EPTDoes FlaSh owe his success to picking Terran? - Page 3
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TMNT
2651 Posts
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vOdToasT
Sweden2870 Posts
On May 29 2023 00:20 TMNT wrote: Yeah but stats dont lie. How do you explain the win rate that accumulated from tens of thousands of games? How can you claim that the game is inherently imbalanced when we have the stats? That imply that it isn't? | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria3912 Posts
On May 29 2023 00:20 TMNT wrote: Yeah but stats dont lie. How do you explain the win rate that accumulated from tens of thousands of games? There are several explanations. For example the number of players at the very top is very small, which makes for a tiny sample size of players representing each race. Therefore, if any skill differences exist between the players (in each single matchup) - and we know the differences are very significant, e.g. between Light and Flash or between Soma and Jaedong, etc. - the variability of win rates is much greater than at any lower skill level. Another reason is the ongoing meta change as a result of lone individuals at the absolute top of the ranks revolutionizing a matchup. Flash, being the best player of all time, has advanced terran more than any other player since Boxer and iloveoov. For example he was defeated by Stork 0-3. Soon after, he defeated Stork 3-0. This was not a coincidence. Stork had Flash's number up to that point, in fact he had every terran player's number. But Flash ingeniusly spotted and revealed the exact weaknesses in Stork's strategies and exploited them perfectly to completely flip things around. His discoveries are still in use today and have become standard procedure for terran. The same thing happened in PvZ because of Bisu. Without him, the matchup might look completely broken today, unless coincidentally another top player had reached the very top and showed the world how to play the matchup correctly. Thanks to Bisu PvZ is actually playable, without him it would've made protoss look completely inferior at the highest level. It also happened in ZvT because of Larva. Late/post Kespa Flash was perfecting the quick mech transition that made zerg players afraid of having to enter the late game - not just afraid, but hugely frustrated. The matchup was beginning to look completely broken, to the point that I was questioning Rush's refusal to switch his style from his beloved ultra-high m&m aggression to the modern - broken looking - mech transitions. Larva was a nobody, laughed at by the community. But he battled Flash over hundreds of games and got defeated many times, until eventually he had the brilliant idea to tech up to queen broodling faster and faster, and still faster, until he had queens ready almost as fast as Flash had tanks. It got to the point that Flash realized he wasn't only facing an equal opponent, but someone who was outplaying him consistently in the late game. ZvT started to look broken, terran players were feeling hopeless for a brief time in history (except for Rush). Flash had no answer to Larva's brilliant late game strategies and he realized he had to switch back to hyper-aggressive m&m builds (and a few wraith builds) to even have a chance against Larva. This was very frustrating for Larva at first, but eventually he caught up and became an almost equal opponent for Flash, resulting in Larva's eventual ASL victory. I could keep going like this. I know the SC meta history almost inside out, and I can say with confidence that meta changes have a massive impact on matchup balance. | ||
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Bonyth
Poland554 Posts
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TMNT
2651 Posts
On May 29 2023 02:19 Magic Powers wrote: There are several explanations. For example the number of players at the very top is very small, which makes for a tiny sample size of players representing each race. Therefore, if any skill differences exist between the players (in each single matchup) - and we know the differences are very significant, e.g. between Light and Flash or between Soma and Jaedong, etc. - the variability of win rates is much greater than at any lower skill level. Another reason is the ongoing meta change as a result of lone individuals at the absolute top of the ranks revolutionizing a matchup. Flash, being the best player of all time, has advanced terran more than any other player since Boxer and iloveoov. For example he was defeated by Stork 0-3. Soon after, he defeated Stork 3-0. This was not a coincidence. Stork had Flash's number up to that point, in fact he had every terran player's number. But Flash ingeniusly spotted and revealed the exact weaknesses in Stork's strategies and exploited them perfectly to completely flip things around. His discoveries are still in use today and have become standard procedure for terran. The same thing happened in PvZ because of Bisu. Without him, the matchup might look completely broken today, unless coincidentally another top player