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On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. I think the biggest cause of this is PvZ. Protoss historically started doing well in tournaments after the Bisu revolution and even then it was due to Stork and Jangbi mostly alongside Bisu. The issue is zerg evolved and Protoss never really found a decent answer. A big gap happened and Bisu fell off compared to his past self and it doesn't really feel like anyone else has ever managed to get consistently good at the matchup again.
To be honest, I feel like TvZ is even more imbalanced than ZvP—or at least just as broken. However, a top-tier Zerg can beat almost any Terran in a BoX series at the highest level. Why Protoss can’t pull off the same is a mystery to me.
Looking at the StarLeague history (OSL, MSL, KSL, ASL), Bisu’s win over sAviOr remains the sole exception. Aside from that one series, Protoss is 0 for 12 in finals against Zerg. That’s a staggering statistic.
On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. Zerg have so many overly powerful allins and semi allins early on and the only way you can stop it is to go heavily protoss favoured map wise which then ironically often helps Terran against Protoss as well. PvZ just feels like a completely problematic matchup from 1 side and I'm not sure what Protoss are ever going to be able to do to get out of the rut they're in.
I think the core issue isn’t even the strength of the all-ins themselves, but the fact that Protoss lacks reliable scouting. Probes and Zealots are way slower than lings, and by the time a Corsair is out, it’s often too late to react.
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game 5 was so good, wish I saw it live.
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On May 07 2026 03:06 Maks wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. I think the biggest cause of this is PvZ. Protoss historically started doing well in tournaments after the Bisu revolution and even then it was due to Stork and Jangbi mostly alongside Bisu. The issue is zerg evolved and Protoss never really found a decent answer. A big gap happened and Bisu fell off compared to his past self and it doesn't really feel like anyone else has ever managed to get consistently good at the matchup again. To be honest, I feel like TvZ is even more imbalanced than ZvP—or at least just as broken. However, a top-tier Zerg can beat almost any Terran in a BoX series at the highest level. Why Protoss can’t pull off the same is a mystery to me. Looking at the StarLeague history (OSL, MSL, KSL, ASL), Bisu’s win over sAviOr remains the sole exception. Aside from that one series, Protoss is 0 for 12 in finals against Zerg. That’s a staggering statistic. Show nested quote +On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. Zerg have so many overly powerful allins and semi allins early on and the only way you can stop it is to go heavily protoss favoured map wise which then ironically often helps Terran against Protoss as well. PvZ just feels like a completely problematic matchup from 1 side and I'm not sure what Protoss are ever going to be able to do to get out of the rut they're in. I think the core issue isn’t even the strength of the all-ins themselves, but the fact that Protoss lacks reliable scouting. Probes and Zealots are way slower than lings, and by the time a Corsair is out, it’s often too late to react.
It's the fact that Z sees all while P sees nothing. It's a broken matchup. 0/12 in finals... what more proof do we need? Either change the paradigm entirely of what a standard map is, or push for a small cannon patch at least. And what does it say about our mapmaking skill if after 20!!! years we don't know how to make a slightly favoured P map?
TvZ is indeed also T favoured, but Z at least can play incredible and overcome the disadvantage. It's not easy, but it's doable.
Terran has it by far the best. Flash would be just one of the players if he picked P. It's impossible to dominate as P.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1288 Posts
On May 07 2026 00:58 WGT-Baal wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2026 23:09 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote:On May 06 2026 19:39 TMNT wrote:
The fuck is wrong with the dude above, attacking everyone who doesn't share the same thought with him. Drugs, alcohol, and probably a mental health condition. About PvZ. I think Paralyze holds an answer to PvZ, but not in his late game, but in his Early to Mid game transition. Paralyze generally holds any early to mid aggression better than the top 5 protoss do. But his transition into late is lacking in decisiveness and decision making. If the other top tosses can incorporate what allows paralyze to thrive against early aggression and hydra bust, we might see them create a late transition that works better than what Paralyze does. I agree with you about Paralyze style however from the few recent games i ve seen it looks like it s precisely his early/mid game defense prowess that causes issues in late game. But yeah maybe a good transition could be mapped
Honestly, I don't think there can be a good (consistent) transition.
Paralyze is just more risk adverse in the early/mid game than say... Bisu, who, lets be honest, has been the golden standard of PvZ for pretty much all of 2 decades now.
