• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 17:57
CET 23:57
KST 07:57
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Clem wins HomeStory Cup 286HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview13Rongyi Cup S3 - Preview & Info3herO wins SC2 All-Star Invitational14SC2 All-Star Invitational: Tournament Preview5
Community News
Weekly Cups (Jan 26-Feb 1): herO, Clem, ByuN, Classic win2RSL Season 4 announced for March-April7Weekly Cups (Jan 19-25): Bunny, Trigger, MaxPax win3Weekly Cups (Jan 12-18): herO, MaxPax, Solar win0BSL Season 2025 - Full Overview and Conclusion8
StarCraft 2
General
Clem wins HomeStory Cup 28 HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview Stellar Fest "01" Jersey Charity Auction StarCraft 2 Not at the Esports World Cup 2026 Weekly Cups (Jan 26-Feb 1): herO, Clem, ByuN, Classic win
Tourneys
HomeStory Cup 28 $5,000 WardiTV Winter Championship 2026 RSL Season 4 announced for March-April PIG STY FESTIVAL 7.0! (19 Feb - 1 Mar) StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly)
Strategy
Custom Maps
[A] Starcraft Sound Mod
External Content
Mutation # 511 Temple of Rebirth The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 510 Safety Violation Mutation # 509 Doomsday Report
Brood War
General
Gypsy to Korea StarCraft player reflex TE scores [ASL21] Potential Map Candidates Can someone share very abbreviated BW cliffnotes? 2024 BoxeR's birthday message
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Escore Tournament StarCraft Season 1 Small VOD Thread 2.0 KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 1
Strategy
Zealot bombing is no longer popular? Simple Questions, Simple Answers Current Meta Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2
Other Games
General Games
Opel 1.7 DTI Y17DT Engine Diablo 2 thread Battle Aces/David Kim RTS Megathread EVE Corporation Nintendo Switch Thread
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread YouTube Thread The Games Industry And ATVI Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine
Fan Clubs
The herO Fan Club! The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Play, Watch, Drink: Esports …
TrAiDoS
My 2025 Magic: The Gathering…
DARKING
Life Update and thoughts.
FuDDx
How do archons sleep?
8882
James Bond movies ranking - pa…
Topin
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1306 users

Trying to make sense of the stats - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Next All
iEchoic
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1776 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-19 03:10:33
January 19 2011 03:09 GMT
#41
But the claim that Zerg is played less than Terran and Protoss is, in America and EU, false


http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

What are you talking about? Zerg is the least-played in every single league. What I said was 100% correct. I don't care to argue how much less it is or in what region or what league or blah blah blah. What I said wasn't false.
vileEchoic -- clanvile.com
5unrise
Profile Joined May 2009
New Zealand646 Posts
January 19 2011 03:15 GMT
#42
On January 19 2011 12:09 iEchoic wrote:
Show nested quote +
But the claim that Zerg is played less than Terran and Protoss is, in America and EU, false


http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

What are you talking about? Zerg is the least-played in every single league. What I said was 100% correct. I don't care to argue how much less it is or in what region or what league or blah blah blah. What I said wasn't false.


Take a look at Master's league, where this distribution matters. You will see that the zerg numbers are only slightly behind the other races. If that is the case, and the game is balanced, we'd expect that zerg tourney winners would only be slightly under the 1/3 ratio, which is not the case. Clearly, there is no lack of 'skilled' players playing zerg, yet there is a lack of those who are succeeding. How could anyone deduce anything but imbalance from these statistics is unconvincing to any neutral observer in the very least.
Cambam
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States360 Posts
January 19 2011 03:22 GMT
#43
Cognitive dissonance my friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Quick recap: you feel cognitive dissonance when new information isn't consistent with your current worldview or self-view. You don't like to feel dissonance so you try to either change your view or ignore the new information.

In this case: Terran and Protoss players think they're good and deserve all their wins against zerg. These data cast doubt on that view. This makes T and P players feel dissonance. A few might admit that zerg is UP, but most will ignore the data and just think "Man, Zerg sure QQ a lot."
Dragar
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom971 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-19 03:39:16
January 19 2011 03:30 GMT
#44
On January 19 2011 12:09 iEchoic wrote:
Show nested quote +
But the claim that Zerg is played less than Terran and Protoss is, in America and EU, false


http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

What are you talking about? Zerg is the least-played in every single league. What I said was 100% correct. I don't care to argue how much less it is or in what region or what league or blah blah blah. What I said wasn't false.


