So I looked at the Premier tournaments page here: liquipedia.net. I noticed that on this Premier tournaments page from 2021 to 2022 (2022 so far), Terran has had the worst result in Premier tournaments for 1st and 2nd place finishes. 2021 to 2022 is a pretty good window as it looks at the time frame over the last year of performance, more or less.
The Premier tournaments page only lists first place and second place. But based on the results listed, Terran had the worst performance from 2021 to 2022 (2022 so far). I tabulated the total number of 1st & 2nd place results for Terran, Protoss, and Zerg:
Terran: 10 total 1st & 2nd place finishes Protoss: 14 total 1st & 2nd place finishes Zerg: 23 total 1st & 2nd place finishes
Notice that the Premier tournaments page has not been updated to include IEM Katowice in 2022. I believe the page should be updated to include the IEM Katowice results from 2022 soon. My tabulation includes the results for IEM Katowice 2022.
By far, Zerg performed the best in 1st and 2nd place finishes. Protoss performed the second best in 1st and 2nd place finishes (oddly, the community seems to think Protoss is struggling the most when this Premier tournament results page say otherwise). And Terran performed the worst.
I know threads like these look infuriating but you have to remember, xelnaga doesn't believe what he says himself. He knows that protoss is doing worse than terran. Nobody truly believes that protoss will do better than terran in the next ten or twenty tournaments assuming no patch. This isn't a case where reality needs to be explained to him, this is just a case where reality is already known, and is being ignored.
On February 28 2022 07:19 Nebuchad wrote: I know threads like these look infuriating but you have to remember, xelnaga doesn't believe what he says himself. He knows that protoss is doing worse than terran. Nobody truly believes that protoss will do better than terran in the next ten or twenty tournaments assuming no patch. This isn't a case where reality needs to be explained to him, this is just a case where reality is already known, and is being ignored.
I don't understand your logic when Zest won the last GSL Super Tournament. Obviously, Protoss is capable of winning at the top level in Korea, with Zest's recent win at the GSL Super Tournament, which was only a month ago.
As for reality? The reality is in the results/stats. Are you going to blame the Premier tournaments page as being biased? And this is over the 2021 to 2022 period which is a fair time frame.
I don't understand this type of thinking. The results/stats show that Terran performed the worst in Premier level tournaments from 2021 to 2022 for 1st and 2nd place finishes. Please go to the Premier tournaments page and double check for yourself (if I made a tabulation error for the 1st and 2nd place finishes, I will gladly update the tabulation I did).
Terran is actually the worst if you got rid of just Maru it would be extremely obvious that Terran is the weakest race at the pro level. Best Terran player is underdog against top 4 zergs.
On February 28 2022 07:31 honorablemacroterran wrote: Terran is actually the worst if you got rid of just Maru it would be extremely obvious that Terran is the weakest race at the pro level. Best Terran player is underdog against top 4 zergs.
This is actually correct. Unfortunately, Clem has not proven he can win at a Premier international tournament. While Clem is able to win the EU Dreamhacks (ie. EU Premier tournament only), when it comes to an international Premier tournament including the Koreans, Clem has not proven he can win those yet. So for now, it's just Maru who more or less wins in the Premier tournaments. Cure won the one GSL last year, but aside from winning that GSL, Cure has not won another Premier level tournament.
what you all are trying to say, but find it hard to formulate is that Zerg is dominating and ass whooping so hard and ruthless that is really tough to say who gets the bigger beatings, the protoss or the terran xD
Protoss and Zerg have 3 point from NA that don't really count though so it's more like 10-11-20 about even between terran and protoss and twice for the Zerg
It's really just a matter of a single player for Terran and Protoss though. Without Maru terran have 5 and without Trap Protoss have 4. (Comparatively Zerg still have 13 without Serral, more than the other races)
Funilly despite getting almost twice as many final spot as the two other race combined, it was actually a down year for zerg as the last three year total is 26(t)-24(p)-55(z). Winning in the last three year is even more zerg favored as it's 12(t)-9(p)-31(z).
I think if Maru were older Terran would be in the same position as Protoss if not even worse since he'd be in the military now. The problem is clearly Zerg.
On February 28 2022 07:38 honorablemacroterran wrote: Just do the stats without Maru and it will be very obvious.
I think we should do it without Serral, Rogue, Reynor and Dark. Then it should clearly show how zerg is weak right now.
Well that's exactly the point there's four Zergs where no player of another race is even odds or better against them. Yep, that's literally exactly the point.
I mean there's a lot to say about this but the laughable thing about is it that you are cherry picking statistics to get the result you want. Who lumps together first and second places when making balance complaints lol?
For example, if we do a far more traditional analysis of first places, and ignoring NA, we will get;
Terran: Seven Protoss: Six Zerg: Ten
Which both is (1) much less lopsided than what you have and (2) puts terran in the middle.
(i'm adding in KBOBII and Asus because they are 100% premier level tournaments)
And the reason there's more S-class tier zerg players than Zerg/Terran is because of how korean military service/retirement worked out. Of the big pros in the last few years we lost Stats, TY, Innovation, soO. We also lost classic, hero, Byun, Parting, who all tried to make comebacks but we know how that goes and we've never seen a post-military person re-reach their prior level (yet - I'm still hopeful for Classic/herO). Of these 8 individuals only one was Zerg, and him, soO, was inconsistent at best.
So if are you asking "oh hurr hurr are the zerg players just better?" - the answer is . . . yes. No, I don't think the four top zergs are, overall, meaningfully better than the other S class players like Maru/Trap/Zest, but there's just more of these Zerg S-class players and this necessarily means zerg will win more.
Tournament wins/finals appearances isn't the best way to judge balance, it's just one metric. Starcraft 2 is so thin at the top level that any retirement is going to greatly change statistics. Between last EPT season and this one half of the Terrans capable of winning international premier tournaments (maybe a third if we're being generous to Clem) left, that's going to throw things off.
I think Zerg is the strongest race, but it's also been least effected by high profile retirements. The only championship caliber Zerg to retire since 2017 was soO, whereas Protoss have lost Stats, Classic, and herO (the latter two are back but shadows of their former selves for now) and Terran have lost Inno, TY, and Byun (the latter two are back now.) The sample size at the very top is simply too small to make sweeping conclusions about balance.
If you go a level down and look at the "good but not consistent champion-contenders" players a clear picture emerges. Protoss consistently struggle to be evenly represented at even the top 8/top 16 level. Terran does not in the same way. The culprit is PvZ, which has been really hard for Protoss ever since mid 2019. TvP and ZvT may not be entirely balanced, but I don't think they're unacceptably lopsided either (imo TvP is slightly terran favored and ZvT is slightly zerg favored)
On February 28 2022 09:02 Pandain wrote: I mean there's a lot to say about this but the laughable thing about is it that you are cherry picking statistics to get the result you want. Who lumps together first and second places when making balance complaints lol?
(i'm adding in KBOBII and Asus because they are 100% premier level tournaments)
It's not cherry picking at all, it's what's available on that page. But you are kind of cherry picking though if you only look at 1st place results from that page. You are further cherry picking if you want to add KBOBII and Asus only from the Major tournaments - you either add all the Major tournaments, or don't add any Major tournaments at all. You can't cherry pick the Major tournaments you want to add, and then exclude all the other Major tournaments.
On February 28 2022 09:02 Pandain wrote: I mean there's a lot to say about this but the laughable thing about is it that you are cherry picking statistics to get the result you want. Who lumps together first and second places when making balance complaints lol?
It's not cherry picking at all, it's what's available on that page. But you are kind of cherry picking though if you only look at 1st place results.
Cherry-picking isn't related to picking what's available, it's about picking increasingly arbitrary statistics. I've never seen anyone else on this forum ever lump together first and second places, and by far the dominant metric this forum uses in balance discussions is first-place results.
Your absolutely right if you're saying its not meaningless, but you should also recognize other (and importantly, more intuitive) ways to view the same statistics that go against your thesis.
And to the extent we start getting into second place results or semifinal results, then the problem me and dysenterymd just laid out about how there's just more good zerg players due to korean retirements magnifies in effect because right now about half the S-class players are zerg so we should be expecting probably Ro8 and onwards that about half the bracket will be zerg. It's unfortunate, but if you want to nerf Zerg to the point that Cure/Zoun start winning championships regularly then I'm sorry but that would be the real problem because they simply are not as good, overall, as Rogue/Serral/Dark/in-form Reynor.
By the way, this completely is irrelevant to whether matchups like PvZ are garbage (it is) or whether I would love balance patches to come far more frequently to keep things interesting (yes).
And the reason there's more S-class tier zerg players than Zerg/Terran is because of how korean military service/retirement worked out. Of the big pros in the last few years we lost Stats, TY, Innovation, soO. We also lost classic, hero, Byun, Parting, who all tried to make comebacks but we know how that goes and we've never seen a post-military person re-reach their prior level (yet - I'm still hopeful for Classic/herO). Of these 8 individuals only one was Zerg, and him, soO, was inconsistent at best.
This is incredibly disingenuous given that 1. Zerg has dominated for the past three years, not just 2021. 2. Ty and Innovation weren't doing well before they left for military service. 3. There's no magical debuff upon returning from the military. Byun, Hero and Classic have been out for more than enough time to get back in shape.
On February 28 2022 09:13 Pandain wrote: Cherry-picking isn't related to picking what's available, it's about picking increasingly arbitrary statistics. I've never seen anyone else on this forum ever lump together first and second places, and by far the dominant metric this forum uses in balance discussions is first-place results.
IMO, only looking at 1st place wins and excluding everything else is a terrible metric for balancing.
And the reason there's more S-class tier zerg players than Zerg/Terran is because of how korean military service/retirement worked out. Of the big pros in the last few years we lost Stats, TY, Innovation, soO. We also lost classic, hero, Byun, Parting, who all tried to make comebacks but we know how that goes and we've never seen a post-military person re-reach their prior level (yet - I'm still hopeful for Classic/herO). Of these 8 individuals only one was Zerg, and him, soO, was inconsistent at best.
