Data analysis on 8 million games

The dataset comprises roughly 8 million 1v1 games played since the start of 2018. It doesn't provide complete information from a replay but rather some extracted data.

Build order or income details were not available.

However, the dataset did include:

1. Player races
   
2. Game winner
   
3. Game duration
   
4. Spawn locations
   
5. Player APM & effective APM
   

To refine the dataset, a few filters were applied:

1. Games played after 01.01.2018
   
2. Game duration > 2 minutes
   
3. Exclude draws
   
4. Exclude games with afk players
   
5. Exclude games on fastest maps and similar
   
6. Exclude games on maps with fewer than 20000 plays
   

Below is a histogram displaying the frequency of each map after applying these filters. ("13" represents Fighting Spirit 1.3)

+ Show Spoiler +

This particular plot initially sparked my interest, so let's start here. Key observations include:

- Zerg dominates the game's early stages.

- The significant dip around 7-8 minutes can likely be attributed to hydra bust builds. This is the most striking example I've seen in the data so far of a single strategy or build having such a profound impact.

- Protoss takes the lead during the mid-game, peaking around 13-16 minutes. This surge might partly result from the hydra bust builds: games that didn't end earlier are likely ones where Protoss successfully fended off the bust, often securing a favorable position.

- From 16-20 minutes, Protoss's win rate drops, with Zerg taking the upper hand. Several factors might contribute, such as Protoss typically mining out their main and natural bases around 16 minutes, while Zerg continues mining at (at least) three bases until roughly 20 minutes. The shift also reflects Zerg's hive tech coming into play.

- Games extending beyond 30 minutes show a slight uptick for Protoss, but these instances are rare and may not be very significant.

Overall, while there weren't any major surprises, it was nice to quantify these trends. Comparing close spawn vs. cross spawn win rates will be interesting.

A key takeaway is that Protoss might benefit from trying to wrap up games while on two bases, as Zerg seems favored in later stages.

Breaking this down chronologically:

- Protoss has the edge in the game's very early phases (up to 6 minutes).

- A notable number of games conclude between 6-8 minutes, probably due to Protoss timings.

- Terran seems to have a strong timing around 10-12 minutes, which appears to be an optimal window for them to end the game.

- The small bump in Protoss's win rate around 14 minutes is not completely clear to me; it seems to wane a few minutes later. Maybe it represents games where Protoss successfully defends against Terran's 10-12 minute push?

- After 12 minutes, Terran's win rate starts to decline, with games lasting over 20 minutes favoring Protoss.

PvT is the matchup where I have the least knowledge overall, so maybe someone else will have better insights on this?

Again, let's look at this chronologically:

- The first few minutes are dominated by wins due to zerglings

- Terran wins quite a bit at 5-7 minutes, probably mostly sunken busts?

- Zerg has a strong timing at around 7 minutes when lair tech kicks in

- If Terran doesn't lose to zerg lair tech timing, they have a really great time until about 12-13 minutes, when zerg finally gets defilers. This pre-defiler timing is probably the most dominant point in the game out of any matchup - both the win rate for Terran is very high and the number of games which end there is large.

- If Zergs can stabilize, they slowly but surely flip the matchup dynamics at the 12-20 minute period.

- And thus we enter a period of advantage for Zerg after 18 minutes. We should note here, that fewer games come to this point where zerg can reap their advantage.

- However, we also see a clear trend, where, if Zerg is not able to finish out the game once they unlock the full hive tech (defiler + upgraded ultra) at ~20 minutes, as the games drag on, the matchup becomes balanced again.

Here it was cool to see how the matchup flips multiple times. Also, if you just visually compare the shape of the win rate vs time of TvZ and PvZ, you'll see striking similarities. In both matchups, Zerg seems to have strong early timings, then gets dominated in the mid-game, but comes back at a later point.

Zealot rushes are strong on close positions, as expected. Looks like Protoss overall prefers diagonal spawns. The longer distance means that it takes longer for the Terran to reach him.

Protoss feels a lot safer in the early game on diagonal spawns. Later in the game Protoss also seems to profit from diagonal spawns.

Early Terran wins due to sunken busts are much more likely on close spawns. Then, for the most part of the game the distances don't seem to matter at all.

Man wtf is happening at the 5 minute mark in the lower-level group. Is this the delayed Zealot rush hitting? Overall, slow Terrans get punished terribly by slow Protosses.

For the better groups, it seems like if Terran can survive to the 10th minute, they will have a comfortable 10 minutes of advantage to win the game. If they do not manage that, the game tilts towards Protoss again,

Zealot rushes only work in the lower group. Hydras are deadly at all levels. It looks like the lower group Zergs are worse in converting their late-game advantage into a win compared to the higher groups.

Again, Terran profits the most from just "getting better". Looking at the 5-6 minute mark we nicely see that the higher groups gain their wins from sunken busting at an earlier time than the lower group. Terran dominance before defiler looks really scary in the higher groups.

The game balance is even at an MMR above 1800 and tils slowly towards Terran the higher we go. At the highest level the matchup is roughly 52% in Terrans favour.

Protoss is behind in all brackets and gets dominated at the highest levels where they achieve an overall win rate of 46%.

Again we see a clear trend where the matchup becomes more favoured towards Terran as player skill increases. It looks like high-level Zerg vs Terran is the hardest matchup in broodwar.