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United States1865 Posts
On December 15 2008 12:19 traced wrote:
of course the maps are skewed towards protoss but i don't think they're imbalanced. isn't it more that zerg have no definitive counter for the +1 zeal/archon timing push, which protoss are doing on even old maps, and terran have no definitive build against the fast 3 base arbiters, except to pump vultures and pray for probe kills
Well yes, but arguing that the game itself being imbalanced is a futile gesture because there is no way in hell there will ever be a balance patch. New maps can solve it by making those builds you mentioned less viable -- the new Tears of the Moon for example will be extremely difficult for Protoss to FE on, making the playstyle radically different.
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On December 15 2008 11:55 Jyvblamo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2008 06:37 mog87 wrote:On December 15 2008 06:27 Carefree Me wrote:On December 15 2008 06:18 mog87 wrote:On December 14 2008 19:59 freelander wrote:On December 14 2008 19:57 GHOSTCLAW wrote:On December 14 2008 19:55 Yaqoob wrote:
Bisu versus Flash is going to be pretty amazing. This will be very hard for Bisu. Bisu dismantled FBH, hwasin, and iris in his last msl run. but flash has more tvp skill than those guys together have Kal dismantled Iris..bisu beat fbh and hwasin. Iris would give Bisu alot of trouble. Bisu dismantled Iris in the last OSL. Perhaps, I dont recall, but I do know they didnt play in the MSL as the earlier poster stated, but either way thanks for the clarification. Berserker on a good day will crush almost any toss. When was the last time Iris won vs a top tier protoss in a series? Like, vs Stork in the Daum OSL, a year and a half ago?
Dunno, but you did see his great games vs Jangbi, which he should have won but oh well.
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It's not like we haven't seen zerg-friendly maps in a tournament. Give it a rest.
I'm glad the Protosses have finally cashed in on some championships, especially my two favorites ^^
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Where as I agree that maps do tend to lean towards protoss, though I would argue it went the other way before, can we really argue that some of the top toss's dont deserve to be where they are. For example, stork just beat Flash on a map thats imba for terran. The argument has been made that normally theres one player who completely dominates, where as the rest of their race is left in the ashes. I dont agree, there have been 3 terran bonjwas in a row. I dont think thats a coincidence.
Another issue is that was the age imf imba players, savior for example single handidly had all the wins for zerg on maps that were imba against zerg, and yet he won every match.And people are upset that theres imba on maps, well then shouldnt someone, if the skill of protoss is as lacking as everyone claims, be able to destroy them?
I think hoesntly what were seeing is just a string of strong protoss players, but if we really examine it, only two are really leading the charge, the rest (if we look at the prolegues) are losing quite often (except free and best lol) and even then Stork has been losing quite often in proleagues.
Then how can tempest beat jaedong. Easy, jaedong's been losing a lot latley, to terran and and toss alike, hes in a slump and has lost his mental game. And before we get upset over this golden age of toss, know that it too will end like all the bonjwas of old and well see a rise of new players.
The point is no, we have never before seen the rise of a whole race before, but we have seen the rise of great players, and the same rules aplly. Yes it will look completely one sided and cheesy, but thats how it looks someone or something dominates. Theres a mental game brought to the table by the Taek Bang era and that is if your facing a toss run. Of course thats gunna effect the game, bisu and stork both said so themselves, all there team mates are saying protoss feels stronger. But so did savior, and so did oov, and so did nada, band so did boxer, and a mental state can create waves. Calm and flash seem to be doing fine, not to mention zero. Other races are alive and well, so just let the surge ride out.
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gk_ender I don't quite see your argument here, you say that stork just beat flash on a map favored towards terran, what does that have to do with this? We all know it's possible to win even with map balance against you, not to mention just 1 single game. Also arguing about past bonwjas is kind of pointless as at that time the level of the playing field was just riddiculously much lower than today, meaning that very good players could win consistantly against the second best on imbalanced maps as well. When the general skill level increased to the level it is at now, just a small boost such as an imbalanced map means way more than if there is a huge skill level difference between the very best and the second best. That is why we see a ton of protossplayers suddenly being amazingly good, because there is a hello lot of good protoss player now compared to before, so a small balance change as a new build or a favourable map will have more visible effects than before. The heightened overall skill level is why there are no bonjwas any more, and there will likely ever be one again. Being so much better than anyone else for such a long time as is needed to claim that title right now is just very unlikely.
