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I already adressed the Snow game post above. And how it fit with Snow online predictions and mapping out his opponent compared to offline games. You cant really pick only 1 detail in this situation cuz there is more to it. Is basically an snowballing from his ingame decisions from the get go. And is something that rarely happens in his offline games compared to online. None is running away from shit lmao. Why dont you try to hard in the game he is losing btw ? DO IT TMNT . No just the SIm city BS. COmmon give some real feedback of SNow loses in ASL. CAn you boe ? I didnt see a freaking single time u giving that kind of feedback. And knock out fair and square doesnt help it.
Also we no doing another queen vs shuttle with now this game you slow skill nerd. I never said Queen wasnt ahead in that game. I said he didnt throw the game as u claim. You cant throw a game for no having a +1 attack at that timing. There was more to it. And i explained 2 or 3 times to you and the other low skill fake FlaSh from this forum that it wasnt as easy as you guys see and claim..
So zvp is not as imbalanced as u claim afterall if protoss can beat zerg. I mean shit this game is from 1998 right ? Why do we even have protoss players if the race is so imbalanced. If you think about it all those protoss players could switch and in 4-5 years period they should be a proper zerg of terran if they really wanted dont you think ? You telling me Protoss progamers are earning less money purposely from competing for no reason ? Just switch to Terran or zerg Bro. Get the rewards. Snow could be a 6 ASL champions with zerg if he made the switch when he retired from SC2 by now. I dont even recall a single Protoss progamer saying. fuck this im playing Zerg this season. You know who actually decided to play other races in progaming ? zerg players. Julyzerg beat Chojja with terran. Savior tried vs Gorush but it didnt work out. Light switched to protoss and while he didnt qulify his toss was decent. Shit he beat me lol in that KSL qualifier. And FLaSh that got third place with Random in ASL.
I dont remember ever seeing a freaking Protoss picking Terran to play vs zerg. Or pick zerg to play vs zerg. You call me stupid all the time. But Then are Protoss progamers so braindead that they basically giving up their chances of ever winning something cuz they are playing protoss ?
There is positive WR for other races over Protoss in championships that is true. At the same time is also the same people winning multiple championships over others. And i can assist stuff like Terran doesnt die if he play perfect. The issue is that is almost impossible to play perfect as terran. When it happens the only you can do is admire it. Anyway im getting bored again with you. See you in the next ASL. And cry over that SNow is losing to idk who this time cuz he will.
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On November 14 2025 20:52 Soft_General_5023 wrote:
In last 2 ASLs we had 2 Protosses in semifinals, this season very nearly PvP finals, be it Bisu not misclicked last game. most ZvP wins were very close 4:3 or so
But yeah, ZvP is imba LoL
Your favourite Snow loses beacause he played badly, as he himself admitted but you don't believe him and keep saying it was ZvP imba
Really strong arguments from you here.
I mean, if you're going for the appeal to authority route (aka "your argument is only as valid as your rank on the ladder"), then we have the best foreign player here who also happens to play Protoss and advocates for ZvP imba. You saying?
Then the could-haves and would-haves. If we're going that way too Protoss is already on 20 ASLs lmao. Are you also aware that if not for Soma throwing the Dominator game, he could have 4-1'd Bisu too?
The players never blame their losses on imbalance. It makes a bad image of them. Snow doesn't want to attribute his loss on ZvP imba (and rightly so), but that doesn't mean imbalances don't exist. I mean Flash even acknowledged TvZ in the past was imba (unloseable for Terrans on those maps - his literal word)
So you are a ZvP imba denial. Try to explain my post #80 above then.
As for this:
So what do you consider balanced maps in pvz? Blitz Y  ? Knockout trench was meant to reduce hydra bust. Is that balanced?
It has to be looked from both point of view: gameplay and stats (but the former will decide the outcome of the latter). From gamplay pov, it has to eliminate the information ambiguity P has to suffer in the early game. But there is no way to change that unless you modify the game. So the only solution is to make the consequence of such ambiguity less punishing, i.e. not losing the game immediately from hydra bust. So without changing things like cannon building time or hydra upgrade time, the only solution is to make the impact of hydra bust less powerful via maps, i.e. longer rush distance, high ground nat,..
Yes, Knockout is the current mapmaker solution to improve that. Why do you think they are trying to improve ZvP maps if the matchup doesn't have any issue then? If long term we see less stupid Hydra busts and a win rate closer to 50% then it's fine and the map template has to change to revolve around maps like Knockout. But the other two matchups have a say to but that's the story for another day.