I'm sorry; by played I meant 'played competently'. You're right that if you just add up everyone without a care, zerg aren't as popular. It's trivial to see that's not relevent though, and I figured you saw that obviously wasn't important as well.

And even on a global level, in the top leagues there's hardly a difference. Very close to 30%.
Cambam
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States360 Posts
January 19 2011 03:33 GMT
#45
Also, I redid the analysis by taking out the 5 zerg, because their vZ win rate isn't relevant, and I also took out Genius and TOP because they both had 100% vZ win rates but had only played 2 and 1 games respectively against Z on their TLPD, so those 100%s were getting way too much weight. However, the results are still worrying:

Overall winrate = 59.2%
*vZ winrate = 69.2%
Dragar
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom971 Posts
January 19 2011 03:35 GMT
#46
Why isn't the ZvZ win rate relevent? It shows (for whatever reason) that they have a much stronger ZvZ than they do ZvP and ZvT.
dogabutila
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States1437 Posts
January 19 2011 03:43 GMT
#47
Because zvz global winrate will always be 50%
Baller Fanclub || CheAse Fanclub || Scarlett Fanclub || LJD FIGHTING!
iEchoic
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1776 Posts
January 19 2011 03:44 GMT
#48
On January 19 2011 12:30 Dragar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 19 2011 12:09 iEchoic wrote:
But the claim that Zerg is played less than Terran and Protoss is, in America and EU, false


http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

What are you talking about? Zerg is the least-played in every single league. What I said was 100% correct. I don't care to argue how much less it is or in what region or what league or blah blah blah. What I said wasn't false.


I'm sorry; by played I meant 'played competently'. You're right that if you just add up everyone without a care, zerg aren't as popular. I don't see how that's relevent though, and I figured you didn't think it important either.

And even on a global level, in the top leagues there's hardly a difference. Very close to 30%.


It shows that the ratio of zerg players who will enter master's league is higher than the ratio of players of other races who will enter master's league. In order to equal out the lower leagues you'd have to add enough zerg players that they'd be way over-represented in Master's. That's why the ratio of lower leagues is important as well.
vileEchoic -- clanvile.com
dogabutila
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States1437 Posts
January 19 2011 03:52 GMT
#49
Pretty much the only thing that the statistics clearly show are that less people play zerg globally, zerg numbers among serious players is about where expected, and that less 'bad' players play zerg.

Is it because zerg is more difficult to play that they decide not to play it? or because people inherently just like zerg less (because they are the badguys in the campaign maybe?)

Who knows, the numbers can only tell you what (and only then sometimes.) They can never really tell you 'why'
Baller Fanclub || CheAse Fanclub || Scarlett Fanclub || LJD FIGHTING!
Galaxy77
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Hong Kong256 Posts
January 19 2011 03:52 GMT
#50
You cant compare one tourneys statistics to another if the way the map pool is decided is different. Its pretty much a known fact that some maps are heavily biased towards some races than others. Therefore in tournaments where the tournament organisers choose the map pool you will get considerably different results from ones where players veto / choose.
Dragar
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom971 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-19 03:56:33
January 19 2011 03:54 GMT
#51
On January 19 2011 12:44 iEchoic wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 19 2011 12:30 Dragar wrote:
On January 19 2011 12:09 iEchoic wrote:
But the claim that Zerg is played less than Terran and Protoss is, in America and EU, false


http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

What are you talking about? Zerg is the least-played in every single league. What I said was 100% correct. I don't care to argue how much less it is or in what region or what league or blah blah blah. What I said wasn't false.


I'm sorry; by played I meant 'played competently'. You're right that if you just add up everyone without a care, zerg aren't as popular. I don't see how that's relevent though, and I figured you didn't think it important either.

And even on a global level, in the top leagues there's hardly a difference. Very close to 30%.