Oh and just so this is said, when I'm talking about imbalanced or not I mean at the top prolevel, not at my own level, I'm not spitting out my anger at protosses beating me as I think it requires as much skill to PvZ as ZvP at my level. What matters to me is not just watching all P semifinals, pvp killed a part of the fun in watching the TSL for me, and I'd rather not see it kill the starleagues too.
There are no zergs doing fine against protoss right now. Calm and zero, 50% winrate vs protoss, those are the best, and their wins are either against chumps or on maps that aren't considered imbalanced. The fact that you pull up these two as doing good is really just proving the point everyone is making. Terran is slightly dominating zerg, though it seems this might be turning, and protoss is dominating both terran and zerg. If you think suddenly 6 players of the same race started to get better than everyone else in a proscene that holds a higher level than ever before with lots of new players of the same race suddenly also doing good, on those very same maps that the others are dominating, that is up to you, personally I hope it's the maps, and if it isn't that, I hope zergs and terrans finds counters to the current protoss BO's, cause if this goes on for a long time it really kills part of the fun as a watcher.
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I'm big time looking forward to Flash vs Bisu.
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I actually have a question, arent most of these protoss players older players? Everyone is saying suddenly, but Stork and Bisu are definitley old and have been top notch forever. Kal has been back and forth and continues to be, Best apeared out of nowhere but that was pre-taek bang era. Jangbi too. I didnt realize that they suddenly started doing amazing, I thought they had been there for awhile, I mean I will say free seems to have come out of nowhere but the rest, maybe not in the top but always around.
Also as far as where does this skill come from, 2 sets of the protoss dragons are on the same team, Best and Bisu can practice together, and so can Jangbi and Stork, and these are arguebly the top dogs. Does that have anything to do with it.
And i know this all sounds sarcastic, but im actually asking, havent terran and protoss populated the last couple of tournaments over zerg?
and what are the imbalances on the maps?
AGAIN NOT SARCASM, just a newb asking questions because i'm really interested in whats going on here.
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Also, who did the 4 msl toss's have to knock out to get there. I know free took out jaedong, but who else were the real hurdles in there way?
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What I'm trying to say is that those protosses have been good players for a long time that now, because of the maps and builds currently used, are dominating.
Yeah zerg has always lacked top players really, mostly because they lacked players that were good enough at both ZvT and ZvP, the lack of zergs just becomes even more evident now that zergs have trouble beating protoss, which is traditionally the easier matchup for zergs. You can look up the protosses age on TLPD (look at the bar to the right) you can look up the amount of players on each race in the individual leagues on TLPD(mostly T>>Z>=P until the recent ones where protoss stated to get more favourable maps), basically all the protosses have been around for a while excluding best, the recent starleagues everyone suddenly got that extra boost. Being at the same team doesn't explain why they suddenly got better at the same time, If Stork and bisu who are the best of the protossplayers atm where at the same team and just those two were doing good I'd buy that argument, but that doesn't explain why suddenly 5/6 players of the same race elevated their game more than any other players in progaming. Either it's "the perfect build" PvZ or it's the maps, PvT I wont comment on as my knowledge of the matchup is sketchy at best.
What makes the maps imbalanced ZvP? I think mostly its a build order issue with the new +1zealarchonpush. the difference between this and a push with templars is that protoss armies suddenly have the same mobility as a hydra army. If you're winning the battle as zerg the protoss can now retreat from a lost battle without losing all his gasheavy units(read templar) in the process, this combined with the fact that protosses generally get an easy third base on most new maps means that zergs are under a whole lot more pressure now than earlier fighting equal bases against protoss for quite some time. this(See thread)
When you combine this new build that pressures the zerg at all times, maps that doesn't let you protect your fourth with the static defense from your third and the fact that this new protoss army is so strong both when zergs are defending their first 3 bases but also takes their third really early means that the zerg has just way less room for error than what was common recently.