This is incredibly disingenuous given that 1. Zerg has dominated for the past three years, not just 2021. 2. Ty and Innovation weren't doing well before they left for military service. 3. There's no magical debuff upon returning from the military. Byun, Hero and Classic have been out for more than enough time to get back in shape.
2. TY put in the best results he had in years prior to going to military. Maybe not immediately before, but in the period he knew it was coming. Stats had dropped a bit before military, but Classic’s results were really solid. 3. For whatever reason, nobody’s managed to get back to their former glories post-military. Except Zoun, but he took service early and he’d never really broken through as a top tier player prior to service, so presumably had unfinished business.
They’re the strongest at the highest level, we’ll see how military goes and when the likes of Trap go. If you take Dark and Rogue out of Code S I don’t think there’s a Zerg capable of winning it
And the reason there's more S-class tier zerg players than Zerg/Terran is because of how korean military service/retirement worked out. Of the big pros in the last few years we lost Stats, TY, Innovation, soO. We also lost classic, hero, Byun, Parting, who all tried to make comebacks but we know how that goes and we've never seen a post-military person re-reach their prior level (yet - I'm still hopeful for Classic/herO). Of these 8 individuals only one was Zerg, and him, soO, was inconsistent at best.
This is incredibly disingenuous given that 1. Zerg has dominated for the past three years, not just 2021. 2. Ty and Innovation weren't doing well before they left for military service. 3. There's no magical debuff upon returning from the military. Byun, Hero and Classic have been out for more than enough time to get back in shape.
2. TY put in the best results he had in years prior to going to military. Maybe not immediately before, but in the period he knew it was coming. Stats had dropped a bit before military, but Classic’s results were really solid. 3. For whatever reason, nobody’s managed to get back to their former glories post-military. Except Zoun, but he took service early and he’d never really broken through as a top tier player prior to service, so presumably had unfinished business.
They’re the strongest at the highest level, we’ll see how military goes and when the likes of Trap go. If you take Dark and Rogue out of Code S I don’t think there’s a Zerg capable of winning it
Ty's last win was his GSL victory 7 months before he entered the military. He accomplished nothing of note in that period, so I think it's safe to say that he wouldn't have made a difference to the state of affairs in the latter half of 2021 had he not retired.
Byun won a major tournament a few months after he got out. Parting had arguably the best results of his career after returning from his LoL hiatus. The reason that the returnees aren't dominant isn't because they've lost their mojo, it's because the game is dominated by Zerg, and has been since 2018.
Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
On February 28 2022 09:45 honorablemacroterran wrote: Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
I mean now this conversation on your end just devolved into Maru fanboy-ism. At least engage in the conversation like Athenau.
On February 28 2022 09:45 honorablemacroterran wrote: Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
I mean now this conversation on your end just devolved into Maru fanboy-ism. At least engage in the conversation like Athenau.
tell me any player that is equal or better odds against the top 4 zergs that win every IEM and world championship since 2017?
On February 28 2022 09:45 honorablemacroterran wrote: Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
I mean now this conversation on your end just devolved into Maru fanboy-ism. At least engage in the conversation like Athenau.
tell me any player that is equal or better odds against the top 4 zergs that win every IEM and world championship since 2017?
Since 2021 Maru is 21-16 against Rogue. He's 14-10 against Dark. He's 10-10 against Serral. He's 11-10 against Reynor
On February 28 2022 09:59 honorablemacroterran wrote:
On February 28 2022 09:48 Pandain wrote:
On February 28 2022 09:45 honorablemacroterran wrote: Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
I mean now this conversation on your end just devolved into Maru fanboy-ism. At least engage in the conversation like Athenau.
tell me any player that is equal or better odds against the top 4 zergs that win every IEM and world championship since 2017?
Since 2021 Maru is 21-16 against Rogue. He's 14-10 against Dark. He's 10-10 against Serral. He's 11-10 against Reynor
From where are you getting your statistics? Clearly not the same place as ESL because they had Maru at 4-6 against Serral before their match.
On February 28 2022 09:59 honorablemacroterran wrote:
On February 28 2022 09:48 Pandain wrote:
On February 28 2022 09:45 honorablemacroterran wrote: Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
I mean now this conversation on your end just devolved into Maru fanboy-ism. At least engage in the conversation like Athenau.
tell me any player that is equal or better odds against the top 4 zergs that win every IEM and world championship since 2017?
Since 2021 Maru is 21-16 against Rogue. He's 14-10 against Dark. He's 10-10 against Serral. He's 11-10 against Reynor
From where are you getting your statistics? Clearly not the same place as ESL because they had Maru at 4-6 against Serral before their match.
Aligulac. I'm sure there's a more direct way to do it but go here http://aligulac.com/inference/ and put in your two players, then below the prediction it shows you the match history.
Btw: ESL statistic might be series - but I think games is equally if not more valuable.
And the reason there's more S-class tier zerg players than Zerg/Terran is because of how korean military service/retirement worked out. Of the big pros in the last few years we lost Stats, TY, Innovation, soO. We also lost classic, hero, Byun, Parting, who all tried to make comebacks but we know how that goes and we've never seen a post-military person re-reach their prior level (yet - I'm still hopeful for Classic/herO). Of these 8 individuals only one was Zerg, and him, soO, was inconsistent at best.
This is incredibly disingenuous given that 1. Zerg has dominated for the past three years, not just 2021. 2. Ty and Innovation weren't doing well before they left for military service. 3. There's no magical debuff upon returning from the military. Byun, Hero and Classic have been out for more than enough time to get back in shape.
2. TY put in the best results he had in years prior to going to military. Maybe not immediately before, but in the period he knew it was coming. Stats had dropped a bit before military, but Classic’s results were really solid. 3. For whatever reason, nobody’s managed to get back to their former glories post-military. Except Zoun, but he took service early and he’d never really broken through as a top tier player prior to service, so presumably had unfinished business.
They’re the strongest at the highest level, we’ll see how military goes and when the likes of Trap go. If you take Dark and Rogue out of Code S I don’t think there’s a Zerg capable of winning it
Ty's last win was his GSL victory 7 months before he entered the military. He accomplished nothing of note in that period, so I think it's safe to say that he wouldn't have made a difference to the state of affairs in the latter half of 2021 had he not retired.
Byun won a major tournament a few months after he got out. Parting had arguably the best results of his career after returning from his LoL hiatus. The reason that the returnees aren't dominant isn't because they've lost their mojo, it's because the game is dominated by Zerg, and has been since 2018.
TY got Ro4 in a Super Tournament and DHack Last Chance after his GSL win. Nothing to shout from the rooftops from but given the paucity of current Terran results you’d take another player making runs like that in brackets now. I think TY won that GSL and had a good year because his military was due, not in spite of mind. It seemed to focus him on getting over the line, whereas Inno seemed long burned out and had accomplished all he really wanted to already.
From the Protoss perspective, Trap and Zest have carried Protoss for donkeys, with Zoun chipping in if the tournament is called Super Tournament.
In a non-military world I’m not sure if the likes of Stats, Classic, TY, herO are necessarily going to be always threatening for championships, or at their peak. But, they sure as hell make brackets harder for anyone, even the big 4 Zergs. Stats and Serral had a period of intense rivalry where Stats took him out in that (Assembly?) memorably, Classic’s legendary shadow strike clutch build, TY’s set planning in GSL etc.
Do they win Katowice? Not necessarily but be it groups, or playoffs those guys are good enough to at least thin the herd. Heromarine had a miracle run too this time, which was great to see. But I think most of us who longed for a non-Zerg champion had our hopes of Maru negotiating a TvZ gauntlet vs whoever of the big 4 he had to face, or a Zerg champion.
You have that extra depth, the potential for someone to have a good series and take those guys out gets higher. I’d still favour the big 4 to take home a Katowice on balance, but we could at least see some more racial variety in the brackets.
I think Byun looked a better player when he did take that tournament quite shorty after returning than he is now. He doesn’t seem to have a motivation issue, on all likelihood the wrists have stopped him getting closer to his former glory.
Gumiho hasn’t done anything, Classic and herO have showed some flashes. DRG can make a run if all he’s got to play is ZvT. Zoun and Dream took their military early, Zoun is probably the one player who’s done better post military than before and Dream has been decent and made some good runs, while not quite matching the form that gave him a Starleague silver.
I don’t see any reason why a military returnee can’t return to their absolute peak, provided the motivation is there, but end of the day nobody’s really properly done it. Minus Zoun
For the record I think it’s possible that Zerg either through their raw balance numbers or the map pool/a combination of the two are a bit too strong at the top level, Reynor/Serral/Dark/Rogue being amongst the outright best 5/6 players in the world, and that Terran/Protoss have suffered more from retirements and military, can be simultaneously all true to varying degrees.
If Protoss wasn’t strong enough, especially in PvZ to take a Code S or a World Championship when Stats and Classic were in shape, or subsequently when Trap had his tremendous year and Zest did his miracle runs, how the hell are they going to do it when Zest is gone, Trap seems to be on his way out, Stats is still in military and Classic and herO aren’t quite back to prior glories?
On the flip side, Zergs outside the big 4 haven’t really done a huge amount in the past few years, those players are clearly amazing at the game. How do you nerf Zerg that 1/2% to make them less dominant while not having that trickle down to basically every other Zerg pro?
On February 28 2022 10:18 honorablemacroterran wrote: Why would you use game statistics instead of series statistics when the top level is about series play, especially bo5+.
Games won is a better indication of how players match up against each other. If Serral wins three best of threes against Maru 2-1, and then lost to Maru 4-0 twice in two best of sevens (3-2 series Serral, 6-10 in games) I'm not sure its fair to say that Serral is favored versus Maru next time they play. At the very least, merely stating series is not the full story.
