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On November 21 2013 02:42 Wingblade wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 02:38 Big J wrote:Sorry, but it's extremely obvious that distribution matters. Pretending it doesn't just because you don't like the results degrades the quality of the discussion in this thread. The distributions themselve are worthless. People keep on saying that "winrates aren't everything", the plain race distributions are much worse, since we don't know the reasons why people play which race at what level. E.g. when the game came out the (overall summed up) distributions were something like 38-37-25 (P-T-Z). So initially people did not choose races 33-33-33. So was Protoss initially overpowered? Far from! Most likely there were other reasons why people chose Protoss and Terran over Zerg and same thing is probably true right now. Of course racial strength/balance is most likely a reason to play a race. But we don't know how important it is. More likely I'd say (which is of course connected to balance) it's a question of gameplay as well. Do you like how you have to play the matchups of a race? Being the aggressor or the defender? Having cheeses/tricks or rather play straight up everygame? Exactly this, there's almost no way to determine which races are being chosen, especially for players who are playing for the first time. I originally chose Protoss because they were super advanced aliens and had a guy which was really tall and shot freaking lasers from his eyes(dead serious). Determining a causal relationship between the two isn't possible, because there are a variety of factors which influence the race a player chooses. There is a potential correlation, but even that can be skewed by the potential exodus of Terran players at the end of Wings of Liberty because of broodlord/infestor. The bolded statement is something that I would love to be able to test.
thats not true for the higher leagues at all. People play the race that gets them the most wins and people have been switching from terran for the past few months now.
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If you could explain those differently than balance (and history tells us that balance unspecifically it has always been like that for those numbers, Terrans overrepresented in bronze, Zerg underrepresented in bronze. So why blame balance for that?
Well, let's put out the hypothesis that terran has been UP against zerg since post infestor nerf (spring 2011) and against protoss post ghost nerf (autumn 2011). How would we then expect the data to look like?
Answer: Terran should be underrepresented in higher leagues and overpresented in bronze. Since that is exactly what the data has looked like on a very consistent basis, it seems reasonable to assume that is the truth unless we can proove otherwise/come up with strong arguments for why that is not the case.
The question is whether the statistic can be bias'ed enough for there to be another explanation than terran being UP. I pointed to two forms of bias; One of them was in the direction of favouring zerg, the other one favoured terran. So I made a rough estimate and assumed they cancelled out each other.
Also in general it is hard to explain the players at the bottom.
Let's say a nerf to terran occurs. Even though we in theory thinks that it is someting that only should impact higher level play, it will still cause more terrans to be placed in bronze relative to the other races.
After the nerf is implemented, the following till happen on the ladder;
Ex low master terrans --> Demoted to diamond league --> Ex low diamonds --> Demoted to plat --> ex silver players goes into bronze while ex bronze protoss and zergs gets promoted to silver.
Hyphotesis 2: Terran is UP in lower leagues, but balanced in higher leagues
In this scenario we would to see the following from the data;
1) Terran is very overrepsented in bronze and marginally overrepesented in Silver leage
2) Terran somewhat underpresented in the midleagues
3) Terran only marginally underrepresented in the higher leagues (dia/master/GM)
However, if we check the data we see that it isn't the case;
1) Terran is underpresented in silver league, not overpresented --> Points to the hyphotesis not being true
2) The league where terran is most underpresented relative to zerg is in GM (37%), though that can be explained by a high variance due to low sample --> Points to the hyphotesis not being true
3) In Masters terran is more underrepresented (28%) than in platinum (26%) --> Points to the hyphotesis not being true
Conclusion: We should reject it.
Only 2 explanations left;
1) Terran has been UP since 2011
2) The average skillset of terran is below that of the other races
Since I previously argued why the latter doesn't explain the overrepresentation, I conclude that terran is UP.
This doesn't mean that I am 100% certain my conclusion is correct, but rather that is is the most likely scenario after analyzing all the available data.