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On December 15 2008 09:34 Atrioc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2008 07:40 Fwmeh wrote:On December 15 2008 06:50 Atrioc wrote:On December 15 2008 05:36 FrozenArbiter wrote:On December 15 2008 05:32 Atrioc wrote:On December 15 2008 05:26 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Don't think you should use Andromeda as an example of a balanced map when zerg is 63% vs P on it ;O
Bisu won that game though! Yeah, but Reach won vs Yellow on Mercury too, that doesn't make Mercury balanced  (14-4 ZvP) Haha alright, good point.. I still stick by my point though, as I was more trying to say that Bisu's win vs Jaedong and Jaedong's win vs Bisu were epic games, and they are both great players - so seeing a Bisu vs Jaedong final is something that would be far superior to something like the Bisu vs Jangbi final we just had, and a fan of good games should support a map change instead of pretending there is no issue. The map statistics are themselves skewed by the ability of the players who play on them.
If hypothetically there were 4 dominant Protoss players with a GREATER SKILL level than any Zerg opponent, the map statistics would show a sway in the direction of Protoss even though a year ago the statistics would have been balanced. I'll ignore your last paragraph of pure insults for the purpose of an interesting discussion. Hypothetically, you are right. If the best players in Korea all happened to pick Protoss as their race, we wouldnt know if the maps were balanced or not. The fact is though, that is an extremely statistically unlikely point of view. As I said, no other individual league in history has had 1 race so overwhelmingly represented. Even when the best Terran players were better than the best Protoss or Zerg, there still was representation of the other two up until the RO4. Now, as I also mentioned earlier (I'm getting the feeling you called my post a wall of text because you simply didnt read it), when it comes to the current Shinhan proleague, an area where map balance should not be a factor because of the ability to choose what map you come out on -- suprise, suprise, Protoss are not dominating in the least. They even out to around 50% in both matchups, no evidence here of superior Toss players. Yet in the individual leagues, where the maps cannot be avoided, they are choking out any competition. This discrepancy is what makes me beleive there is an issue with the maps. Your argument that it is mere coinedence is something I have trouble finding solid evidence for, and that is why I reject it. Simple as that. A couple of points here. First, any kind of statistic with the sample size we are talking about here is really not possible. Map imba can not be proven by pure statistics, when the sample is >50 games, if we get a decent sample of players. (not all matches being bisu vs mumyung, or backho vs july). So to argue map imba you really need to point out the aspects of the map that lead to the imba, and how that show in actual play. Ok first - we are almost never going to get 50+ games of a single matchup on any map. We have to use the information we have - which despite not being an amazing sample size mathematically (no argument here!) is usually a great indicator of map imbalance. Mercury only had 18 games played on it, but we know that it was super easy for Zerg to win ZvP because thats what the stats told us. Troy only 16, and only barely favors Protoss statistically (9-7), so you might say "theres not enough variance to call an imbalance" -- but again, we know Troy is very difficult for Terran against Protoss. What i'm saying is - while in theory your "the numbers dont mean anything because their isnt a large enough sample size" make sense, in practice I doubt you can find an imbalanced map that does not have stats that reflect that it is imbalanced. So to ignore the numbers is simply a form of selective blindness that ignores an obvious trend because it will never have enough games to be beyond denying. Interestingly enough though - the one map that satisfies your requirements, Neo Requiem, further proves my point: Stats 46-46, Exactly 50% win PvZ with nearly 100 sample games! That is excellent - this is truly a map where the best player will win. So lets look at the two series I provided as examples of Zerg being forced into bad situations because of imbalanced maps: Jaedong vs Tempest and EffOrt vs BeSt In both series, on the only map that has balanced stats, these two player's showed excellent ZvP and consequently won the game. When the game turned to the other maps, the ones I am contending to be imbalanced, despite obviously knowing they could win straight up from the previous game, they played risky/unsafe builds that reflect a desperation to gain some sort of advantage on an unfavorable map.Show nested quote +The cliffs and safe natural on katrina lending itself to two base carriers on katrina would be a valid example, saying that "holding a third gas is to hard for zerg on medusa" is not valid. This is a really odd statement and frankly the worst part of your post. I dont think you are in a position to be making judgements on what can and cannot be cited as evidence of imbalance - especially when your example of what isnt valid is one of the most extremely extremely valid things in any zerg matchup. Look at a map like Tiamat for ZvT - the most blatantly wrong thing about that map was the inability of the Zerg to hold a third gas and yet you are trying to dictatorially state that we cant use that as a valid reason? Show nested quote +Speaking of Medusa and flawed statistics, I take it you think Medusa to be imba PvZ, with the stats 17-10. Did you know that it is actually 8-9 in proleague games, since you thought that the even proleague stats hinted at map imba? So that could actually mean that at the overall level, ZvP is balanced, and that at the absolute top, the best toss players really are that much better.