It shows that the ratio of zerg players who will enter master's league is higher than the ratio of players of other races who will enter master's league. In order to equal out the lower leagues you'd have to add enough zerg players that they'd be way over-represented in Master's. That's why the ratio of lower leagues is important as well.


Could you explain that another way? I'm totally not following what you just said. The first sentence makes sense (and is true for diamond league as well) but the rest I don't understand at all.

The only two reasons I can imagine the higher leagues having far more Z representation in the higher than the lower leagues, is that Zerg is grossly overpowered at diamond or higher skill levels, or that there are a lot more people who play Terran and Protoss in a very casual fashion, while if someone wants to play zerg, they'll play enough to learn (and at the higher skill levels, it's fairly balanced).

We can test that last idea, not just assume it. The average number of games played by a zerg should be higher than the average Terran or Protoss, over all leagues. I wonder if SC2 ranks has that information?
iEchoic
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1776 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-19 04:00:08
January 19 2011 03:59 GMT
#52
On January 19 2011 12:54 Dragar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 19 2011 12:44 iEchoic wrote:
On January 19 2011 12:30 Dragar wrote:
On January 19 2011 12:09 iEchoic wrote:
But the claim that Zerg is played less than Terran and Protoss is, in America and EU, false


http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

What are you talking about? Zerg is the least-played in every single league. What I said was 100% correct. I don't care to argue how much less it is or in what region or what league or blah blah blah. What I said wasn't false.


I'm sorry; by played I meant 'played competently'. You're right that if you just add up everyone without a care, zerg aren't as popular. I don't see how that's relevent though, and I figured you didn't think it important either.

And even on a global level, in the top leagues there's hardly a difference. Very close to 30%.


It shows that the ratio of zerg players who will enter master's league is higher than the ratio of players of other races who will enter master's league. In order to equal out the lower leagues you'd have to add enough zerg players that they'd be way over-represented in Master's. That's why the ratio of lower leagues is important as well.


Could you explain that another way? I'm totally not following what you just said. The first sentence makes sense (and is true for diamond league as well) but the rest I don't understand at all.

The only two reasons I can imagine the higher leagues having far more Z representation in the higher than the lower leagues, is that Zerg is grossly overpowered at diamond or higher skill levels, or that there are a lot more people who play Terran and Protoss in a very casual fashion, while if someone wants to play zerg, they'll play enough to learn (and at the higher skill levels, it's fairly balanced).

We can test that last idea, not just assume it. The average number of games played by a zerg should be higher than the average Terran or Protoss, over all leagues. I wonder if SC2 ranks has that information?


a) Why do more zergs end up in master's league by percentage than other races?

b) If the answer to your question relates to the skill level of the players playing those races (i.e. zerg players are more skilled), why can't you apply that same answer to results from tournaments (i.e., terran/protoss is more skilled)? Why does that answer only apply when Zerg does well?
vileEchoic -- clanvile.com
5unrise
Profile Joined May 2009
New Zealand646 Posts
January 19 2011 03:59 GMT
#53
On January 19 2011 12:44 iEchoic wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 19 2011 12:30 Dragar wrote:
On January 19 2011 12:09 iEchoic wrote:
But the claim that Zerg is played less than Terran and Protoss is, in America and EU, false


http://sc2ranks.com/stats/league/all/1/all

What are you talking about? Zerg is the least-played in every single league. What I said was 100% correct. I don't care to argue how much less it is or in what region or what league or blah blah blah. What I said wasn't false.


I'm sorry; by played I meant 'played competently'. You're right that if you just add up everyone without a care, zerg aren't as popular. I don't see how that's relevent though, and I figured you didn't think it important either.

And even on a global level, in the top leagues there's hardly a difference. Very close to 30%.


It shows that the ratio of zerg players who will enter master's league is higher than the ratio of players of other races who will enter master's league. In order to equal out the lower leagues you'd have to add enough zerg players that they'd be way over-represented in Master's. That's why the ratio of lower leagues is important as well.