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On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +If you could explain those differently than balance (and history tells us that balance unspecifically it has always been like that for those numbers, Terrans overrepresented in bronze, Zerg underrepresented in bronze. So why blame balance for that? Well, let's put out the hypothesis that terran has been UP against zerg since post infestor nerf (spring 2011) and against protoss post ghost nerf (autumn 2011). How would we then expect the data to look like? Answer: Terran should be underrepresented in higher leagues and overpresented in bronze. Since that is exactly what the data has looked like on a very consistent basis, it seems reasonable to assume that is the truth unless we can proove otherwise/come up with strong arguments for why that is not the case. The question is whether the statistic can be bias'ed enough for there to be another explanation than terran being UP. I pointed to two forms of bias; One of them was in the direction of favouring zerg, the other one favoured terran. So I made a rough estimate and assumed they cancelled out each other. Let's say a nerf to terran occurs. Even though we in theory thinks that it is someting that only should impact higher level play, it will still cause more terrans to be placed in bronze relative to the other races. After the nerf is implemented, the following till happen on the ladder; Ex low master terrans --> Demoted to diamond league --> Ex low diamonds --> Demoted to plat --> ex silver players goes into bronze while ex bronze protoss and zergs gets promoted to silver. Hyphotesis 2: Terran is UP in lower leagues, but balanced in higher leaguesIn this scenario we would to see the following from the data; 1) Terran is very overrepsented in bronze and marginally overrepesented in Silver leage 2) Terran somewhat underpresented in the midleagues 3) Terran only marginally underrepresented in the higher leagues (dia/master/GM) However, if we check the data we see that it isn't the case; 1) Terran is underpresented in silver league, not overpresented --> Points to the hyphotesis not being true 2) The league where terran is most underpresented relative to zerg is in GM (37%), though that can be explained by a high variance due to low sample --> Points to the hyphotesis not being true 3) In Masters terran is more underrepresented (28%) than in platinum (26%) --> Points to the hyphotesis not being true Conclusion: We should reject it. Only 2 explanations left; 1) Terran has been UP since 2011 2) The average skillset of terran is below that of the other races Since I previously argued why the latter doesn't explain the overrepresentation, I conclude that terran is UP. This doesn't mean that I am 100% certain my conclusion is correct, but rather that is is the most likely scenario after analyzing all the available data.
Except for those pesky tournament win rates that show Terran doing quite well, especially since 2011... And tournament representation too... Also, Terran wasn't underrepresented in 2011, they were quite fine.
You're guilty of an impressive false dichotomy which ignores what new players enjoy personally, how Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against, as well as the other data that you complete ignore, like win rates, tournament representation, tournament winners, etc.
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On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against
Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder.
You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it.
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On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it.
And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend.
There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all.
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On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it. And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend. There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all.
99,99% of the players in this game will never play a real tournament. Ever. Shouldnt it be a cause for concern that the game is imbalanced for the condition under which 99,99% play?
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On November 21 2013 08:27 Snusmumriken wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it. And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend. There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all. 99,99% of the players in this game will never play a real tournament. Ever. Shouldnt it be a cause for concern that the game is imbalanced for the condition under which 99,99% play?
StarCraft's popularity as an esport is also imporant. Therefore it's important for all the races to be viable at the tournament level. Honestly, people up to a certain skill level (I'd say about Masters) are just not good enough for balance to be the reason they lose.
And if you mean the GM ladder is imba, then who cares? 800 people? Big deal. A lot of those people are pros anyway and they don't give a crap about their ladder rank.
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Terran isn't UP and Protoss isn't OP. Terran is just a billion times harder to learn/play for lower level players and Protoss is ridiculously easy at the lower level. The skill ceiling for all 3 races is actually pretty insane now, which is why we see 2-3 dominant players from each race
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On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it. And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend. There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all.
A protoss just won WCS Korea and WCS Global, another won Blizzcon. Protoss is NOT underpowered at tournaments. They also completely wrecked all qualifiers in the last 2 months, at least in Korea.
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On November 21 2013 08:35 TimENT wrote:
Terran isn't UP and Protoss isn't OP. Terran is just a billion times harder to learn/play for lower level players and Protoss is ridiculously easy at the lower level. The skill ceiling for all 3 races is actually pretty insane now, which is why we see 2-3 dominant players from each race
Protoss is dominating at the top level, too. They have the highest representation in both GM and Master leagues, and the most success in the WCS recently.
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On November 21 2013 08:47 Ghanburighan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it. And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend. There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all. A protoss just won WCS Korea and WCS Global, another won Blizzcon. Protoss is NOT underpowered at tournaments. They also completely wrecked all qualifiers in the last 2 months, at least in Korea.
Terran tears... mmmm.....
I main Protoss but offrace Terran for fun. So I like to think that I have a balanced view. In response to your comment..
Yayy... Protoss finally won some things. Do you know how many things Terran has won over the course of SC2? Protoss is by far the most underrepresented in Bo3+ tourney victories. A few recent victories doesn't change that and certainly shouldn't influence your thinking. Do you remember last year when Taeja won everything? Do you remember when Life won 5 tournaments in 6 months? Or when Innovation had 75% win rates against everyone?
The reason Dear and sOs are so successful is because they've learned to bring the same tricky style that works well on ladder to tournaments. Meanwhile, everyone else continued to play the same way they've been playing for months. I am not surprised to see them succeed.
I'll remind you that when Bomber won the Season 2 finals, he did so using some tricky builds that had fallen out of the meta that he prepared especially for that tournament.