had reached the very top and showed the world how to play the matchup correctly. Thanks to Bisu PvZ is actually playable, without him it would've made protoss look completely inferior at the highest level. It also happened in ZvT because of Larva. Late/post Kespa Flash was perfecting the quick mech transition that made zerg players afraid of having to enter the late game - not just afraid, but hugely frustrated. The matchup was beginning to look completely broken, to the point that I was questioning Rush's refusal to switch his style from his beloved ultra-high m&m aggression to the modern - broken looking - mech transitions. Larva was a nobody, laughed at by the community. But he battled Flash over hundreds of games and got defeated many times, until eventually he had the brilliant idea to tech up to queen broodling faster and faster, and still faster, until he had queens ready almost as fast as Flash had tanks. It got to the point that Flash realized he wasn't only facing an equal opponent, but someone who was outplaying him consistently in the late game. ZvT started to look broken, terran players were feeling hopeless for a brief time in history (except for Rush). Flash had no answer to Larva's brilliant late game strategies and he realized he had to switch back to hyper-aggressive m&m builds (and a few wraith builds) to even have a chance against Larva. This was very frustrating for Larva at first, but eventually he caught up and became an almost equal opponent for Flash, resulting in Larva's eventual ASL victory. I could keep going like this. I know the SC meta history almost inside out, and I can say with confidence that meta changes have a massive impact on matchup balance. Very well written. But what we can obtain from that is: over time, meta changes, balance changes, matchups will favor a race at a given time and then reverse,... Am I right? But if the game is perfectly balanced, eventually all win rates should regress to 50%, right? How many times, and at which years in BW history did we meet the regression point? I can't find that picture now because sponbbang seems dead but there was a graph showing the win rates of the 3 matchups over time, and PvZ and PvT are consistenly below 50% for almost all times. Opposite for TvZ and TvP. The "big data" here seems to not fit your explanation. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria3912 Posts
At progamer level I think things are far too variable over the span of only a few years for us to be able to say anything with certainty. Last time terran players were complaining about "crazy zerg", a whole bunch of wineries entered business along with booming cheese factories. Those tears dried up real quick, I haven't heard from them since. When progamers discover a new exploit, they push it to the absolute limits, demanding that the dominated race undergoes a meta change and flips the table back. That's not easy. It's far easier to drive an exploit to its limits than to find a counter to it. Something that has always stuck out to me was the fact that protoss rarely had a true frontrunner to rely on. Terran had many, from Boxer to Flash. Zerg had a few from Yellow to Savior and then Jaedong. Bisu was really the only one so far for protoss, except perhaps for Stork in PvT specifically. No disrespect to the other dragons, but they all failed in the quest to save PvZ, and PvT never needed much saving anyway. Far from it, terran players have always complained about carriers to the point that it became a constant meme. Flash saved terran players from auto-quitting TvP, but never more than that. Snow is a good example of what happens when true skill shines. He dominates PvT just as I would expect it from the top protoss player. He beats PvZ by a much lesser margin, also expected because it's always been the troublesome matchup. If Snow improves his PvP, I expect him to win an ASL sometime soon. Sincerely, I don't believe that the most recent data from the top players proves that PvT is unfavorable for protoss. I believe the top protoss players have been slacking - including even Bisu, who I think should be winning a lot more games if he were to practice more. Mini and Snow have been pushing against that trend by inventing new strategies and practicing much harder in comparison. But this takes years. They both have been working on this for a long time, and only recently has it come to fruition. Snow in particular has been leading for months now, it's crazy to see how well he's doing considering he's still slacking in PvP. I think he'll be better than Light as soon as he fixes that. | ||
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castleeMg
Canada760 Posts
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TMNT
2651 Posts
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Magic Powers
Austria3912 Posts