Why do you need to "equal out the ratio of players in the lower leagues"? Taking into account the race choices of bronze and silver league players, who are just learning the game, contributes nothing to why zerg isn't doing so well at the top level, in spite of the fact that there is no shortage of good players playing zerg at that level. Many players switch races when they are through with learning the game, and some players switch to zerg after they feel like they have a deeper understanding of the other races. The fact remains:

1. At Master's league racial representation are approximately equal, albeit slightly less for zerg.
2. Zerg wins significantly less than their racial representation in tournaments.
3. Adding in numbers from any league other than Masters only distort this data.

It sounds like you are desperately trying to find ways to explain away these facts using tedious arguments that are not convincing at all. My question to you is: Why bother?
iEchoic
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1776 Posts
January 19 2011 04:02 GMT
#54
^^^

This is the essence of your argument:

- When zerg does disproportionately well (Zerg players reach master at a higher ratio than other races, Zerg winning 2/3 GSLs), it is because the people playing Zerg have more skill
- When zerg does disproportionately badly, it is because of imbalance, not because the T/P players have more skill

It's a really annoying and common double-standard.
vileEchoic -- clanvile.com
UniversalSnip
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
9871 Posts
January 19 2011 04:03 GMT
#55
On January 19 2011 09:06 haffy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 19 2011 08:57 Silidons wrote:
but yet zerg has won 2 GSL's, which if you wanted to win any tournament, you would want to win that one.

sorry but zerg UP isn't going to work, GSL has the best players in the world.


Yeah well done. When presented with a larger number of statistics you chose to use a smaller sample to discredit them. When using numbers you always use the larger sample size because it is less likely to be effected by variance.


That's naive logic, and not something an actual statistician would say. You use the larger sample size if both sources of data are of the same quality and relevance... if they aren't you have a legitimate debate over which to use, if any.
"How fucking dare you defile the sanctity of DotA with your fucking casual plebian terminology? May the curse of Gaben and Volvo be upon you. le filthy casual."
Dragar
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom971 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-01-19 04:05:36
January 19 2011 04:04 GMT
#56
On January 19 2011 12:59 iEchoic wrote:
a) Why do more zergs end up in master's league by percentage than other races?

b) If the answer to your question relates to the skill level of the players playing those races (i.e. zerg players are more skilled), why can't you apply that same answer to results from tournaments (i.e., terran/protoss is more skilled)? Why does that answer only apply when Zerg does well?


I suspect it's because if someone plays Terran, they are more likely to play very few games. Same with Protoss. It's not that Terran's are generally better, it's just that there's a lot of people who don't compete at competent levels at all. These all appear in the platinum and lower levels of play.

I'm going to try and compute the numbers to test this, based on the achivements panel.


We could indeed apply the same to tournaments. It could just be that if someone plays Zerg, they are less likely to enter tournaments.

IdrA
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
United States11541 Posts
January 19 2011 04:11 GMT
#57
On January 19 2011 13:02 iEchoic wrote:
^^^

This is the essence of your argument:

- When zerg does disproportionately well (Zerg players reach master at a higher ratio than other races, Zerg winning 2/3 GSLs), it is because the people playing Zerg have more skill
- When zerg does disproportionately badly, it is because of imbalance, not because the T/P players have more skill

It's a really annoying and common double-standard.

its not like this is some theoretical situation
watch the games from the 2 gsl's zergs won. fd was head and shoulders above all his opponents, still should have lost to top and still felt the need to allin inca. he was way better than everyone, he got a relatively easy draw, and he got lucky a number of times on top of it all.
nestea got 2 zvz's in ro16 and 8, not a comment on balance, and then he held off a series of retarded cheeses from boxer and mk. and has since proven hes a really good player who has a special knack for holding off cheesy stuff. not only was he better than his opponents, he won games that werent very meaningful at all in terms of balance, poorly executed undeveloped cheeses.

zerg has never done proportionately well on the whole, besides qualifications or season 3 where every z dropped out in the first 2 rounds anyway. its always been a very very few z's having success and you can watch the games, they quite clearly were more skilled than their competition.
http://www.splitreason.com/product/1152 release the gracken tshirt now available
Dragar
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom971 Posts
January 19 2011 04:19 GMT
#58
Unfortunately the achievements listing seem to be only for a small number of players on sc2 ranks. So unless someone can find someway to query the database to ask for the average number of games played by Terran, Protoss and Zerg players, it will have to wait until another time to answer...
dcberkeley
Profile Joined July 2009
Canada844 Posts
January 19 2011 04:28 GMT
#59
On January 19 2011 12:22 Cambam wrote:
Cognitive dissonance my friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Quick recap: you feel cognitive dissonance when new information isn't consistent with your current worldview or self-view. You don't like to feel dissonance so you try to either change your view or ignore the new information.