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ok I'm getting baited into replying one more time since TMNT is adamant on using the right stats.
For example, in the last page when Kraekling presented the win rates of Snow and Soma as 40 and 63%. I refuted by pointing out how they are the wrong stats to use, and presented the right ones. In that case, maybe the accusation of cherry picking may apply (to Kraekling).
TMNT, you insist that if only we used the right stats, whatever I was saying was no longer true. But I was just saying, looking at the stats of Soma/Snow, we should expect Soma to win the series. I do not insist that PvZ is perfectly balanced. I don't even know why you disagree with what I said otherwise, other than that you're a disagreeable person.
I'm just saying that, given what we know about both players and given how they played in the finals, the 4-2 outcome seems right.
+ Show Spoiler +Ok, I don't understand what follows from using the other stats. Let's say you're right and the relevant stats are their respective overall 2025 PvZ win rates at 55% and 60%. What does it imply and what does it change? Is the 4-2 in the finals more of an upset? Would 4-3 be more fair? What would it have meant for PvZ balance, had Snow won the finals? How can we use their 2025 win rates to say anything about PvZ balance in general? They probably had different stats in the year before (2024), what can we use those stats for? Can we pick two other players and use their respective stats to make statements about PvZ balance? So like you said even you believe PvZ is not perfectly balanced, then the 5% win rate gap between them may be (partially) explained by the unfairness of the matchup right? Well, yes - it could be - who knows - I don't think its possible to make any statement on this point. I do not insist that PvZ is perfectly balanced. I'm just saying that, given what we know about both players and given how they played in the finals, the 4-2 outcome seems right. However, wouldn't your argument regarding the imbalance be even stronger if you used 63% and 40% win rates instead? This would mean that the imbalance is at 23% which is a bigger number than 5%. if only we used the right stats But what is the statement that you seem to be making an argument for, in regards to this finals, the stats of the players in it, and PvZ balance?
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On November 14 2025 21:28 Kraekkling wrote:
TMNT, you insist that if only we used the right stats, whatever I was saying was no longer true. But I was just saying, looking at the stats of Soma/Snow, we should expect Soma to win the series. I do not insist that PvZ is perfectly balanced. I don't even know why you disagree with what I said otherwise, other than that you're a disagreeable person.
I'm just saying that, given what we know about both players and given how they played in the finals, the 4-2 outcome seems right.
Let's get this clear first. Because I think we do agree on some points.
This is what you said on #31:
However, the outcome of this series in particular (4-2) is to be solely explained by player skill and how they played during the series
I expected Soma to win the series too (but for different reasons to yours). I said that much before the game too.
What I disagree is the word "solely" there. I said that much on #32. Because you seem to imply that with such a discrepancy in win rate in the matchup (40 vs 63%), it's clear Soma should win based on skills. I pointed out that the discrepancy is not that big, and provided a bunch of details and explanation in #46.
My point is matchup imbalance plays a role in the loss too. I'm not arguing how much though, as no one can quantify.
Read this important part again please:
I mean if their relevant win rates are actually 40 and 63% then I'd agree that the skill gap is too big to bring imbalances into the discussion. That's like comparing Snow's 69% in PvT to JYJ's 50% TvP, in which you have the best PvT player vs a tier-3-or-something TvP player and PvT imbalance has no business in the matter. In this case we just have the best (or top 2) PvZ player vs the best (or top 2) ZvP player.
Re the part in spoiler:
Just like in any sport, you have to use recent stats to judge the quality of players/teams in recent time. That goes without saying honestly. Snow has improved his PvZ significantly in recent years, that using old stats is no longer relevant. Plus, you only used ASL stats, which have limited sample size and are heavily influenced by groups and brackets. You have to use eloboard stats.
The score of the finals, be it 4-0 4-1 4-2 4-3 to either side, doesn't matter at all if we're talking about balance in the grand scheme. Scores from best of series vary wildly depending on the day. You can have player A beating player B 4-0 today and losing 0-4 the very next day. You can have Bo9 series when A leads B 4-0 (which if it's a Bo7, the series would end right there and people would say A is superior to B in skill), but then B does a reverse sweep and wins 5-4 (which you'd never see if it's not a Bo9). Forget about the score. And you should never make conclusions about players' overall skill based on one series.
And no we shouldn't pick any two players at a given period of time to talk about balance either. We should look at the global stats.
And no it's not better to use 40 and 63% lol. For two reasons: one it's not correct, two I'm trying to make the correct assessment of the situation, not cherry picking stats to push an agenda.