On May 29 2023 04:23 TMNT wrote: Will get back to the other points later but how did you get the impression that Snow's lacking in PvP? He's only negative against Mini and not by large margin. Also the recent stats shows he's 50-50 against Bisu but it's a small sample size thing and if you actually watch the games, his play is just much better than Bisu. He wipes the floor against Best and Shuttle. I think Snow is slacking in PvP because he's dominating so much in PvT. I think he should be dominating PvP in a way that comes close to his PvT. My guess is he doesn't have the same expertise in PvP. That's expected in the age of streaming due to mirror matchups being less popular, but it's still a problem for him if he wants to win an ASL. | ||
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PhilGood2DaY
Germany7424 Posts
On May 29 2023 04:39 Magic Powers wrote: ..I think Snow is slacking in PvP because he's dominating so much in PvT. I think he should be dominating PvP in a way that comes close to his PvT. ... This does not sound very logical to me? And in general: Dont judge match ups by your own impression (or foreigners impressions). P>T might be true for the average SCBW player. But that is not the topic on hand is it? I mean if you have a lot of experience in SCBW it doesnt bewilder you to realize that a) PvT is much easier at a lowish (or even very high but non pro level) than playing TvP is and at the same time b) TvP might be a match up that is favourable for the Terrans at the very very highest level (OSL,MSL,ASL,Pro League ect..) In the end this discussion feels a bit dumb anyway.. who knows.. precisely..and the margins are very small anyways probably. It is extremely tough to find out how well the likes of Flash oOv and NaDa would have done in their carreers with a different race. Also a small hint that Terran might be a tad more powerful than Toss and Zerg: Remember map makers changing terrain and making unbuildable spaces? Making A LOT unbuildable spaces? Changing the ("high ground over expansions LT style").. ect.. Can you name me a thing they changed that was oppressive from Tosses point of view? Remember maps with very wide/weird naturals? (Rush Hour e.g.).. a nightmare for Tosses in PvZ.. Uh..in the end Im not sure tbh.. I think the hardest part ist what to make of certain numbers tbh.. ;/ | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria3912 Posts
It's almost by miracle that somehow nowadays the game is balanced enough that ground maps and some semi-island maps are a good enough solution to create a roughly equal overall game balance. Muta stacking for example had the potential to break the game, but people just accepted it and adapted. Nowadays we'd be asking how zerg can even survive without it. I think this will always be the fate of the game. It's balanced because of discoveries, but the balance is also always in question because of those same exact discoveries. And discoveries - not balance - are also the reason why the game is so great. It's more of a fortunate fact that the game still isn't considered broken after so many (all natural) changes. I expect more discoveries to be made. Maybe more things that favor protoss will eventually come up, and I think Snow is people's best bet, but Mini could perhaps also innovate a few more things (as he's already done before). Maybe not fancy tricks like the valkyrie backslide, but more tactical improvements like various smart HT positioning setups against muta raids, and strategic ideas like the race for the leftover late game base. | ||
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TMNT
2651 Posts
It's almost like you also acknowledge that the game has not been balanced at specific times but your sentiment is some players would come up with a new build/strategy/trick to balance it up. Well, two things: - Back to my earlier points: where were the regression points in history? where were the points where Zerg and especially Protoss caught up with Terran in terms of success. For example, if we're talking very raw numbers, that would mean Zerg and Protoss have to win the next 8 ASLs to balance it up with Terran. I dont see that coming honestly. Obviously there were periods of Zerg/Protoss dominance, short or long, but that doesn't necessarily mean all 3 races are equal. If Terran won 5 titles and Protoss had a "dominant" period where they won 2, in your book it feels like Terran and Protoss take turn to dominate so you think it's okay. But quantifiably it's not. - What if the innovations you expected never come? What if a race has already reached their limit (aka lower ceiling)? To be honest the lastest significant discovery of Protoss was still Bisu's revolution. Carrier is not new. The new Carrier micro trick is useless. Shuttle play has been around for ages and the trending mass Shuttle play that Best and Mini are using is more of a deviation than innovation that favors Protoss. Mini cutting every corner in PvZ turns out to be just gimmicks or tournament builds at best. And most importantly, none of them actually improved Protoss' win rate. Long story short, if a race's win rate over time looks like the blue curve in this picture (corresponding to the ups and downs thanks to innovations/maps that you mentioned), I'd agree that the game is balanced according to your standards: ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/bSBSlEY.png) But in reality it looks like the red curve (this is probably the PvZ curve lol, while TvZ is the opposite). So how much sentiment you put into rationalizing it, doesn't really matter when the objectifiable, quantifiable truths are still there. | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2260 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/TovNgzT.png) MSL + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/H1r5wWq.png) GOMTV Classic + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/XeIWRQE.png) WCG + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/AtsmXdO.png) SSL + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/KWDdvJ1.png) KSL + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/0bd6kS6.png) PRE ASL + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/NzHaIo0.png) ASL + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/3Z26wCY.png) TERRAN # OF CHAMPS : 48 ZERG # OF CHAMPS: 36 PROTOSS # OF CHAMPS: 24 history is history, tesagi is real. terran is the most dominant race in every competition that existed, theres just a few cases were zerg is equal to terran in # of championships. in no competition Protoss was the most winning race. if you add the KPGA tour, terran has like +4 more titles... also protoss has -1 title, cause of grrr being listed as protoss, but he race picked and played random during his OSL win... | ||
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Shinokuki
United States859 Posts
On May 29 2023 13:07 XenOsky wrote: OSL + Show Spoiler + MSL + Show Spoiler + GOMTV Classic + Show Spoiler + WCG + Show Spoiler + SSL + Show Spoiler + KSL + Show Spoiler + PRE ASL + Show Spoiler + ASL + Show Spoiler + TERRAN # OF CHAMPS : 48 ZERG # OF CHAMPS: 36 PROTOSS # OF CHAMPS: 24 history is history, tesagi is real. terran is the most dominant race in every competition that existed, theres just a few cases were zerg is equal to terran in # of championships. in no competition Protoss was the most winning race. if you add the KPGA tour, terran has like +4 more titles... also protoss has -1 title, cause of grrr being listed as protoss, but he race picked and played random during his OSL win... All of this rant won't do shit to korean scene :p and it's well known protoss is the strongest race at our levels so what's the complaining here? Just analyze your reps, grind ladder, and ask for help. Sounds like a quitter who just wants to blame things for his inability to exceed 1600 mmr . BTW, bw is imba. It's only balanced by maps ^^ | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2260 Posts
thanks for the super indeep class about getin gud in sc1 tho, really needed someone to tell me to analyze reps, didn't know that, very usefull, with that in mind im sure that i can get at least D rank this season. | ||
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Shinokuki
United States859 Posts
On May 29 2023 13:36 XenOsky wrote: the thread is about flash winning cause of terran, and im talking 100% about pro starcraft. at no point i said anything about me or about racial imbalance between foreginers. thanks for the super indeep class about getin gud in sc1 tho, really needed someone to tell me to analyze reps, didn't know that, very usefull, with that in mind im sure that i can get at least D rank this season. You're welcome my friend. DM me anytime if you need help. | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway685 Posts
On May 29 2023 13:35 Shinokuki wrote: All of this rant won't do shit to korean scene :p and it's well known protoss is the strongest race at our levels so what's the complaining here? Just analyze your reps, grind ladder, and ask for help. Sounds like a quitter who just wants to blame things for his inability to exceed 1600 mmr . BTW, bw is imba. It's only balanced by maps ^^ This was a really bad post/troll. | ||
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REDBLUEGREEN
Germany1903 Posts
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Magic Powers
Austria3912 Posts
On May 29 2023 11:49 TMNT wrote: I dont raelly have any disagreement with your analysis of meta changes and etc, but also feel they are more like sentiments, not explanations, and they don't exactly address the problems at hand. It's almost like you also acknowledge that the game has not been balanced at specific times but your sentiment is some players would come up with a new build/strategy/trick to balance it up. Well, two things: - Back to my earlier points: where were the regression points in history? where were the points where Zerg and especially Protoss caught up with Terran in terms of success. For example, if we're talking very raw numbers, that would mean Zerg and Protoss have to win the next 8 ASLs to balance it up with Terran. I dont see that coming honestly. Obviously there were periods of Zerg/Protoss dominance, short or long, but that doesn't necessarily mean all 3 races are equal. If Terran won 5 titles and Protoss had a "dominant" period where they won 2, in your book it feels like Terran and