There is a reason Bisu is extremely aggressive at the sorts of times when he only has a single digit number of fighting units, be it zealots, or corsairs. He wants that information. The poking, and the subsequent zerg response to it informs him what the zerg might be doing, of course some economic damage to the zerg would also be nice.
I think results tell us that this information is extremely important going into the mid and late game. So it's a tradeoff between playing extremely safe and having very little information, or taking risks with your early units that might cause you to die to early aggression from Z and/or having no map presence if you lose those units.
Zerg are much more flexible in terms of unit composition and when to concentrate on economy, since all their units come from hatches. It looks like to me, Bisu's solution is to always be running units around to scout/poke and constantly make zerg show you unit count/composition etc.
Obviously, the downside is, if he miscontrols those early units, or zerg specifically go after them, he is going have no units early on and be in trouble against aggression.
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I guess 3rd time is the charm with the 5 fact push or something. Fun matches I really thought snow was gonna win this series.
At least with tvz there is a chance to bring down soma
Yeah I gotta agree that pvz has scouting problem like zerg has ways to obscure scouting for protoss but protoss cant. I dont even think protoss has like a reliable all-in in the matchup
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A genius artist VS the ultimate weapon. What an unbelievable lower half of bracket! Today in particular. Snow's symphony, unit usage, oh my god. But of course, he was against the actual God. I am always rooting for Flash, but in that last game, the desperate final hold and futile but heroic contain-break made me think, if by some miracle Snow won, it would be wondrously deserved and I'd be happy with the result. Also, really funny that Leta VS Tulbo happened in the same round as this insane match.
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That was soooooo close. I thought Flash would win beforehand, something like 3-1, but watching the series, they were so evenly matched it's crazy. Flash is looking very vulnerable this season.
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I think something interesting about TvP these days is that Terran is heavily going for timings over the more classic fortress playstyle. And FlaSh being the king of map dominating and the guy that perfected such style not even doing it 1 time the whole series was for sure surprising to me. But that seems to be the trend these days.
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On May 07 2026 20:32 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
I think something interesting about TvP these days is that Terran is heavily going for timings over the more classic fortress playstyle. And FlaSh being the king of map dominating and the guy that perfected such style not even doing it 1 time the whole series was for sure surprising to me. But that seems to be the trend these days. I think it could just as easily be that Flash didn't want to needlessly stress his hands by playing multiple 40+ minute games in a row.
If his hands are really an issue and cause him to quit after this tournament then it makes sense to close out games as quickly as reasonably possible
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Snow should've played more safe.
Flash was just doing 2 base timing all ins
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On May 07 2026 20:35 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2026 20:32 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
I think something interesting about TvP these days is that Terran is heavily going for timings over the more classic fortress playstyle. And FlaSh being the king of map dominating and the guy that perfected such style not even doing it 1 time the whole series was for sure surprising to me. But that seems to be the trend these days. I think it could just as easily be that Flash didn't want to needlessly stress his hands by playing multiple 40+ minute games in a row. If his hands are really an issue and cause him to quit after this tournament then it makes sense to close out games as quickly as reasonably possible
Im talking about the general state of tvp as a whole matchup tho. These days they truly give priority over spike timings rather than map control. Yeha sure FlaSh has hand issues but are the other terrans also having issues to play map control too ?
For example when i saw all the new maps introduced. I was expecting a total domination of terran map control cuz of how easy it is to setup 4 bases and in some cases 5 bases to defend vs protoss. I rarely see games like that.
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IMO spike timings are extremely strong due to babysitting of Terran army
The efficiency stopped scaling as much as army grows.
Used to be that the larger the T army the scarier it is, and that remains to be the case in a way, but the scaling is different now due to mass usage of storm, shuttle mobility, generally better macro from P's, better army movement etc.
Defensive efficiency still scales like crazy, offense less so.
A 11 tank army moveout that has perfect staggered sieges and focus fire and stops versus bombs, repair, floated buildings, perfect reinforcements and so on, is going to be fucking scary unless you have DTs when they start to move out, or storm when they hit / arbiter cloak. Usually it has to be contended with by regular goon-reaver into zealot speed.
That level of precision for T cannot be maintained for a larger force and the game becomes messier.