But let's even go to series for Maru. Since 2021, Maru is 3-4 in series against Serral, 4-3-1 against Dark, 6-4 againt Rogue, and 4-3 against Reynor. So same story.
And I literally just picked another player, Zest. Since 2011, Zest is 4-4 in Series against Reynor and 11-12 in games. He's 6-5 in series against Dark and 20-23 in games. Zest and Rogue play a ton so I'm not doing all the math, but in the last six months he's 7-0 (!!!) against Rogue in series and 20-7 in games. Zest is 2-4 in series against Serral and 6-9 in games.
So it's clear Zest and Maru, literally just the first two I explored, are indeed very competitive against all of the top zergs with the exception of Zest versus Serral (but, conversely, Zest absolutely smokes Rogue).
On February 28 2022 07:31 honorablemacroterran wrote: Terran is actually the worst if you got rid of just Maru it would be extremely obvious that Terran is the weakest race at the pro level. Best Terran player is underdog against top 4 zergs.
no they're not, if you get rid of Maru then it's only fair that Protoss gets rid of Trap. AT LEAST Cure won GSL and Clem won EU P= Zest winning 1 tourney (and Neeb winning NA which is negligible)
On the flip side, Zergs outside the big 4 haven’t really done a huge amount in the past few years, those players are clearly amazing at the game. How do you nerf Zerg that 1/2% to make them less dominant while not having that trickle down to basically every other Zerg pro?
Plenty of Zergs outside of the top 4 have made finals runs or even won the occasional tournament in the last few years. Why would you expect anymore than that for the 5th best player of a race? Players like soO, Solar, Elazer, and Lambo have all done a hell of a lot more than the 5th best T/P players.
On February 28 2022 07:31 honorablemacroterran wrote: Terran is actually the worst if you got rid of just Maru it would be extremely obvious that Terran is the weakest race at the pro level. Best Terran player is underdog against top 4 zergs.
no they're not, if you get rid of Maru then it's only fair that Protoss gets rid of Trap. AT LEAST Cure won GSL and Clem won EU P= Zest winning 1 tourney (and Neeb winning NA which is negligible)
But you can't also discount the number of time Zest and Zoun came in 2nd place, and were within striking distance of winning a Premier tournament in 2021/2022: Premier Tournaments. For Zoun, he came in 2nd place twice in the GSL Super Tournament, albeit, he was stopped by Trap in the finals. For Zest, he got the the finals of IEM Katowice in 2021, and he also got to the finals of GSL Season 3 in 2021.
On the flip side, Zergs outside the big 4 haven’t really done a huge amount in the past few years, those players are clearly amazing at the game. How do you nerf Zerg that 1/2% to make them less dominant while not having that trickle down to basically every other Zerg pro?
Plenty of Zergs outside of the top 4 have made finals runs or even won the occasional tournament in the last few years. Why would you expect anymore than that for the 5th best player of a race? Players like soO, Solar, Elazer, and Lambo have all done a hell of a lot more than the 5th best T/P players.
But this brings us back to the same problem as before - the reason you have a quick drop off in player level for T/P is that most of the retirees over the past few years have been T/P.
I think that's pretty undisputed. And once you acknowledge that and instead try to think "how are A-tier Terrans/Protosses doing compared to A-tier Zergs" - I don't think it's true at all that Solar/Elazer/Lambo perform better, relatively speaking, than Zoun/Byun/Cure. And in fact, even the opposite, because Byun and Cure have both won things.
On February 28 2022 09:45 honorablemacroterran wrote: Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
Didn't Reynor also start with 13? What is your point again?
So apparently we now focus balance on S-Tier winning players only. Fine. There are four Zerg who win World Championships - Serral, Dark, Rogue and Reynor. There are obviously other good zerg players like Solar, but lets work these dominant four. For the other races lets say Trap and maybe Zest are on that list for protoss and Maru for terran, with Cure/Heromarine/Clem following close behind. But again, lets just say only Trap and Maru are in that elite S-Tier. Please tell me three other players of each race that have fallen out of that Tier over the last years, not factoring in inactivity/lack of motivation/military. Which six players (three terran, three protoss) should be in that S-Tier, but can't reach it because of balance? And ONLY because of balance?
The realitiy is: Tournament winnings don't say anything about balance, because you can't assume there is a perfect balance between the players. Skill, dedication and sometimes even pure luck are far more important. Take Kattowice: Zerg was actually the least represented race (even if you take out Ryung/uThermal and take in Armani/Ragnarok). But because Zerg has the luxury of having four phenomenal players, who are dominanting the game for years by now, there were still five zergs in the playoffs and in the end, three in semis. But if Zerg was THAT much better than any other race, why were there no upsets? Why didn't Lambo and Scalett make it out of their groups? They are definetly not S-Tier, but I don't think they are that much worse than Dream or Zoun, so why didn't they easily sweep everyone else except the zergs? Why didn't DRG manage to take a single map in the Play-Ins? Should have been easy for him with a clearly dominant race? And how come Maru, the greatest player who ever touched the game and is 10x better than everyone else, isn't just switching race? Sure, he would need a bit of time, but at the end of the year he should be at a top level with Zerg (because again, he is a god and can only stopped through balance, everyone knows that). Or is he concerned his pure dominance would ruin the competition? Who knows...
On a serious note: Zerg isn't overpowered, it just has the luck to have four world champion caliber players left. But actually, outside of those four, Zerg is kind of struggeling (or was). Since you people love to look at tourney results: Just look at GSL alone. Do you know who the last Zerg was who won a GSL that wasn't Dark/Rogue? It was Life in 2015. In the same timespan five different terrans (Maru, Cure, Innovation, TY, Gumiho) won a GSL. And while Protoss has serious problems winning a GSL since forever, lots of different Protoss atleast made Runner-Up. Do you know, how many Zergs were in GSL finals since Life won, not counting Dark/Solar? One (soO). Only three zerg players managed to reach a GSL final since 2015. Sorry, but that doesn't sound very imbalanced to me...
On the flip side, Zergs outside the big 4 haven’t really done a huge amount in the past few years, those players are clearly amazing at the game. How do you nerf Zerg that 1/2% to make them less dominant while not having that trickle down to basically every other Zerg pro?
Plenty of Zergs outside of the top 4 have made finals runs or even won the occasional tournament in the last few years. Why would you expect anymore than that for the 5th best player of a race? Players like soO, Solar, Elazer, and Lambo have all done a hell of a lot more than the 5th best T/P players.
But this brings us back to the same problem as before - the reason you have a quick drop off in player level for T/P is that most of the retirees over the past few years have been T/P.
I think that's pretty undisputed. And once you acknowledge that and instead try to think "how are A-tier Terrans/Protosses doing compared to A-tier Zergs" - I don't think it's true at all that Solar/Elazer/Lambo perform better, relatively speaking, than Zoun/Byun/Cure. And in fact, even the opposite, because Byun and Cure have both won things.
It was true before the recent retirements too though. Taking 2018- 2020 as a whole the 5th best Zerg did better than the 5th best T/P of those 3 years and that was mostly before the classic/Stats/TY/Inno retirements. Remove Maru/TY/Inno/Cure and T had no successful players in that era. Remove Stats, Classic, Trap, Zest and once again no success. Not even second places. After discounting the top 4, Zerg still had soO winning TSL and IEM, Scarlett winning a smaller IEM, Elazer 2nd in GSL vs the World, Solar 2nd places. I would also argue that during certain tournaments of 2019 and 2020 their were some ZvZ eliminations that had they not happened or the result was reversed could have resulted in some bigger performances from the 5th and on best Z players. Their were occasionally TvT and PvPs that could have done the same but they feel much rarer.
On February 28 2022 07:31 honorablemacroterran wrote: Terran is actually the worst if you got rid of just Maru it would be extremely obvious that Terran is the weakest race at the pro level. Best Terran player is underdog against top 4 zergs.
no they're not, if you get rid of Maru then it's only fair that Protoss gets rid of Trap. AT LEAST Cure won GSL and Clem won EU P= Zest winning 1 tourney (and Neeb winning NA which is negligible)
But you can't also discount the number of time Zest and Zoun came in 2nd place, and were within striking distance of winning a Premier tournament in 2021/2022: Premier Tournaments. For Zoun, he came in 2nd place twice in the GSL Super Tournament, albeit, he was stopped by Trap in the finals. For Zest, he got the the finals of IEM Katowice in 2021, and he also got to the finals of GSL Season 3 in 2021.
Clem, Cure, Maru have gotten 2nd place more recently. Cure in Last chance against Maru; Clem against Serral in DH EU; Maru against Reynor in the DH Summer Finals and against Rogue in both the 1st GSL Finals and ST Finals. Zest was the last person to go to a final and win for Protoss and before that no Protoss has been in a final since Neeb vs Scarlett in DH NA Winter where Neeb lost, and if we don't count that then it would be Trap in Fall. So the last time a Protoss entered a non-NA final and won was in January this year. the time when a Protoss was in a final, period (regardless of wins or losses), was in September
The most fun thing about this is how Reynor performed relatively bad but as soon as there is big money on the line he can just practice and reach the finals easily. When the stakes were low Maru was able to beat the zergs on the new map pool, but in GSL:ST and IEM he could not do anything. Similarly to the future of Protoss thread, all we can hope is that there will indeed be a future balance patch, and that maps are carefully crafted for better balance.
On February 28 2022 09:45 honorablemacroterran wrote: Yep guys it's normal for there to be four players of one race that are favored against the best players of the other races who have been playing on the big stage since they were 13 years old.
I mean now this conversation on your end just devolved into Maru fanboy-ism. At least engage in the conversation like Athenau.
tell me any player that is equal or better odds against the top 4 zergs that win every IEM and world championship since 2017?
Maru in KR.
E: and yes, the mappool is currently awful. Pride of Altaris has to go. Remove Glittering Sands and Blackburn for maps that give protoss better opportunities in ZvP, and imho the whole issue is fixed.