Protoss take turn to dominate so you think it's okay. But quantifiably it's not. - What if the innovations you expected never come? What if a race has already reached their limit (aka lower ceiling)? To be honest the lastest significant discovery of Protoss was still Bisu's revolution. Carrier is not new. The new Carrier micro trick is useless. Shuttle play has been around for ages and the trending mass Shuttle play that Best and Mini are using is more of a deviation than innovation that favors Protoss. Mini cutting every corner in PvZ turns out to be just gimmicks or tournament builds at best. And most importantly, none of them actually improved Protoss' win rate. Long story short, if a race's win rate over time looks like the blue curve in this picture (corresponding to the ups and downs thanks to innovations/maps that you mentioned), I'd agree that the game is balanced according to your standards: But in reality it looks like the red curve (this is probably the PvZ curve lol, while TvZ is the opposite). So how much sentiment you put into rationalizing it, doesn't really matter when the objectifiable, quantifiable truths are still there. It takes years for a player to become number one. It takes a similar amount of time for the frontrunner effect to change a matchup statistic. For example because of Boxer and Yellow, many Koreans were inspired to practice terran and zerg, and while only few of them made it to the top, they helped push the meta and the win rate. The protoss meta stagnated, perhaps because Garimto, Nal_rA, Kingdom, Reach and Anytime didn't have the same pull. Anytime in particular looked very interesting for a brief period, but something stopped him. The lack of optimizations wasn't because protoss couldn't be innovated, as Bisu proved a few years later with fast expand builds and his infamous dark templars, or with Stork using carriers to make PvT look broken. Had these two popped up sooner as top players, maybe a larger share of protoss players would've pushed through with optimizations. Especially terran players would've suffered from that. But instead Bisu had to carry the crown all by himself. Innovation rarely comes from only one person. This is why it's so important to acknowledge the historic changes as something fluid and dynamic, but certainly not fair or equal. As the meta progresses, the level of meta variability is more likely to be reduced while matchup fairness is more likely to increase, and that's exactly what we've been observing. Maps and matchups used to have more imbalances than nowadays, and big meta changes used to occur much more often. Just consider: what would've happened without iloveoov showing that terran has strong macro capabilities in every matchup? Or without Flash and his race to 3 weapons upgrades in TvP? I think both protoss and zerg would've stood a much better chance for years longer. But instead we had Boxer, Nada, iloveoov, Flash, and Fantasy, five top players who innovated terran and they also showed the results to prove the viability of their ideas. And Flash stuck around for so many years that more of his optimizations just kept coming. For zerg it was Yellow, Savior and Jaedong, and later also Larva, and there were a few more top zerg players who also brought optimizations like JulyZerg and GGPlay. Protoss had only three or four players at the very top with Nal_rA, Reach, Bisu and Stork. They stood up against a large number of innovators from the other two races. Out of these four, only Bisu was ever truly dominant. What would've happened if Rain had stuck around post-ASL? He was among the greatest hopes for protoss. What about Jangbi late Kespa? He looked promising, but his drive was lacking. It took many years before Mini and Snow finally popped onto the scene, and they've been making big splashes. Mini has already innovated and optimized a few things in PvZ, and Snow has found further optimizations, plus he has pushed PvT back in protoss' favor. It's now an open buffet for other protoss players. They can absorb this new information and push it further, or they can let it waste away and protoss will continue to suffer from a lack of talent. | ||
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TMNT
2651 Posts
Tbh from all the names you dropped there, it feels like Protoss doesn't have a lack of talents either. So I'm even more leaning towards the opinion that the race itself offers less room to innovate, which is why they're underpowered. Also keep in mind that one factor that favors Snow and Mini in years to come is age. The pro player pool's year of birth literally stops at 1995 (Soma and Royal) and the next youngest are Mini (1994) and Snow (1993). Majority of the rest were born in 1989-1991. I'm currently theorising that when Soma and Royal went to military (next year), the Protoss pair will just dominate everyone else and that will has nothing to do with innovation and frontrunning etc. But let's see if it actually happens. Or if Flash will return and Terran will keep dominating again. | ||
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