I honestly think that that is true, but I would not dare to try and prove it with such a very small sample.
Again, I think your statistics seem to illustrate what I am saying. It is extremely suspect of you to split the maps stats up to where it came from as whether a map is in the individual leage or not rarely correlates with player skill. Top players played Medusa games in both proleauge and individual leagues and the total stats came out to favor Protoss - that is the fact. When you quote the 8-9 proleague stats you are ignoring the games themselves: Look at who won/lost: Much, Tester , GuemChi , Daezang , Guemchi again, SangHo, HerO, Tazza, and Anytime. A lineup of all the newly recruited, poor ZvP, or ACE (meaning out of practice) players that gave this map every single Zerg win that it has. All you did was convince me more that Medusa is extremely tough for a Zerg to take a competent Protoss on. Show nested quote +Lastly, the reason why Jaedong is slumping is because he is making really BAD decisions, NOT because of the maps. He didnt make bad decisions on the previous maps, and he hasnt been making bad decisions in ZvZ (currently on a 3 win streak) - so why has his decision making becme, admittedly, poorer in his other two once-untouchable matchups, and why does it coincide 100% with introduction of the new maps? Interesting question. As a disclaimer: this isnt just about Jaedong. If Jaedong alone vanished from the proscene I would be frustrated as a fan of Jaedong and certainly wouldnt make posts like this - but Zergs altogether have vanished (99% of Terrans too!), and thus it is as a fan of progaming in general that I am pointing this out. *edit* This has been a lot of writing through this whole thread, so I'm gonna take a break until tomorrow. Interesting discussion, all.
I am now convinced that you do not even bother to watch the games before you whine. Jaedong did not play risky on destination/medusa. He played economically aggressive, taking 4 bases both games, and lost both games to a timing push.
About map imba part, really, try and think before you type. I realize that you never had to do that before, but try anyway. The third base on Tiamat was hard to hold because it was very exposed, flankable from three sides sides if you kill the buildings. The third base on Byzantium is (was?) the same way, open from two directions and very hard to hold from a timing push in ZvP. Why is the third base so hard to hold on Medusa? On Destination? If that argument was enough, you could bring it up on EVERY FUCKING SINGLE MAP!!! The third gas is always to hard to hold these days, it would seem. Even you must realise for that argument to hold any weight, you must bring up what makes the third base so hard to take. It is pretty ironic that you would bring up Troy, the very map that show that you cannot rely on statistics (since they are quite even), but have to look at the features of the map, and why they make it incredibly hard for terran to win. Same thing about Fuckury. The reason why we can claim that that map was imba has nothing really to do with the stats, but everything with how the games played out on the map. If Fuckury had even stats, it would still be imba PvZ.