It's been almost 4 years since zerg started winning the most, there has to be a point where people stop trying to say it's because of the military as a justification, that lasts less than 2 years.
Instead of race balance, we are just in cycle in which top Zerg players are really strong. In Korea, the end of Proleague stopped the attraction of new players. The current top KR players are still the same minus the ones going to military. So every year, there is a decline for them. On the contrary, in EU scene, we had the rise of Serral to god level but also new players like Reynor, Clem, Skillous... which benefit to improve overall level of all EU players.
A balance patch would still be good not to nerf/buff one race, but to force new strategies and renew interest of players in general.
Had absolutely zero interest in watching the playoffs of iem since I knew it was gonna be another zerg victory. It kinda ruins the fun of competitive games when the result is known beforehand and the only thing to find out which of the zergs is better at zvz that day.
On February 28 2022 21:07 TheCheapSkate wrote: Had absolutely zero interest in watching the playoffs of iem since I knew it was gonna be another zerg victory. It kinda ruins the fun of competitive games when the result is known beforehand and the only thing to find out which of the zergs is better at zvz that day.
Yeah, same for me. Once the Ro12 was done, I knew it was going to be a Zerg champion. It's just the format and the map pool that favours Zerg. Katowice is also at the end of a long season when all the maps were figured out, which always favours Zerg. I like Rotti's suggestion of bringing back all the best maps of the year for Katowice, instead of the current map pool. This tournament is very reminiscent of Blizzcon 2019 - all Zergs... (Solar would have been in semis if he didn't throw against HM).
I also think they need to spread out to more days, because I can tell that the players got tired towards the end of the day, and their play suffered.
On the flip side, Zergs outside the big 4 haven’t really done a huge amount in the past few years, those players are clearly amazing at the game. How do you nerf Zerg that 1/2% to make them less dominant while not having that trickle down to basically every other Zerg pro?
Plenty of Zergs outside of the top 4 have made finals runs or even won the occasional tournament in the last few years. Why would you expect anymore than that for the 5th best player of a race? Players like soO, Solar, Elazer, and Lambo have all done a hell of a lot more than the 5th best T/P players.
You minus soO who wasn’t himself right in the last stretch of his career, but one of the all-time greats and you’re left with 4/5 of the best Zergs of the last span, probably 3+ years, maybe longer. Also probably a decent chunk of their GOAT list
Zerg’s actual best players are still playing and in very good form.
My point was unlike the clearly broken WoL BL/Infestor era, Zerg isn’t that broken now. Good, solid pros like Elazer or Lambo or a DRG make an occasional run, they’re not consistently beating players of other races above them in the pecking order, nor consistently stomping on those of their level.
They’re performing basically to expectation as 5th plus best Zerg, A-tier players, who are still really good.
If balance is an issue, it’s that element of balance pertaining to what the big 4 can do that the others cannot, and is it even a balance thing or are they just that good? I don’t know, but I don’t really buy ‘Zerg is broken because World Champs’ by itself.
I think Zoun is a very good player and he’s been on an upward curve. If we’re looking a similar span to the Zergs he’s probably been the 5th best Protoss on accomplishments
Depending on how Classic/herO get back to shape, how quickly Trap departs to military etc we could likely be seeing a scenario where a best Protoss vs best Zerg fixture is Zoun vs one of those top 4 Zergy lads
Which is almost a de facto 5th vs best in real terms, and my expectations are realistic as to how that goes
On February 28 2022 09:13 Pandain wrote: Cherry-picking isn't related to picking what's available, it's about picking increasingly arbitrary statistics. I've never seen anyone else on this forum ever lump together first and second places, and by far the dominant metric this forum uses in balance discussions is first-place results.
IMO, only looking at 1st place wins and excluding everything else is a terrible metric for balancing.
RO8 is probably a good thing to look at, since you're probably looking at the top 8 players, rather than the best player. Gives a better idea what the top-end of the playerbase looks like, compared to just who the best player is.
For example, zerg winning 10 tournament is one way to look at it, but if 100% of top 8 of those tournaments was zerg, that would be _way_ worse. Likeiwse, if 1 out of 8 for 100% of those tournament was zerg, it would highlight it's probably just 1 person.
Realistically, it's probably more like 4/8 zerg, 2/8 terran, 2/8 protoss, which still highlights something, but kind of broadens the horizons.
i never write anything but if you think about all the players that retired it was mostly terrans at least in my mind. i always thought terrans were harder to play and had to micro so much more than other races and after medi drops got figured out like there isnt much therrans can do to win.. at least thats why i stopped playing. and yeah if you take maru out and no innovation it doesnt look that great for terrans. plus the maps kept getting bigger which is worse for terrans and if you make them small maps people will cheese and rush. so you cant really win when you play terran . plus you get scouted so easily when you play terran you cant hide anything.
On February 28 2022 09:13 Pandain wrote: Cherry-picking isn't related to picking what's available, it's about picking increasingly arbitrary statistics. I've never seen anyone else on this forum ever lump together first and second places, and by far the dominant metric this forum uses in balance discussions is first-place results.
IMO, only looking at 1st place wins and excluding everything else is a terrible metric for balancing.
RO8 is probably a good thing to look at, since you're probably looking at the top 8 players, rather than the best player. Gives a better idea what the top-end of the playerbase looks like, compared to just who the best player is.
For example, zerg winning 10 tournament is one way to look at it, but if 100% of top 8 of those tournaments was zerg, that would be _way_ worse. Likeiwse, if 1 out of 8 for 100% of those tournament was zerg, it would highlight it's probably just 1 person.
Realistically, it's probably more like 4/8 zerg, 2/8 terran, 2/8 protoss, which still highlights something, but kind of broadens the horizons.
It's also a bit tricky, because Code S only really has 2 top zerg, and counts as a premium tournament, whereas WCS Europe has the other 2, but doesn't count as premium (for good reason). Meanwhile international tournaments have all 4 top zerg compete, and is therefore heavily biased towards zerg.
Code S in 2021: Season 1: 1/8 zerg. Season 2: 3/8 zerg. Season 3: 2/8 zerg.
The only non-Rogue, non-Dark zerg to make a single GSL Ro8 appearance is DRG once. However, you look at *wins* and 2/3 Code S was won by Zerg. In KR at least, it seems Zerg other than Rogue and Dark is kinda sadly underpowered. It's just that both Rogue and Dark are S-tier players.
WCS EU is a bit different story, as Lambo and Elazer are generally top-8-adjacent players in EU: Summer: 4/8 Fall: 2/8 Winter: 3/8
But it still doesn't look awfully unbalanced. It's just that at the end of the day, Reynor and Serral dominate even moreso than Rogue and Dark do in KR. Sure, Clem and Maxpax take the odd tournament, but really the only question in EU tournaments has been whether Reynor or Serral will win it for the last 2 years.
Now it's possible that *at* S-tier, Zerg is too good, and that makes it so players like Maru and Trap don't win what they *deserve*. But if that were the case in 2018, as some people here seem to be claiming, how come that was the year of Maru?
It seems far more likely to be down to the map pool. And I will agree that in TvZ the current mappool favors zerg (Pride of Altaris disgustingly so). I feel maps are less the problem in PvZ, it's just a broken matchup (and has been since WoL).
On February 28 2022 09:13 Pandain wrote: Cherry-picking isn't related to picking what's available, it's about picking increasingly arbitrary statistics. I've never seen anyone else on this forum ever lump together first and second places, and by far the dominant metric this forum uses in balance discussions is first-place results.
IMO, only looking at 1st place wins and excluding everything else is a terrible metric for balancing.
RO8 is probably a good thing to look at, since you're probably looking at the top 8 players, rather than the best player. Gives a better idea what the top-end of the playerbase looks like, compared to just who the best player is.
For example, zerg winning 10 tournament is one way to look at it, but if 100% of top 8 of those tournaments was zerg, that would be _way_ worse. Likeiwse, if 1 out of 8 for 100% of those tournament was zerg, it would highlight it's probably just 1 person.
Realistically, it's probably more like 4/8 zerg, 2/8 terran, 2/8 protoss, which still highlights something, but kind of broadens the horizons.
It's also a bit tricky, because Code S only really has 2 top zerg, and counts as a premium tournament, whereas WCS Europe has the other 2, but doesn't count as premium (for good reason). Meanwhile international tournaments have all 4 top zerg compete, and is therefore heavily biased towards zerg.
Code S in 2021: Season 1: 1/8 zerg. Season 2: 3/8 zerg. Season 3: 2/8 zerg.
The only non-Rogue, non-Dark zerg to make a single GSL Ro8 appearance is DRG once. However, you look at *wins* and 2/3 Code S was won by Zerg. In KR at least, it seems Zerg other than Rogue and Dark is kinda sadly underpowered. It's just that both Rogue and Dark are S-tier players.
WCS EU is a bit different story, as Lambo and Elazer are generally top-8-adjacent players in EU: Summer: 4/8 Fall: 2/8 Winter: 3/8
But it still doesn't look awfully unbalanced. It's just that at the end of the day, Reynor and Serral dominate even moreso than Rogue and Dark do in KR. Sure, Clem and Maxpax take the odd tournament, but really the only question in EU tournaments has been whether Reynor or Serral will win it for the last 2 years.
Now it's possible that *at* S-tier, Zerg is too good, and that makes it so players like Maru and Trap don't win what they *deserve*. But if that were the case in 2018, as some people here seem to be claiming, how come that was the year of Maru?
It seems far more likely to be down to the map pool. And I will agree that in TvZ the current mappool favors zerg (Pride of Altaris disgustingly so). I feel maps are less the problem in PvZ, it's just a broken matchup (and has been since WoL).
Nothing I really disagree with there!