For the series specifically - the whole idea of taking risk early(e.g. discounting DTs) plays better into a scary timing push than into macro.
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On May 07 2026 06:17 Rainalcar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2026 03:06 Maks wrote:On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. I think the biggest cause of this is PvZ. Protoss historically started doing well in tournaments after the Bisu revolution and even then it was due to Stork and Jangbi mostly alongside Bisu. The issue is zerg evolved and Protoss never really found a decent answer. A big gap happened and Bisu fell off compared to his past self and it doesn't really feel like anyone else has ever managed to get consistently good at the matchup again. To be honest, I feel like TvZ is even more imbalanced than ZvP—or at least just as broken. However, a top-tier Zerg can beat almost any Terran in a BoX series at the highest level. Why Protoss can’t pull off the same is a mystery to me. Looking at the StarLeague history (OSL, MSL, KSL, ASL), Bisu’s win over sAviOr remains the sole exception. Aside from that one series, Protoss is 0 for 12 in finals against Zerg. That’s a staggering statistic. On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. Zerg have so many overly powerful allins and semi allins early on and the only way you can stop it is to go heavily protoss favoured map wise which then ironically often helps Terran against Protoss as well. PvZ just feels like a completely problematic matchup from 1 side and I'm not sure what Protoss are ever going to be able to do to get out of the rut they're in. I think the core issue isn’t even the strength of the all-ins themselves, but the fact that Protoss lacks reliable scouting. Probes and Zealots are way slower than lings, and by the time a Corsair is out, it’s often too late to react. It's the fact that Z sees all while P sees nothing.
In the deciding game of last season's semifinals against Soma, Bisu lost specifically because he couldn't scout the ling all-in. This season, he dropped Game 1 to JD for the exact same reason: he had no way to read the lurker all-in, let alone the constant threat of Hydra busts. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the lack of reliable early-game scouting is a fundamental flaw in the matchup.
On May 07 2026 06:17 Rainalcar wrote:
0/12 in finals...
I decided to also look at the ZvP finals of some less prestigious tournaments and leagues to see how they played out with and without Bisu. The results were even worse than I expected.
In addition to the four major Starleagues (OSL, MSL, KSL, ASL), I included WCG, GOMTV Classic, BlizzCon (tournaments only, no exhibition matches), and Sonic Starleague. Here’s what I found:
Without Bisu: 0-17. Protoss has never won a major tournament final against Zerg.
Bisu’s finals: 2-3. Two wins (over SAviOr and herO) and three losses (to JD, Effort, and herO).
So, the overall record is 2 wins and 20 losses in favor of Zerg - far worse than what the already poor balance suggests. Other factors like maps, meta, player skill, and luck might also be at play.
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SnOw won Sanpao Starleague 1 vs soma and Sanpao Starleague 4 vs hero. ASL 3rd place matches are 4-2 in favor of Protoss (thanks to Bisu), P has many wins in Ro4 against S-tier Zergs. Just Protoss player pool seems so shallow, only 5 legit S-tier Protoss players and only SnOw has been looking champion-worthy recently.
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Did he forget to research storm?
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On May 07 2026 21:30 Soulforged wrote:
IMO spike timings are extremely strong due to babysitting of Terran army
The efficiency stopped scaling as much as army grows.
Used to be that the larger the T army the scarier it is, and that remains to be the case in a way, but the scaling is different now due to mass usage of storm, shuttle mobility, generally better macro from P's, better army movement etc.
Defensive efficiency still scales like crazy, offense less so.
A 11 tank army moveout that has perfect staggered sieges and focus fire and stops versus bombs, repair, floated buildings, perfect reinforcements and so on, is going to be fucking scary unless you have DTs when they start to move out, or storm when they hit / arbiter cloak. Usually it has to be contended with by regular goon-reaver into zealot speed.
That level of precision for T cannot be maintained for a larger force and the game becomes messier.
For the series specifically - the whole idea of taking risk early(e.g. discounting DTs) plays better into a scary timing push than into macro.
Great post. The keyword for Terran in general is precision, both in terms of focus firing and of attack timings. Terran is ride-or-die on sharp two-base play at the highest level, basically, for those reasons, in both mech and bio play.