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On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:
And underpowered in tournament formats.
Complete nonsense. Quite on the contrary, the fact Protoss has so many viable builds/styles is a strength in tournaments because it allows them to vary their play.
Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend.
Rain's defensive play is a stylistic choice, he does not have to play like that 100% of the time since his race has countless agressive options; thus his predictability cannot be blamed on his race alone. PartinG relied on his Immortal all-in because Zerg was broken in WoL, zero news here; if he can no longer wins PvZ now, the issue is on his end since other top Protoss players don't have this problem. If MC's relative fall is to be blamed on his tendancy to play agressive/all-in too much (which is a simplistic explanation, but whatever), it's again his fault because his race has passive macro options; thus his predictability cannot be blamed on his race alone, bis. The very examples you provide contradict your own thesis.
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Terran needs all-ins to reflect the all-ins of Protoss, and those all-ins need to not be dependent on the Medivac. Medivac slows timings and incentivizes more standard and protracted play. Meaning 2 or 3 Factory needs to be Terran's 4 Gate. If the Warhound had actually been designed properly, it might've fit that role.
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Except for those pesky tournament win rates that show Terran doing quite well, especially since 2011... And tournament representation too... Also, Terran wasn't underrepresented in 2011, they were quite fine.
You're guilty of an impressive false dichotomy which ignores what new players enjoy personally, how Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against, as well as the other data that you complete ignore, like win rates, tournament representation, tournament winners, etc.
Using tournaments as (the only) measurement of balance is one of the worst thing you can do for a couple of reasons;
1) Huge variance. You can't say anything statistically signifcant to proove any balance point using tournaments as an example. Tournament games must therefore be analyzed qualitatively, which is very hard and there are multiple instances of Blizzard not doing this properly. For instance, when they didn't buff Seeker Missile back in summer 2012 as MVP won a couple of games with it against random foreign zerg players.
2) Doesn't adjust for the amount of players playing one race. E.g. if more top koreans play terran --> terran will outperform. This is a likely scenario as terran indeed was OP when released --> lots of koreans wanted to play it when released.
3) Many tournmanets suffer from a huge lag-effect, which arises due to the fact that when terran was OP in 2010, many of the lesser skilled terrans were still in code A/code S in 2011 as it takes a certain amount of time to drop out of the league.
There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments.
Can you proof that "protoss underperformance in tournaments" is statistically significant?
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On November 21 2013 09:22 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 08:47 Ghanburighan wrote:On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it. And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend. There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all. A protoss just won WCS Korea and WCS Global, another won Blizzcon. Protoss is NOT underpowered at tournaments. They also completely wrecked all qualifiers in the last 2 months, at least in Korea. Terran tears... mmmm..... I main Protoss but offrace Terran for fun. So I like to think that I have a balanced view. In response to your comment.. Yayy... Protoss finally won some things. Do you know how many things Terran has won over the course of SC2? Protoss is by far the most underrepresented in Bo3+ tourney victories. A few recent victories doesn't change that and certainly shouldn't influence your thinking. Do you remember last year when Taeja won everything? Do you remember when Life won 5 tournaments in 6 months? Or when Innovation had 75% win rates against everyone? The reason Dear and sOs are so successful is because they've learned to bring the same tricky style that works well on ladder to tournaments. Meanwhile, everyone else continued to play the same way they've been playing for months. I am not surprised to see them succeed. I'll remind you that when Bomber won the Season 2 finals, he did so using some tricky builds that had fallen out of the meta that he prepared especially for that tournament.
I hate when people bring up how many tournaments a race has won historically over the course of sc2 as if that is indicative of current balance. It's completely irrelevant because the game has changed considerably and frequently since release. The only results that matter are the ones where the game as been stable for some time. That latest patch has come out too recently to draw any conclusions from balance which means for current balance discussion, we should be looking at the period in between the hellbat nerf and latest patch (widow mine nerf, oracle speed buff etc).
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On November 21 2013 08:47 Ghanburighan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it. And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend. There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all. A protoss just won WCS Korea and WCS Global, another won Blizzcon. Protoss is NOT underpowered at tournaments. They also completely wrecked all qualifiers in the last 2 months, at least in Korea.
Yea, Dear and sOs. Name any other Protoss who have had success in the last 3 to 4 months and sustained it for any period of time. Hell sOs had 1 weekend of success that could very well be a flash in the pan. "Completely wrecked" is an awfully bold statement. Care to back up your hyperbole with any actual evidence?
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On November 21 2013 09:50 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Except for those pesky tournament win rates that show Terran doing quite well, especially since 2011... And tournament representation too... Also, Terran wasn't underrepresented in 2011, they were quite fine.