If Maru, to take one example was to win Katowice he would have had to take out Serral, Rogue in back to back Bo5s, and Reynor in a Bo7 which would be quite the feat. Especially when he’d have to play Pride of Altaris in a final (also why did he not veto it against Serral?!)
The World Championship bring almost every non-balance Zerg benefit into play too. You bring the big 4, super motivated for one. You also bring a format that both benefits better players and consistency.
GSL you can misread builds twice, lose two Bo3s and a better player can exit in groups. Happens less nowadays as I think the gaps are bigger than they used to, but you can’t slip up.
Then when GSL goes to playoffs you’ve got the prep time to come up with some bespoke plans to snipe your opponent.
Katowice you’ve got a format where it’s almost guaranteed all the Zerg big 4 make it out to Ro12 at worst, and then we’re into a Bo5+ gauntlet.
Zerg, by virtue of it having a lot of defensive reactive capacity is absolutely the best race for such a gauntlet. The more sets the better, a Serral may botch a read in a Bo3 and be snipeable. Bo5+ that shifts from being a potentially eliminating set to being a set he drops in a Bo5, Zergs of that calibre don’t tend to make that many mistakes, or be bamboozled easily.
If your opponent has previously sniped some of your Zerg brethren you can see how they did it, make those adjustments and go in feeling ok.
Prior to this we’ve seen this over and over in Katowice, soO stomped on Stat’s and his cool style he had success with in a final. Zest could only eliminate so many Zergs with his new pocket build before he got smacked in finals, Serral eviscerated Classic after he’d eliminated Rogue with that ballsy Shadow Strike build. Etc etc
I think maybe scouting is a bit too easy (sensor tower are maybe a bit powerful too) for zerg, most games serral and reynor paid overlord speed and with creep + changelings if you are as good as they are that basically means you know at all times where is your opponent and what he has and you can adjust.
On top of the raw statistics, I think we should probably also consider how the games play out.
From my perspective, it seems like the natural flow of Zerg games is that if they're not super far behind midgame, they naturally out expand the other race while having massive map vision and then overwhelm the other race by trading waves of units with a superior economy. It feels like there's a timer on the other race to stop Zerg before they hit that lategame.
If we're discussing based on statistics, the future of protoss thread has 45 pages, this one only has 4, we can only conclude that protoss is weaker than terran.
On March 01 2022 04:35 nojok wrote: If we're discussing based on statistics, the future of protoss thread has 45 pages, this one only has 4, we can only conclude that protoss is weaker than terran.
Terran’s PPM (post per month) is higher though.
It’s unfair they aren’t winning if they’re doing stuff faster
Given this is a 1st and 2nd place tally, can we also remove the 1st and 2nd place contenders for each race from the pool then re tally.
If you have the time to score the semi-finalist per race, with the top dogs removed, that would be interesting as well.
I hope the latter of the two counts has pretty close results, if no one does this in a day or two, if I think about this on lunch one day at work I may do the tally myself.
Those players would be: Based of aligulac Zerg: Serral Raynor
Gave up watching during the knockouts as well. Painfully obvious that a ZvZ final was inevitable (which only a Maru miracle could stop). It's not just results, there's just no fun watching the current state of swarm domination. It's as bad as broodlord-infestor era. The only difference is that top Zergs are winning rather than some randoms. I honestly feel that the only reason the current state is bearable now is because of the hype generated by fan favourites (Serral, Reynor, Dark, and yes, even Rogue). It's the narrative rather than gameplay itself keeping the scene alive.
I also feel BW is somewhat Zerg-favoured now. Yet, I still get a lot of joy watching the games. That's because even abusive plays (hydra bust, muta micro, dark swarm) still comes with a lot of nice strategic and tactical touches.
Maybe I'm biased and a BW elitist. But as much as I really want to support SC2 (sometimes I just turn on the stream without watching just to add viewership), I think I would rather invest my time and energy in ASL.
Balance is one thing, and I am not remotely qualified to speak to that. The other problem is without new blood getting into the scene, the power structure at the top is very unlikely to change.
It was mentioned above that if Dark and Rogue retire, what other Zerg would have a chance to win Code S. That question to me is flawed in a sense, because when 2-3 additional top players retire, you might actually struggle to find 16 players in Korea to compete in the first place - this is simply not Code S anymore where anything can happen and only absolut monsters like MVP, Life, Innovation could win several times.
For people that are following the scene since 10+ years (including BW), we are mostly aware (I assume) that a little tweak in maps or s slight spin of the startegic foundation of a match-up by one race (say P in PvZ) might lead to a shift in the matchup and drastic different outcomes. Or even a slight balance change by Blizzard could do the trick. The problem for me is that there is noone left to perform such a task, when no top players are left to lead the charge and no blood is coming in.
SC2 is super fun to watch, but it needs new players in Korea (everywhere, really) to survive. Otherwise it will be a european game very soon.
On February 28 2022 21:07 TheCheapSkate wrote: Had absolutely zero interest in watching the playoffs of iem since I knew it was gonna be another zerg victory. It kinda ruins the fun of competitive games when the result is known beforehand and the only thing to find out which of the zergs is better at zvz that day.
Oracle!
Please PM me the next winning lottery numbers, thank you.
On March 01 2022 17:33 Malinor wrote: Balance is one thing, and I am not remotely qualified to speak to that. The other problem is without new blood getting into the scene, the power structure at the top is very unlikely to change.
It was mentioned above that if Dark and Rogue retire, what other Zerg would have a chance to win Code S. That question to me is flawed in a sense, because when 2-3 additional top players retire, you might actually struggle to find 16 players in Korea to compete in the first place - this is simply not Code S anymore where anything can happen and only absolut monsters like MVP, Life, Innovation could win several times.
For people that are following the scene since 10+ years (including BW), we are mostly aware (I assume) that a little tweak in maps or s slight spin of the startegic foundation of a match-up by one race (say P in PvZ) might lead to a shift in the matchup and drastic different outcomes. Or even a slight balance change by Blizzard could do the trick. The problem for me is that there is noone left to perform such a task, when no top players are left to lead the charge and no blood is coming in.
SC2 is super fun to watch, but it needs new players in Korea (everywhere, really) to survive. Otherwise it will be a european game very soon.
You are totally right, but sadly, there isn't much you can do about that. I would never say SC2 is a "dead game", but it definetly is a "closed game", meaning you have to work with the player-pool you have, there won't be much new blod anymore. If we get lucky, maybe someone like ByuN shows up, who has played the game at a decent level in the past and now invests more time in it again, but how likely is it that something like that happens again? For the most part: Imagine someone has seen IEM now and thinks "wow, this game is awesome!" He picks it up and wants to compete at it at a high level. How long would you say does someone need to play the game at an above decent level, lets say Master? Six to nine month of dedicated play? And how long after that until he can play not only in high level tournaments, but actually compete with the best? Two years? Three? Obviously fulltime. Why would anyone make such an investment? Since there is barely any team-structure and no above S-class support system, you completly rely on streaming or the occasional cup win to finance yourself. And even IF you have the skill and dedication to become the next great player, why would you start that in a game that can't guarantee you, that it will have significant money to give out in three years? Grubby was once asked "if I pick up WC3 now, what would I need the most to become a pro gamer?" and his answer was "you need to have started playing the game 10 years ago". Same goes for a lot of older games, that just don't have much fluctuation anymore. It is not like in CS:GO or LoL, where you have a rich playerbase and a multi-layered support system that provides money for those who aren't playing in the highest tier.
Assuming the current prize pools and rough structure remain, I could see a European based player, who is pretty young emerging. If they’re very talented, there’s enough good talent in the region. If you can get to the level of making decent EPT cup showings, the odd WCS qualification is in your reach. And if you’re 16/17 looking going full time isn’t such a bad option and get better and see how you do. Worst case you delay going to college for a year to follow that dream and don’t quite make it.
NA less so, although there’s a similar structure there doesn’t seem the depth in the region to prepare a new player to gradually improve to the level of making a decent living as a pro.
Kr is still too stacked, especially relative to the prize pools. Unless you’ve already got team backing, you need to immediately be a player capable of at minimum making Code S every season, ideally being good enough to make deep runs and qualify for international tournaments.
If one looks at Trap’s career earnings and compares to some of his peers, considering he’s got the record for GSL Ro8s in a row, those GSL silvers, those STs and those internationals, he’s pretty illustrative about how the Korean prize pools have been declining. And that’s Trap having some of the most resolutely consistent few years it’s almost possible to have.
I think blooding new players is certainly more likely if patches keep coming in some form. When a game has been static for so long, like WC3 or BW it’s really hard to overcome. A lot of stock knowledge is in people’s memories and not written down, or it’s spread all over the internet and hard to find. Or tidbits of particular knowledge are holdovers from previous metas and the old hand knows what’s up in a wonky scenario, where a new player is highly unlikely to.
Despite great efforts in many instances, you only have to go look to see how outdated some resources are for SC2 or BW.
On the plus side I think WC3 is a great example that older players with that knowledge can be the dominant players in an eSports title. Certain old preconceptions about longevity seem to be long dispelled.
AoE4 has both AoE veterans and general RTS veterans making hay in new fields, which I think bodes well for it but any potential SC/WC successor too
On February 28 2022 07:50 Nakajin wrote: Funilly despite getting almost twice as many final spot as the two other race combined, it was actually a down year for zerg as the last three year total is 26(t)-24(p)-55(z). Winning in the last three year is even more zerg favored as it's 12(t)-9(p)-31(z).
Yikes. Those last 3 years of stats looks very lopsided for Zerg.
I’m not saying Zerg aren’t in an extremely strong state.
Specifically as to their World Championship performance surely them tending to take part on really, really played out balance patches and maps has something to do with it to?
On February 28 2022 07:50 Nakajin wrote: Funilly despite getting almost twice as many final spot as the two other race combined, it was actually a down year for zerg as the last three year total is 26(t)-24(p)-55(z). Winning in the last three year is even more zerg favored as it's 12(t)-9(p)-31(z).