And for the statistics part, again, think before you type. First you claim that statistics is the only way we have to determine trends on maps, and in the next paragraph you reject statistics (that do not show what you want them to show) with the claim that the prolegague games was of better zerg beating poor protoss, even ignoring that Sangho is actually good against Zerg. Did you make the same analysis on the individual league games on the same map? No you didn't because if you did, you would find superior protoss beating inferior zerg. In MSL, the map went 1-1, with Free losing to Jaedong in a series Free won, and Jangbi beating Yarnac the way he does on every map, including andromeda and othello which both seem to favor zerg. In the Gom league, the statistics we have are very flawed, since not all of the games were put into the TLPD, so we must use them with even greater caution. But of those games, which one would be a real upset? Free beating Savior? He has done that on Othello too. Best beating effort? Effort who lost 2-0 against fucking BestGod in the MSL prelims. Prelims that featured both Destination and Medusa btw, and featured a huge amount of zerg passing, and quite few protoss. And yet Effort lost. He is inconsistent, get over it. Face it, the only game which was considered an upset is Tempest vs Jaedong.
And that single game you base your whining on. Your favorite player lost to a worse player, it must be the map's fault.
If you still want to cry map imba, first go through all the games played on Medusa/Destination, including the preliminary games, and those GOM games which wasn't televised. The go through all the individual matches, to see when a superior zerg seems to lose to an inferior protoss, and the reverse. Then you have to actually watch those games, and determine why the upset happened. Was it cheese? One single fatal micro mistake? When you have done that, you can come and claim to have basis for your crying. Until then, you are just whining because your favorite player is slumping, and there are no good zerg behind him.
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Yeah i understand where ur coming from supah, but didnt the zergs lose on maps that werent completely imba. I thought the beginning of the msl were on the last set of maps/ Plus jaedong lost to stork in wcg on really old maps. Further, in the gom classic, what zergs did we expect to win besides jaedong, i didnt see any star zergs in the line up at all. In the last Gom classic I would say it was ab the same in numbers as this one, except more terrans. But now its just kinda shifted the other way. I simply see no star zergs in Gom besides jaedong, forgive me if im wrong, but arent zero and calm mia in that tourney.
Plus we keep talking ab zerg, but what about terran. Are the maps that out of balance for them. I mean medusa is impossible to hard push on, but that cant be the only trick in the terrans bag. Plus the temples get wrecked by lurks and tanks. Why are they losing, and what terrans are the ones that are supposed to win? Flash is alive and well so who else, sea? Up magic, really, theyre all stuck on estro. Fbh is doing wonderfully, even slaying some toss's his worst matchup.
So please explain to me, what are the imbalances for terran, and how do u explan the things ive brought up. Again no sarcasm, this is really interesting to me, u guys have a much better grasp on stats and history than i do.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On December 15 2008 17:10 Supah wrote:
gk_ender I don't quite see your argument here, you say that stork just beat flash on a map favored towards terran, what does that have to do with this? We all know it's possible to win even with map balance against you, not to mention just 1 single game. Also arguing about past bonwjas is kind of pointless as at that time the level of the playing field was just riddiculously much lower than today, meaning that very good players could win consistantly against the second best on imbalanced maps as well. When the general skill level increased to the level it is at now, just a small boost such as an imbalanced map means way more than if there is a huge skill level difference between the very best and the second best. That is why we see a ton of protossplayers suddenly being amazingly good, because there is a hello lot of good protoss player now compared to before, so a small balance change as a new build or a favourable map will have more visible effects than before. The heightened overall skill level is why there are no bonjwas any more, and there will likely ever be one again. Being so much better than anyone else for such a long time as is needed to claim that title right now is just very unlikely.
Oh and just so this is said, when I'm talking about imbalanced or not I mean at the top prolevel, not at my own level, I'm not spitting out my anger at protosses beating me as I think it requires as much skill to PvZ as ZvP at my level. What matters to me is not just watching all P semifinals, pvp killed a part of the fun in watching the TSL for me, and I'd rather not see it kill the starleagues too.