In this case: Terran and Protoss players think they're good and deserve all their wins against zerg. These data cast doubt on that view. This makes T and P players feel dissonance. A few might admit that zerg is UP, but most will ignore the data and just think "Man, Zerg sure QQ a lot."

The irony in this post is delicious.
Moktira is da bomb
5unrise
Profile Joined May 2009
New Zealand646 Posts
January 19 2011 04:31 GMT
#60
On January 19 2011 13:02 iEchoic wrote:
^^^

This is the essence of your argument:

- When zerg does disproportionately well (Zerg players reach master at a higher ratio than other races, Zerg winning 2/3 GSLs), it is because the people playing Zerg have more skill
- When zerg does disproportionately badly, it is because of imbalance, not because the T/P players have more skill

It's a really annoying and common double-standard.


When zerg wins, I can guess all the possible candidate zergs on the five fingers of my left hand. Sen, IdrA, Dimaga, Ret, Haypro and that kind of concludes all reasonable possibilities on the foreign scene. The fact that so few carries the meagre chances of so many is why I believe they are just way more skilled than their opponents. Their history in bw also indicates that, with Ret IdrA and Sen being some of the most dominant foreigners in the sc1 scene for the last 2 years.

When terran or protoss wins, it would often be very different players than the ones who had won before, or somebody who isn't considered as top-notch. You have a whole list of terran and toss winners whose names nobody has even seen before, and this is possible because they win so much more often. I'm not saying that they all win because of imbalance, because they can very well be legitimately good and better than the zergs they were facing. To say that they win so much more often because these players are just superior every time to their zerg opponents, when the win ratios are so lop-sided, however, is just ignorant.
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
The PiG Daily
20:50
Best Games
Maru vs Solar
Reynor vs TriGGeR
herO vs Solar
Clem vs TriGGeR
Maru vs TBD
PiGStarcraft510
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
PiGStarcraft510
IndyStarCraft 210
Nathanias 137
ForJumy 47
EmSc Tv 32
StarCraft: Brood War
Shuttle 133
Hyuk 41
NaDa 16
IntoTheRainbow 13
Dota 2
syndereN470
League of Legends
C9.Mang0134
Counter-Strike
fl0m3212
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King81
Other Games
tarik_tv17393
gofns14271
summit1g5110
FrodaN4598
Grubby4175
shahzam372
ToD273
mouzStarbuck235
KnowMe224
Liquid`Hasu183
ArmadaUGS113
Maynarde56
ZombieGrub30
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1670
BasetradeTV141
StarCraft 2
angryscii 41
EmSc Tv 32
EmSc2Tv 32
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 23 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Hupsaiya 63
• musti20045 45
• davetesta36
• RyuSc2 16
• IndyKCrew
• sooper7s
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Migwel
• intothetv
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Kozan
StarCraft: Brood War
• blackmanpl 24
• RayReign 19
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota21456
League of Legends
• Doublelift2763
• TFBlade1493
• Scarra1321
• Stunt448
Other Games
• imaqtpie1986
• Shiphtur254
Upcoming Events
Replay Cast
1h 3m
RongYI Cup
12h 3m
herO vs Maru
Replay Cast
1d 1h
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
1d 13h
Replay Cast
2 days
Wardi Open
2 days
Monday Night Weeklies
2 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
The PondCast
5 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-02-05
HSC XXVIII
Underdog Cup #3

Ongoing

CSL 2025 WINTER (S19)
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 1
Acropolis #4 - TS4
Escore Tournament S1: W7
Rongyi Cup S3
Nations Cup 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual
eXTREMESLAND 2025
SL Budapest Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S1: W8
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
RSL Revival: Season 4
WardiTV Winter 2026
LiuLi Cup: 2025 Grand Finals
FISSURE Playground #3
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League Season 23
ESL Pro League Season 23
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.