Yikes. Those last 3 years of stats looks very lopsided for Zerg.
That's surprising, I never looked at the stats myself but it clearly shows that Zerg at the top end dominates overall. If no balance patches will happen in the foreseeable future then the only recourse are maps. There needs to be more maps that at the very least give more advantages for Terrans and Protoss against Zerg. It's getting to the point where we've had multiple years of stomaching ZvZ from the Ro8 onwards with the same musical chairs of at least the four zerg horsemen over and over.
With Trap and Zest gone there's now three Protoss in Zoun, Classic, and herO have to pick up the slack as the replacement Protoss representatives in placing for this upcoming season/year (anyone know if Stats plans to come back to play after returning from military service?). Depending on their performance, it may skew numbers worse for Protoss placing in tourneys if they don't get to a strong enough form.
Not even going to bother with Terran, outside of Maru you'd be lucky if guys like Cure, Dream, Ryung, Clem, Special, Heromarine, and others can actually take more single a map let alone a series against the top zergs past the Ro16 of a tournament.
On February 28 2022 07:50 Nakajin wrote: Funilly despite getting almost twice as many final spot as the two other race combined, it was actually a down year for zerg as the last three year total is 26(t)-24(p)-55(z). Winning in the last three year is even more zerg favored as it's 12(t)-9(p)-31(z).
Yikes. Those last 3 years of stats looks very lopsided for Zerg.
Not even going to bother with Terran, outside of Maru you'd be lucky if guys like Cure, Dream, Ryung, Clem, Special, Heromarine, and others can actually take more single a map let alone a series against the top zergs past the Ro16 of a tournament.
This is so out of touch with reality if you actually believe this
On February 28 2022 07:50 Nakajin wrote: Funilly despite getting almost twice as many final spot as the two other race combined, it was actually a down year for zerg as the last three year total is 26(t)-24(p)-55(z). Winning in the last three year is even more zerg favored as it's 12(t)-9(p)-31(z).
Yikes. Those last 3 years of stats looks very lopsided for Zerg.
That's surprising, I never looked at the stats myself but it clearly shows that Zerg at the top end dominates overall. If no balance patches will happen in the foreseeable future then the only recourse are maps. There needs to be more maps that at the very least give more advantages for Terrans and Protoss against Zerg. It's getting to the point where we've had multiple years of stomaching ZvZ from the Ro8 onwards with the same musical chairs of at least the four zerg horsemen over and over.
With Trap and Zest gone there's now three Protoss in Zoun, Classic, and herO have to pick up the slack as the replacement Protoss representatives in placing for this upcoming season/year (anyone know if Stats plans to come back to play after returning from military service?). Depending on their performance, it may skew numbers worse for Protoss placing in tourneys if they don't get to a strong enough form.
Not even going to bother with Terran, outside of Maru you'd be lucky if guys like Cure, Dream, Ryung, Clem, Special, Heromarine, and others can actually take more single a map let alone a series against the top zergs past the Ro16 of a tournament.
Are we ignoring Su(P)er Tournsment or Code S, or Clem smacking Serral and Reynor more than a few times?
Zerg is, IMO demonstrably the strongest race currently, especially in the format of the Worlds, but let’s deal with actual reality and not crazy hyperbole
On February 28 2022 07:50 Nakajin wrote: Funilly despite getting almost twice as many final spot as the two other race combined, it was actually a down year for zerg as the last three year total is 26(t)-24(p)-55(z). Winning in the last three year is even more zerg favored as it's 12(t)-9(p)-31(z).
Yikes. Those last 3 years of stats looks very lopsided for Zerg.
That's surprising, I never looked at the stats myself but it clearly shows that Zerg at the top end dominates overall. If no balance patches will happen in the foreseeable future then the only recourse are maps. There needs to be more maps that at the very least give more advantages for Terrans and Protoss against Zerg. It's getting to the point where we've had multiple years of stomaching ZvZ from the Ro8 onwards with the same musical chairs of at least the four zerg horsemen over and over.
With Trap and Zest gone there's now three Protoss in Zoun, Classic, and herO have to pick up the slack as the replacement Protoss representatives in placing for this upcoming season/year (anyone know if Stats plans to come back to play after returning from military service?). Depending on their performance, it may skew numbers worse for Protoss placing in tourneys if they don't get to a strong enough form.
Not even going to bother with Terran, outside of Maru you'd be lucky if guys like Cure, Dream, Ryung, Clem, Special, Heromarine, and others can actually take more single a map let alone a series against the top zergs past the Ro16 of a tournament.
Are we ignoring Su(P)er Tournsment or Code S, or Clem smacking Serral and Reynor more than a few times?
Zerg is, IMO demonstrably the strongest race currently, especially in the format of the Worlds, but let’s deal with actual reality and not crazy hyperbole
Super Tournament is an outlier and rule exception moreso than anything - it's historically found a way to have Protoss win a majority of the time (Trap with 3 straight ST wins in a row). But do you honestly think the likes of Dark or Rogue actually give their full investment and time to that compared to Code S especially considering how Super Tournament takes less time than a Code S in general? How often has Clem beaten Serral or Reynor straight up outside of EU season finals? If anything Clem's a bit on a downslope in results against them overall as he's spent more time shoring his TvT and TvP.
Code S still isn't a good example since you can see that the winners were Cure, Dark, and Rogue in 2021.
Why do you think Heromarine, Zest, and even Cure participate and win so many weekly cups in 2021? Because the likelihood of them not facing the big 4 in zergs is extremely low. Even if the payout is small(er), at least they can rack up easy EPT points over time. Serral, Reynor, Dark, and Rogue hardly care about that if at all because it's not worth the time invested knowing the four of them will place top 8 or better in just about any other tournament if not straight up win it. Even other zergs recently have shown them capable of making a name for themselves like Lambo, Scarlet, Ragnarok and Solar with unexpected good runs in Ro8 of premiere and major tourneys.
It may all sound like hyperbole to you, but look at the results overall even in Korea where things can sort of seem partly balanced from a quick glance it really isn't. Zerg will win if Maru can't get to good form or if Trap and Zest can get to their peak form - which doesn't matter now since those two are both in military, Stats and TY are gone, do you think Maru in his current form will be able to win let alone place Top 4 in the next Code S? Maru's run late last year was magical, but he's been figured out. His mech style isn't as unstoppable as it seems and his form is not as dominating as it was say 5-8 months ago as evidenced by losing to Serral and Reynor in Katowice days ago.
EU is even worse due to the fact it's a foregone conclusion Serral and Reynor will place in every major tournament in the top 4 or win it straight up because that's how dominant they are. The race and map pool are good enough for Zerg where even other EU Zergs such as Lambo and Elazer can show up and place well enough to get into the top 6. Name me a Terran other than Big Gabe or Clem can place top 4 in those same tournaments or Protoss other than MaxPax and Showtime let alone winning it (something only Clem himself has been able to pull off out of all the non-zergs) in 2021.
2020 wasn't much better (actually it's worse) considering all but two of the categorized Global Events had Zerg winners except for King of Batles and DH Last Chance with Trap winning it.
Lastly, is was mentioned earlier on in this thread, but in regards to Terran overall. If Maru wasn't accounted for, then the actual results will be considerably more depressing. I'm reiterating that Trap and Zest are gone because they too are important for the statistic for 2021's results.
On February 28 2022 07:50 Nakajin wrote: Funilly despite getting almost twice as many final spot as the two other race combined, it was actually a down year for zerg as the last three year total is 26(t)-24(p)-55(z). Winning in the last three year is even more zerg favored as it's 12(t)-9(p)-31(z).
Yikes. Those last 3 years of stats looks very lopsided for Zerg.
That's surprising, I never looked at the stats myself but it clearly shows that Zerg at the top end dominates overall. If no balance patches will happen in the foreseeable future then the only recourse are maps. There needs to be more maps that at the very least give more advantages for Terrans and Protoss against Zerg. It's getting to the point where we've had multiple years of stomaching ZvZ from the Ro8 onwards with the same musical chairs of at least the four zerg horsemen over and over.
With Trap and Zest gone there's now three Protoss in Zoun, Classic, and herO have to pick up the slack as the replacement Protoss representatives in placing for this upcoming season/year (anyone know if Stats plans to come back to play after returning from military service?). Depending on their performance, it may skew numbers worse for Protoss placing in tourneys if they don't get to a strong enough form.
Not even going to bother with Terran, outside of Maru you'd be lucky if guys like Cure, Dream, Ryung, Clem, Special, Heromarine, and others can actually take more single a map let alone a series against the top zergs past the Ro16 of a tournament.
Lol? Terrans fan boys are now at a point where they want Zergs be nerfed so the Big 4 Zergs should be losing to tier B Terrans?
Patch terran cure already won a GSL, that’s not enough?
The hyperbole comes from listing Clem as a player in a list of players who’d be lucky to take a set off the Zerg big 4 when he’s literally beaten them to win tournaments in the past 12 months.
Super Tournament is still a tournament, Trap won 5 tournaments in 2021. Not just Maru but Cure took home a Code S too, we had Protoss finalists there. I mean it’s only one tournament but we had a non-Maru Terran Code S champion going into Katowice.
I don’t think who does/doesn’t compete in EPT cups is that illustrative of much, or is necessarily an attempt to earn money because one sees opportunities are limited. I think a player like Zest, or Heromarine sees value in grinding a huge amount of cups, other players such as Serral do not and want to tweak their practice for the big tournaments. Some pros were in the middle like a Trap or Reynor who played a fair few and weren't totally absent but not a huge amount.
Even in the pre-EPT era Cure played shitloads of online cups, Byun played an insane amount leading up to his GSL/Blizzcon. Some players seem to prefer grinding out a lot of games in a single elim, tournsment style environment. Others prefer to do so either with internal, hidden practice games, or other methods. Reynor famously prepped for last year’s Katowice playing 1varchon against the likes of Lambo, with almost a team of friendly pros preparing him as a team for that tournament.