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What I disagree is the word "solely" there.
but everyone commenting on the series is pointing out mistakes on Snow's part which lost him the series. Which is why people say, we shouldn't use this series to make an argument about balance.
look, if you take the Queens Gambit opening in Chess and you look up the stats, its like 52%-48% in favour of white.
Then you have a series of two players playing the Queens Gambit in best of seven, one guy on the White pieces and the other guy always with Black.
However, three of the games end because Black blunders a piece during the first 10 moves. This is what the players say in an interview afterwards, and what everyone else saw.
Do you agree that we shouldn't use this series to make comments on the Queens Gambit opening?
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I'm not familiar with chess or queens gambit so can't comment on that bit...
As for this point:
On November 14 2025 21:47 Kraekkling wrote:
but everyone commenting on the series is pointing out mistakes on Snow's part which lost him the series. Which is why people say, we shouldn't use this series to make an argument about balance.
Yeah. So why Snow's mistakes are so punishing but Soma's aren't. Isn't that exactly why people complain about the matchup balance?
Game 2 on Dominator as I detailed in this post, is that a big mistake, let alone a game ending mistake, considering he made the same defence that Bisu also made and succesfully defended Soma? Game 4 on Polestar, Snow made a huge blunder with his wall, but what was the punishment for Soma's failed Ling bust? But more importantly, note that Protoss' mistakes come from something they can't reliably control (information). The real question is why are they put into such spot (scraping for life against Hydra threat) in the first place?
FYI, my take is Soma won game 1 by map and game 6 fairly, while Snow won game 3 fairly and game 5 by build order. These are the games I have less issues with.
To sum up, honestly any series with some cheap hydra busts can be used to make an argument about balance yeah. It's an age old problem I don't know why it's that controversial to some here.
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Just curious. When you say map win. What does this mean when protoss win in Roaring Currents. Zerg blunder ? Zerg throwing the game ? i know The map on ASL has been 1 sided vs protoss but you even posted a game of Snow styling on zerg with an archon shuttle micro im mistaken ? I have seen Mini beating zerg with carrier sair reaver effectively. Same with Bisu.
If you ask me Snow strategy in that map was the worst possible thing he could have done and yet you are not even critical of that and is a Map win for zerg. Why ? How can you even tell Soma is not being punish for his mistakes. Wasnt he instant punish for going with mutas to the main in Radeon and also failing to defend early agression that hurt his early game ?
So there is a player playing like freaking pure shit in the Final and we should expect also that he punish Soma mistakes on top of that. When Soma makes mistakes in proleague or bo7 online he is instant punish. Hell he was doing a ladder race with Rush the other day and i saw a game vs protoss on knock out that made him sweat so hard i was like This guy played better than SNow..
If you want people to take you serious start to also pointing or astleast try to understand protoss mistakes.Even if it hurt your soul. You will learn more from it instead of sticking to your stats used as you please to prove your points.
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On November 14 2025 21:47 Kraekkling wrote:but everyone commenting on the series is pointing out mistakes on Snow's part which lost him the series. Which is why people say, we shouldn't use this series to make an argument about balance. look, if you take the Queens Gambit opening in Chess and you look up the stats, its like 52%-48% in favour of white. Then you have a series of two players playing the Queens Gambit in best of seven, one guy on the White pieces and the other guy always with Black. However, three of the games end because Black blunders a piece during the first 10 moves. This is what the players say in an interview afterwards, and what everyone else saw. Do you agree that we shouldn't use this series to make comments on the Queens Gambit opening?
"Visible mistakes, so doesn't say anything about balance" is pants on head logic. StarCraft is hard, so even the best players make mistakes all the time, whether they win or lose. Mistakes become extra super visible you lose the game, but they happen all the time. Even when players lose forced blind RPS-style guesses, you can argue that they made the wrong guess.
You can't wait for only perfect games with no mistakes to figure out the balance, because those games don't exist. The way StarCraft works, poor balance means that the margin of error is smaller for the disfavored race, i.e. there are more potential mistakes that are harder to avoid, or there are more blind guesses you have to make where the odds are stacked against you.
It's very similar to Chess, again: black should probably hold the draw if they make no mistakes, and black can easily win games, but it's harder and smaller mistakes are more punishing for black. There are tons of lines which are equal given perfect engine play, but still are "imbalanced" in the sense that holding on to equality requires much more accurate play from one side.
It is true that this series, in isolation, doesn't really say that much balance. There's nothing outrageous about Snow losing to Soma. But as yet another nail in the coffin, on top of PvZ statistics since forever, and seeing how much every top Protoss struggles with the scouting denial hydra bust guessing game against even middling Zerg players, it's hard to not see the pattern.