You're guilty of an impressive false dichotomy which ignores what new players enjoy personally, how Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against, as well as the other data that you complete ignore, like win rates, tournament representation, tournament winners, etc. Using tournaments as (the only) measurement of balance is one of the worst thing you can do for a couple of reasons; 1) Huge variance. You can't say anything statistically signifcant to proove any balance point using tournaments as an example. Tournament games must therefore be analyzed qualitatively, which is very hard and there are multiple instances of Blizzard not doing this properly. For instance, when they didn't buff Seeker Missile back in summer 2012 as MVP won a couple of games with it against random foreign zerg players. 2) Doesn't adjust for the amount of players playing one race. E.g. if more top koreans play terran --> terran will outperform. This is a likely scenario as terran indeed was OP when released --> lots of koreans wanted to play it when released. 3) Many tournmanets suffer from a huge lag-effect, which arises due to the fact that when terran was OP in 2010, many of the lesser skilled terrans were still in code A/code S in 2011 as it takes a certain amount of time to drop out of the league. Show nested quote +There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Can you proof that "protoss underperformance in tournaments" is statistically significant?
And now your guilty of a straw manat the top of your comment. You have a great ability to use stats to your opinion, but your construction of logical arguments is awful. At no point did I ever explicitly state or even imply that tournaments are the only factor in arguing balance. I was responding to you drawing conclusions(again of a false dichotomy nature) from only ladder representation. So each of your three points are inherently flawed, because they are counters to an argument that I never presented, but that you made up in place of my argument.
In terms of proving that the tournament win rates and information are "statistically significant", look back to the days when Terran was considered OP. Both ladder representation AND tournament results were skewed in favor of Terran. Likewise, at the end of WoL, both matched the belief in the communist that Zerg was imbalanced. Right now that isn't the case. Yes, Dear won two tournaments, playing better than his opponents. Yes, sOs won Blizzcon, by being ahead of the metagame and playing fantastically well in his own right. Three tournaments do not create the correlation needed, especially when everything else does not support that(in regards to tournaments).
When there has been a clear imbalance in SC2 history, both ladder representation and tournament results supported the same conclusion. That is not the case right now. Any attempt to use one or the other exclusively is erroneous.
Anyways, we just had a new major patch go through, which means that we can't possibly know about balance this early into the metagame development.
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On November 21 2013 08:24 Wingblade wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 08:02 Courthead wrote:On November 21 2013 06:39 Hider wrote: Protoss is better at bo1 with random opponents who you can't prepare against Translation: Protoss is OP on ladder. You can state it in whatever obtuse, convoluted way you want to, but you're still saying it. It's a problem, and Blizzard needs to fix it. And underpowered in tournament formats. There's a reason Protoss still did well on ladder in WoL and beyond but were simply not winning tournaments. Right now there are 1 or 2 Protoss players(Dear, sOs) who have for the most part figured out how to balance the tricky build order based play of ladder Protosses while also avoiding the extreme predictability that can cause many other Protoss to struggle. Things loke Rains mega defensive play, PartinG who for so long relied on the Soul Train and other allins that his current PvZ play is downright awful, MC who still is not close to what he used to be because the metagame has drifted towards heavy macro play and players learned how to defend. There are 2 players who have overcome Protoss' weaknesses of build order reliance in tournaments. In ladder, build order reliance is fine because the other player doesn't know your tendencies at all.
I disagree that Protoss is underpowered in tournaments. In the last 3 or 4 months Protoss players have been absolutely dominating, and we saw strong performances from SoS, DuckDeok, and Dear against top tier opponents. Tourney play is more-or-less balanced. The primary problem right now is ladder.
IMO the perfect game would be balanced for both ladder and tournaments. Is that extremely difficult to do? Of course. But it's still doable. Blizzard is working toward this goal, and I'd like to see them do a better job.
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I think people overrate tournament wins way too much. Going through a tournament is impressive, but not nearly the end all be all. Bracket luck, how they're feeling that day, preparation, among others are all possible factors that can change how someone plays. Let's just say Jaedong gets nervous during finals (lol), would 5 (I think it was) wins for Zerg sway how we think about how Zerg is in their ZvX mu's? I bet there would be tons of people who use that as evidence that Zerg was OP, for sure, no way around it.
Or hell, look at the Group of Death from Season 1 WCS 2013
Innovation at his fucking prime
Parting, soul train master
Flash, God
and Life when he was LIFE
Compare that to the top 4 that year of Soulkey, Innovation, Symbol and sOs. Now we know that sOs is really freaking good, and Soulkey and Innovation are too, but back then, who would take sOs over Parting? Who would take Soulkey on a consistent basis over Life? I don't think too many people would say that.
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EPT