There are no zergs doing fine against protoss right now. Calm and zero, 50% winrate vs protoss, those are the best, and their wins are either against chumps or on maps that aren't considered imbalanced. The fact that you pull up these two as doing good is really just proving the point everyone is making. Terran is slightly dominating zerg, though it seems this might be turning, and protoss is dominating both terran and zerg. If you think suddenly 6 players of the same race started to get better than everyone else in a proscene that holds a higher level than ever before with lots of new players of the same race suddenly also doing good, on those very same maps that the others are dominating, that is up to you, personally I hope it's the maps, and if it isn't that, I hope zergs and terrans finds counters to the current protoss BO's, cause if this goes on for a long time it really kills part of the fun as a watcher.
People mentioning Zero and Calm as prominent Zerg players just makes me feel more strongly about what I said before - there is a serious lack of "flagship" Zerg players at the moment.
Come on, Zero and Calm have always been <50% winratio players, they have improved a ton lately but so has (as is evident from his 9-1 streak) players like SangHo - my point is that expecting these players to duke it out with the top tier Protoss players is not realistic.
Jangbi lost 2-3 in the semis - in the GomTV S4 MSL! This was just about 1 year ago. Who did he lose to? Kal!
Bisu has been killing Zergs and Tosses left and right for 2 years now, Stork has killed all Terrans and Tosses for just as long.
Best? Break out was about a year ago in Bacchus - and he's not even doing well vs Zerg! EDIT: Oh and his breakout was NOT on protoss favoured maps.
Free has been around forever as a good but not quite good enough player, he's really the only one who was "suddenly" elevated with the new maps.
So vs this line-up you expect players like Zero and Calm to fly the zerg flag? Really? They are rookies (well Calm kind of isn't), players who in a year might be contenders but now? Ehhh, that's asking an awful lot of them..
The problem is that Jaedong is slumping, Savior is slumping (has been slumping since way before the current maps), July is slumping (pretty standard July, up, down, up, down + OSL curse) and next in line are the Zerg twins, Luxury and Yarnc, who have ALWAYS been weak ZvP and amazing ZvT.
Again, I'm not saying there aren't any imbalanced maps, I'm just saying that I think the effect is exaggerated by a serious lack of "S-class" Zergs.
If you want an example of what happens when you put an A-Class Zerg up against a bunch of mediocre PvZ players, just look at July's run from the EVER2008 OSL:
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/players/117_July/games
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Even outside the MSL,
The OSL was practically all P semis.
PL's best players are P.and a T.
That's a lot of maps you guys are claiming are imba.
I blame plasma and byzantium rather than the rest of the maps.
And Protoss superiority.
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On December 16 2008 00:44 FrozenArbiter wrote:
The problem is that Jaedong is slumping, Savior is slumping (has been slumping since way before the current maps), July is slumping (pretty standard July, up, down, up, down + OSL curse) and next in line are the Zerg twins, Luxury and Yarnc, who have ALWAYS been weak ZvP and amazing ZvT.
Now Zerg twins are slumping more ZvT than ZvP, at least watching their games. Their ZvP is little bit better but its still shitty.
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On December 16 2008 01:24 SuperJongMan wrote:
Even outside the MSL,
The OSL was practically all P semis.
PL's best players are P.and a T.
That's a lot of maps you guys are claiming are imba.
I blame plasma and byzantium rather than the rest of the maps.
And Protoss superiority.
OSL semis was 2 P, 1 T, 1 Z. That's a close to even as you can get with 4 players.
(agree with the rest, just pointing this out)
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I'm also wondering if the Age of Protoss (ie the rise of the entire race in MSL/GOM, not just Bisu & Stork winning titles) isn't already on the way out. OSL Offline prelims produced 9T/8Z/7P. This includes Shine making it out of Jangbi's group and free getting knocked out by 1988. Unlike the MSL survivor, which can be misleading since 5 fo the top 6 P's had already qualified for the Ro32, OSL offline seemed to have reasonably equal levels of players competing.