And a totally failed Zergling all-in not being a game-losing mistake should tell you something about where the margin of error is in PvZ.
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Eon, just devote your energy and your high skill to explain this:
On November 14 2025 20:54 TMNT wrote:
There's also this simple fact I'd like to hear the explanation from the Zerg contingent: every single Zerg player out there has much better ZvP than ZvT win rate.
Hmm, what could be the reason?
Either
(1) it's almost as if one matchup is easier than the other, which suggests imbalances in both matchups, and T>Z and Z>P
or
(2) no, ZvP is not imba, Z players are just better, but in that case, it means either Ts are just better than Zs too (how come?), or Z=P but T>Z (oh the double standard)
It's almost as if anyone who tries to deny ZvP imbalance is just throwing logics out of the window.
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As for Roaring Currents, enough talks about that map being Zerg favored have already taken. We even have Zerg supporters admitting that here too. There are currently no reliable strategies for P on that map. All the P wins outside of ASL come from exchanges in the early or mid game that titls the favor towards the P and it snowballs from there. But if Z turtle on 4 bases like they do in ASL, the late game is heavily in their favor.
I will only reply to this as it's getting too long and this is the only point I raised at the beginning:
On November 14 2025 21:05 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
I already adressed the Snow game post above. And how it fit with Snow online predictions and mapping out his opponent compared to offline games. You cant really pick only 1 detail in this situation cuz there is more to it. Is basically an snowballing from his ingame decisions from the get go. And is something that rarely happens in his offline games compared to online.
So you still haven't addressed how Snow "made the perfect read" after 3 posts then? Obviously the game snowballs from the early game when Snow's first 3 Zealots deny mining from Soma's 2nd Hatch for so long and even reduce its HP to 50% lol. So it's more of him piling up from his lead rather than the "perfect read" then huh? How can he "read" when even you already admitted that he played with incomplete information lol?
There's no way for Snow to know if Soma wouldn't just pull everything he has there and pump Hydras nonstop and kill him. Now his small lead in early game reduce that risk a little bit and probably was the reason behind his bold choice of ignoring the threat of Hydras and delaying 2nd gas. This right here actually shows your lack of empathy for the Protoss side that they have to make choices and take risks in this matchup almost every game to suceed.
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What's your rank and what tournaments have you played recently?
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Game 2 on Dominator as I detailed in this post, is that a big mistake, let alone a game ending mistake, considering he made the same defence that Bisu also made and succesfully defended Soma?
Well of course. If Soma was able to end the game right there vs Snow, and Snow had perfect information beforehand, Snow must have made an error.
IF the game state vs Bisu was exactly the same, and Soma wasn't able to end the game right there, it must have been an error on Soma's part, to not be able to win the game vs Bisu. ESPECIALLY if Snow made no severe error, as you imply.
It seems to me much more likely that Soma analyzed his game vs Bisu, thought to himself "I should have been able to end the game in that situation", and then did it vs Snow.
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On November 14 2025 23:30 TMNT wrote:As for Roaring Currents, enough talks about that map being Zerg favored have already taken. We even have Zerg supporters admitting that here too. There are currently no reliable strategies for P on that map. All the P wins outside of ASL come from exchanges in the early or mid game that titls the favor towards the P and it snowballs from there. But if Z turtle on 4 bases like they do in ASL, the late game is heavily in their favor. I will only reply to this as it's getting too long and this is the only point I raised at the beginning: Show nested quote +On November 14 2025 21:05 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
I already adressed the Snow game post above. And how it fit with Snow online predictions and mapping out his opponent compared to offline games. You cant really pick only 1 detail in this situation cuz there is more to it. Is basically an snowballing from his ingame decisions from the get go. And is something that rarely happens in his offline games compared to online. So you still haven't addressed how Snow "made the perfect read" after 3 posts then? Obviously the game snowballs from the early game when Snow's first 3 Zealots deny mining from Soma's 2nd Hatch for so long and even reduce its HP to 50% lol. So it's more of him piling up from his lead rather than the "perfect read" then huh? How can he "read" when even you already admitted that he played with incomplete information lol? There's no way for Snow to know if Soma wouldn't just pull everything he has there and pump Hydras nonstop and kill him. Now his small lead in early game reduce that risk a little bit and probably was the reason behind his bold choice of ignoring the threat of Hydras and delaying 2nd gas. This right here actually shows your lack of empathy for the Protoss side that they have to make choices and take risks in this matchup almost every game to suceed.