Artosis likes to talk about Light as some kind of paragon for standard play, but Light's standard play is more like a Zerg player's standard play than a Terran player's IMO. Flash and Royal, on the other hand, play the paradigmatic Terran.
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That being said, I was pretty shocked by Snow's losing cross-map nexus first into two-base carrier.
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I'm actually surprised by all the people saying Light's TvT is the best in the world
IMO Ssak is stupidly godly at that matchup for some reason
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The main reason why Protoss don't win titles is not because of Terran, it's because of PvZ is hard
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On May 07 2026 20:32 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
I think something interesting about TvP these days is that Terran is heavily going for timings over the more classic fortress playstyle. And FlaSh being the king of map dominating and the guy that perfected such style not even doing it 1 time the whole series was for sure surprising to me. But that seems to be the trend these days.
Jinjin made a video about Flash's ro16 preparation, he mentioned himself he was extremely stubborn in going for mech even though he won every game in practice going for bio. Maybe going 6 fact was the same stubbornness lol
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On May 07 2026 22:51 Maks wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2026 06:17 Rainalcar wrote:On May 07 2026 03:06 Maks wrote:On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. I think the biggest cause of this is PvZ. Protoss historically started doing well in tournaments after the Bisu revolution and even then it was due to Stork and Jangbi mostly alongside Bisu. The issue is zerg evolved and Protoss never really found a decent answer. A big gap happened and Bisu fell off compared to his past self and it doesn't really feel like anyone else has ever managed to get consistently good at the matchup again. To be honest, I feel like TvZ is even more imbalanced than ZvP—or at least just as broken. However, a top-tier Zerg can beat almost any Terran in a BoX series at the highest level. Why Protoss can’t pull off the same is a mystery to me. Looking at the StarLeague history (OSL, MSL, KSL, ASL), Bisu’s win over sAviOr remains the sole exception. Aside from that one series, Protoss is 0 for 12 in finals against Zerg. That’s a staggering statistic. On May 06 2026 22:51 Qikz wrote:On May 06 2026 00:20 Maks wrote:
We need to look at the bigger picture, not just a single season. Sure, Protoss will win again sooner or later, but the long-term trend is hard to ignore. Their trophy count lags way behind Zerg and especially Terran, despite having legendary talents like Rain, Snow, Bisu, and Mini in the mix. The skill is definitely there, but the results just don't reflect it. Zerg have so many overly powerful allins and semi allins early on and the only way you can stop it is to go heavily protoss favoured map wise which then ironically often helps Terran against Protoss as well. PvZ just feels like a completely problematic matchup from 1 side and I'm not sure what Protoss are ever going to be able to do to get out of the rut they're in. I think the core issue isn’t even the strength of the all-ins themselves, but the fact that Protoss lacks reliable scouting. Probes and Zealots are way slower than lings, and by the time a Corsair is out, it’s often too late to react. It's the fact that Z sees all while P sees nothing. In the deciding game of last season's semifinals against Soma, Bisu lost specifically because he couldn't scout the ling all-in. This season, he dropped Game 1 to JD for the exact same reason: he had no way to read the lurker all-in, let alone the constant threat of Hydra busts. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the lack of reliable early-game scouting is a fundamental flaw in the matchup. I decided to also look at the ZvP finals of some less prestigious tournaments and leagues to see how they played out with and without Bisu. The results were even worse than I expected. In addition to the four major Starleagues (OSL, MSL, KSL, ASL), I included WCG, GOMTV Classic, BlizzCon (tournaments only, no exhibition matches), and Sonic Starleague. Here’s what I found: Without Bisu: 0-17. Protoss has never won a major tournament final against Zerg. Bisu’s finals: 2-3. Two wins (over SAviOr and herO) and three losses (to JD, Effort, and herO). So, the overall record is 2 wins and 20 losses in favor of Zerg - far worse than what the already poor balance suggests. Other factors like maps, meta, player skill, and luck might also be at play.
Bro, PvZ is not a 10% winrate as this suggest. It is zerg favored, but not 10% winrate for protoss.
It also shows that the distribution of protoss talent is heavily centered at the average, with very little outliers to either extremes. They do not win tournaments, but they can also make a living while being horrible. This is why ASL winner Shuttle existed, and still exists. Why Tulbo exist. How Snow makes deep runs with only his micro and nothing else, and BSL level optimization of builds.
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EPT