I don’t think most of your points are even wrong, especially what the scene looks like without players like Trap, they’re just a tad hyperbolic. I agree with most of it, but everything is amped up a degree.
Do Rogue and Dark, sitting atop their pile of money care quite as much about Super Tournament as GSL or Katowice? Probably not but if Zerg was as dominant as people are claiming, they’d just show up and take home some more medals.
I will disagree with Even other zergs recently have shown them capable of making a name for themselves like Lambo, Scarlet, Ragnarok and Solar with unexpected good runs in Ro8 of premiere and major tourneys.
That bracket of Zergs has done nothing beyond what comparable players of other races have done.
Solar didn’t do a huge amount all year, hell Solar hasn’t made playoffs in GSL in forever, but topped his Katowice group to make Ro8 there. Bunny made a Ro4 in GSL and in a Dreamhack season finals, and topped his Katowice group to make Ro8. Byun’s done Byun things at times. Lambo’s had a finals run in WCS EU, Heromarine’s been almost a lock for top 4 and made Katowice’s Ro4. Ragnarok is the epitome of a player who almost always looks good but lacks that big standout result. Elazer’s not really done that much since his final appearance at GSL vs the World, which iirc was pre-pandemic. Scarlett hasn’t done anything of note, despite her reputation since cheesing Rogue out of Code S quite some time ago now.
I’ll add that, in my (semi) recent memory Armani and DRG have made GSL Ro4’s via decent bracket luck in the past couple years.
I’ve maybe missed one or two tournaments, perhaps Rag had a deep run somewhere but from memory those are the high points of the Zergs who aren’t the big 4, and they’re not exactly that crazy impressive or reflective of wider Zerg dominance.
Zerg were definitely not dominating in 2021 before the map pool changed; no retirements and patches involved, just maps: the set we have now is evidently too good for Zerg!
A new patch would be greatly appreciated and I think Protoss really need balance changes whereas Terran would just benefit from a better map pool.
Recent tournaments had the likes of Ragnarok, Lambo and Scarlet show up and do surprisingly better than expected. Ragnarok beat Solar but lost to Trap having him place 4th in TSL 8 a couple months ago. Scarlett beat Zest and lost to Rogue 2-3 at the Semis in DH Masters Winter also a few months ago too placing her 3rd/4th which was a really unexpected but welcome result for her. Lambo is probably the most impressive despite being easily overlooked since he made 3rd in DH Masters Summer going 2-3 against Reynor in lower bracket final even just as impressive his result going 3-4 against Serral in NeXT 2021 finals. I was watching that and was hoping that it would be Lambo's first big win just to see someone other than Serral win another premiere tournament.
Thanks for reminding me about Bunny. I honestly keep underestimating him but he deserves to be at least one of the 4 best Terrans in the world overall as it stands currently. I do want to think that Zoun might finally break through and win a major or premiere tourney something either domestically in Korea (super tournament is his best chance) or if we're lucky a big name global event. He's going to be regarded as one of the three best Protoss in Korea now so we'll see how that turns out.
I don't mean to put down the Zergs who aren't dominating the prize pools, but surely there will always be some of them that are worse than others or just haven't figured out how to abuse their advantages as well. Imagine if Maru, Cure and Clem were winning everything and I said it didn't matter because some b-tier player still isn't winning. There is no comparison between Zerg and the other races where there are so many players who can realistically win any tournament they are in. And yes, this map pool is Zerg biased, but this is a much longer term phenomenon than since the end of 2021. Also, the TLMC doesn't really take responsibility for balance, and the mapmakers don't want it.
On March 02 2022 11:23 yoshi245 wrote: Recent tournaments had the likes of Ragnarok, Lambo and Scarlet show up and do surprisingly better than expected. Ragnarok beat Solar but lost to Trap having him place 4th in TSL 8 a couple months ago. Scarlett beat Zest and lost to Rogue 2-3 at the Semis in DH Masters Winter also a few months ago too placing her 3rd/4th which was a really unexpected but welcome result for her. Lambo is probably the most impressive despite being easily overlooked since he made 3rd in DH Masters Summer going 2-3 against Reynor in lower bracket final even just as impressive his result going 3-4 against Serral in NeXT 2021 finals. I was watching that and was hoping that it would be Lambo's first big win just to see someone other than Serral win another premiere tournament.
Thanks for reminding me about Bunny. I honestly keep underestimating him but he deserves to be at least one of the 4 best Terrans in the world overall as it stands currently. I do want to think that Zoun might finally break through and win a major or premiere tourney something either domestically in Korea (super tournament is his best chance) or if we're lucky a big name global event. He's going to be regarded as one of the three best Protoss in Korea now so we'll see how that turns out.
I was going off memory, ok I missed those from Lambo and Scarlett, didn’t mean to be so harsh on her having ‘no results’ when I’m wrong.
I think ultimately though, there’s a paucity of S class players anyway, it skews results rather a lot.
In purely hypothetical land look at Trap’s last few years. Now imagine the Zerg big 4 aren’t there. He’s even won series and even tournaments against the big 4
Trap on form vs the big four on form, or Zest is probably your best metric of looking at balance at the highest possible level available, and I favour any of the big 4.
Which I think indicates at the very top level, balance is an issue. I think at THAT level Zerg have the edge in ZvT, and it’s even bigger in ZvP.
I’d favour Trap vs any of the other Zergs, probably more than I’d favour the big 4 vs Trap in tournament play, he could have had a hell of a few years given he’s good in the other matchups!
As I’ve conceded, I still do think there’s some balance and meta issues too, but the ‘take out the big 4’ isn’t that crazy a hypothetical, it’s not that far off where Protoss is now. Stats is still gone, Classic isn’t back to full form, herO neither, and now Zest and soon Trap will also depart.
On March 02 2022 11:26 honorablemacroterran wrote: I don't mean to put down the Zergs who aren't dominating the prize pools, but surely there will always be some of them that are worse than others or just haven't figured out how to abuse their advantages as well. Imagine if Maru, Cure and Clem were winning everything and I said it didn't matter because some b-tier player still isn't winning. There is no comparison between Zerg and the other races where there are so many players who can realistically win any tournament they are in. And yes, this map pool is Zerg biased, but this is a much longer term phenomenon than since the end of 2021. Also, the TLMC doesn't really take responsibility for balance, and the mapmakers don't want it.
There are 4 players, that’s basically it. And by basically I mean, it is it.
I believe there are 4 Terran champions going back a wee bit to TY’s GSLs and Byun’s ASUS Rog and now Maru and Cure’s GSLs.
Not counting Clem’s EU crowns even, although given he had to get through 3x World Champion pedigree I think it probably does.
We’ve had more variety in Terran champions the last few years than Zergs, albeit with less regularity given TY is gone now and I think Byun was in better shape at that stage of his military comeback than now.
Maybe the big 4, balance not being 100% aside are just that good? No other Zergs are winning anything.
Maru had the most solid, at times consistently dominant time across all tournaments including internationals I think I’ve seen him have, and he just didn’t deliver his A game and Serral skewered him at Katowice.
I think we are due a patch too though. I recall a period where Cure showed off a super heavy mine drop style against Serral, to great success, to take one example. Something new to be figured out, and the defences to be figured out.
Feels in general the amount of things to mine from the ‘not yet figured out’ column is getting smaller and smaller, and the Zerg execution of defending the known tools is getting better and better
Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
No, it isn't. You people still completly ignore skill and think, there is a hard-coded rule that every race should win the same amount, but there isn't. Zerg literally survives through four outstanding players, that are dominant for years by now. If Zerg was overpowered, why isn't Lambo just playing GSL, smashing everyone easily and then goes out in a ZvZ? Saying "Zerg is so OP because there are four players winning a lot, even though the rest is kinda meh" is the same as "Italy and Finland are the two strongest nations in Starcraft 2 because they won the last two IEMs".
I think it is important to look at the meta when you discuss balance and tournament results.
I remember back in 2017 TvP consisted of mostly 2 base all ins from the terran. These days terrans are capable of playing good macro strategies vs protoss. However it seems that protoss players are not really in the same boat. When I watch pro level TvP I feel like the protoss is just surviving until disruptors and then hopefully manages to land a few decent shots. This is frustrating for both players. Most TvP matches come down to blink pressure, dts just winning the game or some proxy voidray all in.
PvZ is the most boring matchup that we have ever seen. Turtle on static defense and voidray, getting queen walked and playing 2 hours of staring competitions is not the ideal matchup for me. Every now and then we see a protoss go ground vs zerg, but then the zerg transitions to lurker and the protoss transitions to skytoss and we are back at the staring competition. I think not a single person can argue that PvZ is currently a perfectly fine matchup.
TvZ has been the most entertaining matchup for most people. I think it is because the matchup is nicely balanced and the outcome of the game is not decided within the first 7 minutes of a game. I think of TvP where a widow mine drop, or a hellion drop, or a 3 rax simply could end the game. TvZ seems like a forgiving matchup in the sense that comeback is possible for both players and a small lead only increases your chance of winning rather than assuring victory. TvZ doesn't seem frustrating to play (even with widow mines and lurkers).
Some people would argue that this is purely game design and not linked to balance whatsoever. I disagree. If PvZ was well balanced then the protoss would be able to rely on more than one strategy. Players choose the best strategies that they believe should work. If there is only one available strategy due to the game design, could you really call it balanced?
It is important to note the close relationship between balance and game design. Good game design allows for good balance which should eventually lead to good tournament results.
So coming back to the tournaments I think the results should not only consider the 1st and 2nd places. IEM Katowice 2022 was not the first tournament with few to none protoss in the playoffs. Also considering the gsl results I would like to ask whether Trap and Zest would have won anything if Serral, Reynor, Heromarine and Clem were participating. NA tournaments have the same situation. If we took all tournaments into account then clearly protoss is the most dominant race. In my opinion the only tournaments that can be taken into account are the ones that everyone gets to play. From those the most important ones are the global final events. Everyone practiced their hardest for the ultimate Katowice tournament just to see no protoss in the ro8. Not a single one. If we only take 1st place into account then 2016 was the last time a non-zerg managed to win the global finals.