Since you love stats.
Roaring currents Protoss vs zerg
PZ: 44 wins, 48 losses (47.8%)
Personally those stats are not showing to me that this map is a zerg auto win like you claim.
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On November 14 2025 23:37 Kraekkling wrote:Show nested quote +Game 2 on Dominator as I detailed in this post, is that a big mistake, let alone a game ending mistake, considering he made the same defence that Bisu also made and succesfully defended Soma? Well of course. If Soma was able to end the game right there vs Snow, and Snow had perfect information beforehand, Snow must have made an error. IF the game state vs Bisu was exactly the same, and Soma wasn't able to end the game right there, it must have been an error on Soma's part, to not be able to win the game vs Bisu. ESPECIALLY if Snow made no severe error, as you imply. It seems to me much more likely that Soma analyzed his game vs Bisu, thought to himself "I should have been able to end the game in that situation", and then did it vs Snow.
Both Bisu and Snow didn't have perfect information. That's why the standard response to Hydra bust is to make some cannons first, then add more on the way depending on the ongoing situation. That's why we say the margin for error for Protoss in this matchup is razor thin compared to Zerg. The outcome in each game is different and there are small reasons for that. But my point is that if the matchup is balanced, P shouldn't be put in that spot in the first place.
Notice too in the game vs Bisu, after the bust failed, Soma was still ahead but he overdid the Muta harass (after the Hydra bust). He had 4 bases while Bisu was completely all in on 2 bases with garbage probe count, and I have no idea why he let Bisu zone his hydras into a hole and storm the shit out of them. That's the margin for error for Zerg. It's almost as if when you fail you have a second chance but for Protoss when you fail you don't.
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I'm amazed eOn that you try to hold a discussion with people who don't play the game at all. All they should be doing is asking you questions and not make statements of their own.
Right now I'm watching Bisu trash Soma absolutely with standard play Live. 4:1 so far.
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Yeah i think if he played the game he would understand the bs he is talking. But he love to use stats etc to prove his points.
And take them as absolutes lol. The way he talks is like Soma builds never fail or some shit when risk is maximum. This guy is a lost cause anyway.
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just because of the many ignorant people. that was not a ling allin.
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On November 15 2025 00:03 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
Yeah i think if he played the game he would understand the bs he is talking. But he love to use stats etc to prove his points.
And take them as absolutes lol. The way he talks is like Soma builds never fail or some shit when risk is maximum. This guy is a lost cause anyway.
It's the way you misinterpret things, not the way I said.
Same with your rant about Protoss players not switching to other races lol. You just keep arguing against a strawman. The game is obviously not balanced but not to the extreme that one race is banished out of existence. Skill gap makes up for the imbalances but it only works up to a certain point, that's why it manifests the most clear at the number of finals and titles.
But I guess all of the above is too nuanced for you to understand. Your simple mind can only process as far as "do you play the game, what's your skill". What if I tell you I do play the game? Then you would say my opinions are only valid if I'm at A/S rank. Well my rank is also correlated to other factors like time dedicated, apm, in game decision making, etc. which has nothing to do with the case when we sit here and analyse games from the spectator point of view.
What is your rank when you say Snow played like shit then? Do you think you need a progamer license to qualify for saying that?
By the way, explain post #80 please.
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On November 15 2025 00:11 sas.Sziky wrote:
just because of the many ignorant people. that was not a ling allin.
Yeah you can say so. But this is more a terminology issue. There's no strict rule as to what is an all in. It's not like when you make 12 lings it's not all in but if you make one more it becomes all in.
The point is the failed attempt should set him back far enough for him to not have a second chance to kill Protoss a few minutes later. Why? Because that attempt if successful would kill Protoss outright. You wouldn't want a failed DT rush (PvT) or a failed 2 Fac (TvP) that has the ability to follow up with another move that can kill the other race right? That doesn't seem fair.
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On November 15 2025 00:23 TMNT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2025 00:11 sas.Sziky wrote:
just because of the many ignorant people. that was not a ling allin. Yeah you can say so. But this is more a terminology issue. There's no strict rule as to what is an all in. It's not like when you make 12 lings it's not all in but if you make one more it becomes all in. The point is the failed attempt should set him back far enough for him to not have a second chance to kill Protoss a few minutes later. Why? Because that attempt if successful would kill Protoss outright. You wouldn't want a failed DT rush (PvT) or a failed 2 Fac (TvP) that has the ability to follow up with another move that can kill the other race right? That doesn't seem fair.
as i said it was not a ling allin and.
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EPT
