Also in the full article is an embedded Google spreadsheet that shows that calculations I did for every event if anyone wants to do any data digging for themselves.
Criteria: - Calculated based on Team Liquid listed “Premiere Events” and “Major Events” with a prize pool of at least $10,000, at least 16 competitors - Forfeited rounds are not calculated - Early competition rounds with more than 64 players were not counted as skill level between players is often too disparate to make useful comparisons.
Please note that this analysis is not trying to draw some big conclusion but rather provide some hard data about a commonly discussed topic in the hopes of having a more informed conversation. Welcome to any input on how I could have done this little project better.
In conclusion: Koreans own white dudes. Will they keep owing white dudes in the future? Some people say that HotS then LotV will help balancing the winrates (something to do with resetting the metagame) but, I'm not holding my breath tbh.
They should compare the top 32 koreans with the top 32 foreigners instead. There are many bad foreigners in foreign events while the bad koreans do not participate in those tournaments.
On September 07 2012 09:59 Fionn wrote: So you're telling me that Koreans, those folk from Asia, are better than everyone else?
Shit. Just. Got. Serious.
You'd be surprised of the amount of people that think the "gap" is closing. It's getting bigger and bigger. Take any player on a Korean team and he's as good or better than the best of the best foreigners (still makes me sick that the recent power rankings had Nerchio and Stephano both as top 10 in the world ><)
On September 07 2012 10:06 Hazuc wrote: They should compare the top 32 koreans with the top 32 foreigners instead. There are many bad foreigners in foreign events while the bad koreans do not participate in those tournaments.
On September 07 2012 10:06 Hazuc wrote: They should compare the top 32 koreans with the top 32 foreigners instead. There are many bad foreigners in foreign events while the bad koreans do not participate in those tournaments.
No one knows who the top 32 Koreans are.
What I'm trying to say is that most koreans playing in foreign tournaments are Code S level which is not really fair for comparisons.
Good work. Overall results are just as expected, but nice to know the numbers.
Personally, I could care less about the nationality of the players as long as they bring good starcraft games, but some people do care, so your research is very helpful.
I think that the more interesting conclusion is that non-Korean win rates against Koreans are overall declining. In other words, the skill gap between Koreans and non-Koreans is increasing.
From this, we might be able to draw conclusions on things that have been speculated on before. Namely, that the Korean method of training/practice or their mindset towards practice is simply superior. Given an equal period of time, Koreans seem to be improving faster than their foreign counterparts.
Thanks a bunch. For some reason the idea that Koreans were almost BW level untouchable in 2011 exists amongst certain members of the TL community. Probably selective memory only focusing on last year's MLG Columbus, Anaheim and Raleigh.
Two suggestions: 1) Include error bars. It is very easy and should show what are actually trends, and what are just fluctuations. You will get errors of a few percent I think, so "33.4%" is maybe a bit too ambitious way to write it, and just "33%" is probably enough.
2) To try to estimate the "well it's the best koreans vs scrub foreigners" argument above, you can plot round of 16,8,4 and finals separately. If indeed it is an important effect you will see koreans having better winrates in the earlier rounds. Beware of low statistics though, specially at the later rounds. Probably better to do this for all data, rather than quarter by quarter.