Bisu and Stork really do look like they are playing a notch above everyone else, regardless of maps/race trends/etc. The rest of the "six dragons" of toss aren't looking as invincible now.
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On December 16 2008 02:49 Signet wrote:
I'm also wondering if the Age of Protoss (ie the rise of the entire race in MSL/GOM, not just Bisu & Stork winning titles) isn't already on the way out. OSL Offline prelims produced 9T/8Z/7P. This includes Shine making it out of Jangbi's group and free getting knocked out by 1988. Unlike the MSL survivor, which can be misleading since 5 fo the top 6 P's had already qualified for the Ro32, OSL offline seemed to have reasonably equal levels of players competing.
Bisu and Stork really do look like they are playing a notch above everyone else, regardless of maps/race trends/etc. The rest of the "six dragons" of toss aren't looking as invincible now.
That's because they put Byzantium in the map pool that somehow it only encourges two hatch mutas and together with Byzantium 2 has grand total of 0 - 10 stats in ZvP and growing . I hope that they come to their senses and remove it like OSL did to Plasma for this season .... I think thats the only reason that protoss are doing better then zergs in MSL survivor so far .
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I meant it's misleading in that it appears Terrans are dominating MSL survivor (6T, 3P, 1Z advancing thus far), but a lot of that is because Bisu, free, Jangbi, Kal, and Stork are automatically qualified. But yeah, Byzantium has to go.
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Oh shit, I had written up a long reply to FA but it all got deleted somehow, so here we go again. Kal and jangbi going as far as they did 1 year ago was because of the maps. Don't tell me Katrina and loki2 is balanced. Also Jangbi has been everyones bitch in PvZ for a long time, and went as far because of meeting only orion of zergs and terrans on maps that favored protoss. They were not close to being as good as they are now. If you look at the protoss scene from 1 year ago, who was the top players? Free, Jangbi, Kal, Bisu, Much, Anytime, stork and Best. Now 1 of those are in the airforce, 1 is doing mediocre at best and 6 of those are top10 in the world. Yet you claim only free has suddenly gotten better? What about jangbi and stork and best who is suddenly beating the best zergs in PvZ? What about Kal wining PvT? Bisu seemingly popping out of his slump? Did they all just get way better game understanding and improve as players or is there 1 common factor that made all of them suddenly better? I think it's the second, and I hope that factor is maps, I do not claim that it is.
Because if it's the build that they are using, (talking ZvP right now, I now nothing of TvP except that protoss wins) there has to be found a counter, and every time the balance in starcraft changes there is always a possibility that no counter is found, which would lead to imbalance. To early to really speak about that though, but if no zergs show any sort of winning records against top protosses in 3/4 months it's a problem that will likely lead to kespa trying to balance it with less FE friendly maps, like for instance the new Tears in the(of the?) moon which IMO assuming regular ZvP should be a Z>>P map. Savior and july isn't good players anymore, slumping is the wrong word, they are average zergs no better than Hoejja or zero or calm or (insert name of whatever zerg that gets hyped up cause he has 3 wins in a row) problem is that there has been no one but jaedong doing good vs both P and T since savior.
Your concluding that because of 6 protossplayers beeing way better than the zerg players they face it looks imbalanced. I claim that if suddenly the gameplay of 6 players of the same race got better something changed that affected the racial balance. Free and jangbi and Kal and Best wasn't S-class a half year ago Stork though S-class still couldn't wrap his head around PvZ and bisu was in a semislump. Something changed, if it's the map or the builds I cant tell but zergs didn't just start sucking recently, zergs have been generally mediocre for a long time, it's just that except of bisu and Kal no protosses were good at PvZ. When that suddenly changed and in a period where the amount of promising decent new zergs are actually higher than it's been for a long time, I find claiming it to be just all of them getting better at the same time slightly ridiculous.
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I never noticed how much the lack of zerg has really made games less interesting to watch till recently. Maybe it was that TvT mirror between Leta and Canata that did me in zzz. I don't know if I can handle any more mirror MUs 
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EPT
