 2017 00:27 Ej_ wrote:
This is obviously all correct, but it's also the best we can do.

No, it's not. You just have to consider games other than Korean pro-league games to get a larger sample size.

As much hype as people like to build around Koreans, they're supported by players who aren't playing in those leagues and there is *tons* of data available if you're willing to remove the requirement that the players be the top ~32 in the world.

While people will say "balance can only be determined at the top", I'd argue that the top players are so good that they will make nearly anything look balanced by abusing the best possible chances they have to win. Pulling the boys in HotS made TvP actually balanced but no one, at any level, really enjoyed the game-play during that time.

There are many similar things happening today, but no changes are made because the focus is so tightly upon the Korean scene. Mass oracle should have been nerfed weeks, if not months ago. Protoss should have received something versus hydra / bane / ling months ago.

Ultimately, if the game isn't fun and engaging for all players the pro scene will continue to shrink.

The data we should be considering is ladder, or all tournament, data. Get a significant sample-size first, that represents an actually significant portion of the games played daily, then we can talk about the state of the game. Here's one example of such a sample: http://aligulac.com/misc/balance/. Once the next design patch hits and the Protoss win-rates for the entire expansion (other than at the highest Korean level) remain in the dirt across the board, I wonder whether Blizzard will try to change their strategy for Protoss (which is their greatest failing of LotV by these numbers) or if we'll see more status-quo-ante -- as long as the Korean numbers look "okay" like this article posts, nothing changes.

Ej_

47656 Posts

October 18 2017 16:16 GMT

#11

The reason I blogged this is exactly, because Aligulac rates good players and foreigners the same

Edowyth

United States183 Posts

October 18 2017 18:11 GMT

#12

Well, so long as you realize that your 'evidence' is useless simply because there isn't enough of it, I guess it's fine to point out whatever coincidences you enjoy seeing. Calling it a balance report, though, is more than a little stretched.

Ej_

47656 Posts

October 18 2017 18:33 GMT

#13

:DDDD

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