Tournaments rely on the bracket as well. Lets say Maru beats Serral in the semi finals and loses to Zest in the grand finals. Then Zest clearly displays that protoss is capable of winning tournaments. But what if Zest had to play Serral in the semi finals? Would he have lost and then eventually Serral wins the tournament? Or perhaps Maru wins the tournament. All this due to the luck of having a good bracket. Ultimately brackets don't really determine the winner of a tournament that much, but surely it has a great effect on the ro8 players or the ro4 players.
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
No, it isn't. You people still completly ignore skill and think, there is a hard-coded rule that every race should win the same amount, but there isn't. Zerg literally survives through four outstanding players, that are dominant for years by now. If Zerg was overpowered, why isn't Lambo just playing GSL, smashing everyone easily and then goes out in a ZvZ? Saying "Zerg is so OP because there are four players winning a lot, even though the rest is kinda meh" is the same as "Italy and Finland are the two strongest nations in Starcraft 2 because they won the last two IEMs".
It's literally not the same four players. You can look at the winnings history on liquipedia, dummy.
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
I was looking at how the Terrans who aren’t Maru are doing compared to the Zergs who aren’t in that big 4, in response to a post.
I would expect average earnings to look like that, especially with the overlap to when soO had his last big runs.
As I’ve said, many times Zerg does also seem too strong, or not enjoyable especially in PvZ at the very highest level.
But equally the Zerg big 4 are also all great players at a time where other races don’t have similar depth. The Zergs under their level aren’t exactly cleaning up, their results are extremely comparable to the non-Maru Terrans, or a Zoun.
It’s not like the WoL BL/Infestor era where average Zergs were regularly taking down top players, and some players had results they’d never managed before or since.
Whatever fine tuning is needed, and I think it is, especially in ZvP should still see the Zerg big 4 in with a shot of winning every tournament.
If they aren’t and Zerg is hard nerfed we don’t see many Zergs making finals, that’s going to be a more broken game than what we have now.
A fair game should be as balanced as possible, but you have to take account of the skill of the players as well. Outliers will exist and unfortunately for variety in the last few years you’ve got 4 of the Zerg’s best ever players, all in good shape and motivated.
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
I was looking at how the Terrans who aren’t Maru are doing compared to the Zergs who aren’t in that big 4, in response to a post.
I would expect average earnings to look like that, especially with the overlap to when soO had his last big runs.
As I’ve said, many times Zerg does also seem too strong, or not enjoyable especially in PvZ at the very highest level.
But equally the Zerg big 4 are also all great players at a time where other races don’t have similar depth. The Zergs under their level aren’t exactly cleaning up, their results are extremely comparable to the non-Maru Terrans, or a Zoun.
It’s not like the WoL BL/Infestor era where average Zergs were regularly taking down top players, and some players had results they’d never managed before or since.
Whatever fine tuning is needed, and I think it is, especially in ZvP should still see the Zerg big 4 in with a shot of winning every tournament.
If they aren’t and Zerg is hard nerfed we don’t see many Zergs making finals, that’s going to be a more broken game than what we have now.
A fair game should be as balanced as possible, but you have to take account of the skill of the players as well. Outliers will exist and unfortunately for variety in the last few years you’ve got 4 of the Zerg’s best ever players, all in good shape and motivated.
Again, it's not even the same four players in that earnings data.
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
I was looking at how the Terrans who aren’t Maru are doing compared to the Zergs who aren’t in that big 4, in response to a post.
I would expect average earnings to look like that, especially with the overlap to when soO had his last big runs.
As I’ve said, many times Zerg does also seem too strong, or not enjoyable especially in PvZ at the very highest level.
But equally the Zerg big 4 are also all great players at a time where other races don’t have similar depth. The Zergs under their level aren’t exactly cleaning up, their results are extremely comparable to the non-Maru Terrans, or a Zoun.
It’s not like the WoL BL/Infestor era where average Zergs were regularly taking down top players, and some players had results they’d never managed before or since.
Whatever fine tuning is needed, and I think it is, especially in ZvP should still see the Zerg big 4 in with a shot of winning every tournament.
If they aren’t and Zerg is hard nerfed we don’t see many Zergs making finals, that’s going to be a more broken game than what we have now.
A fair game should be as balanced as possible, but you have to take account of the skill of the players as well. Outliers will exist and unfortunately for variety in the last few years you’ve got 4 of the Zerg’s best ever players, all in good shape and motivated.
Again, it's not even the same four players in that earnings data.
‘especially with the overlap to when soO had his last big runs.’
So we take out one of the Zerg GOATs that I already mentioned? Or is there someone else in there?
That said using your own data the game appears to be on a trend towards relative parity from a nadir of 2018/19, which doesn’t quite past my eye test.
Following this same logic, BW was horribly unbalanced in the time of Boxer. I mean, it was basically Boxer, iloveoov and nada dominating everything. yellow and reach didn't do badly but not even close to Maru and Trap's performance now.
But in hindsight we know that BW is extremely well balanced and that the early 2000s it was just that the Terran race had some bonjwas, but the other races didn't. Yet no balance patches were released, and July, savior and Jaedong went on to greatness as did bisu and stork.
I think the main thing here is maps. We can't really wait for someone to come along and figure out a new way to play Terran or Protoss. The game is probably about as "figured out" as it is going to be. But we can definitely use more and more balanced (or just more diverse) maps to try to break things open.
On March 03 2022 04:51 Acrofales wrote: Following this same logic, BW was horribly unbalanced in the time of Boxer. I mean, it was basically Boxer, iloveoov and nada dominating everything. yellow and reach didn't do badly but not even close to Maru and Trap's performance now.
But in hindsight we know that BW is extremely well balanced and that the early 2000s it was just that the Terran race had some bonjwas, but the other races didn't. Yet no balance patches were released, and July, savior and Jaedong went on to greatness as did bisu and stork.
I think the main thing here is maps. We can't really wait for someone to come along and figure out a new way to play Terran or Protoss. The game is probably about as "figured out" as it is going to be. But we can definitely use more and more balanced (or just more diverse) maps to try to break things open.
BW is not extremely well balanced at all. I wouldn't use that as an argument.
On March 03 2022 04:51 Acrofales wrote: Following this same logic, BW was horribly unbalanced in the time of Boxer. I mean, it was basically Boxer, iloveoov and nada dominating everything. yellow and reach didn't do badly but not even close to Maru and Trap's performance now.
But in hindsight we know that BW is extremely well balanced and that the early 2000s it was just that the Terran race had some bonjwas, but the other races didn't. Yet no balance patches were released, and July, savior and Jaedong went on to greatness as did bisu and stork.
I think the main thing here is maps. We can't really wait for someone to come along and figure out a new way to play Terran or Protoss. The game is probably about as "figured out" as it is going to be. But we can definitely use more and more balanced (or just more diverse) maps to try to break things open.
The issue it remains to be seen what will happen with the game moving forwards and support.
The community can’t fill in the gaps like in BW, we could end up with a scenario where the game is unpatched and maps remain very similar for quite some time.
And as you say I think the wider playerbase has grinded out a huge amount of what’s viable or not with this meta/map combo.
On March 03 2022 04:51 Acrofales wrote: Following this same logic, BW was horribly unbalanced in the time of Boxer. I mean, it was basically Boxer, iloveoov and nada dominating everything. yellow and reach didn't do badly but not even close to Maru and Trap's performance now.
But in hindsight we know that BW is extremely well balanced and that the early 2000s it was just that the Terran race had some bonjwas, but the other races didn't. Yet no balance patches were released, and July, savior and Jaedong went on to greatness as did bisu and stork.
I think the main thing here is maps. We can't really wait for someone to come along and figure out a new way to play Terran or Protoss. The game is probably about as "figured out" as it is going to be. But we can definitely use more and more balanced (or just more diverse) maps to try to break things open.
I was under the impression that BW is not well balanced and is being balanced by the maps. Which, so far, never happened in the SC2.
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
No, it isn't. You people still completly ignore skill and think, there is a hard-coded rule that every race should win the same amount, but there isn't. Zerg literally survives through four outstanding players, that are dominant for years by now. If Zerg was overpowered, why isn't Lambo just playing GSL, smashing everyone easily and then goes out in a ZvZ? Saying "Zerg is so OP because there are four players winning a lot, even though the rest is kinda meh" is the same as "Italy and Finland are the two strongest nations in Starcraft 2 because they won the last two IEMs".
It's literally not the same four players. You can look at the winnings history on liquipedia, dummy.
By the logic of this thread: Do you know the last time a Zerg that wasn't Rogue, Dark, Serral or Reynor has won a Premier tournament (according to Liquipedia), not counting the regional DreamHack Masters? It was soO in 2020. Do you want to know the last one before soO? Freaking Elazer in 2017 (WCS Valencia). And before that...Snute in 2016, WCS Intercontinental. If you go back to Elazers win (2017), you have terran wins from Innovation, Cure, ByuN and TY. For Protoss names like Trap, Classic, Stats, herO or even Patience and Neeb pop up. Notice something? Most of those winning terrans and protoss retired, while the Zergs stayed the same or rather actually got reinforced with Serral and Reynor. So while a lot of high-ranking terran and protoss S-Tier players retired, Zerg was in the very lucky position that two more players just reached that level (or rather that age) at that time. Sorry, but I really can't get behind your logic, that seems to be that if there are four S-Tier Zergs, there HAS to be four S-Tier Protoss and Terrans at all time. Like Bunny magically gets better at the game as soon as Innovation retires, because he needs to fill in the slot...
I didn't read all the posts but most. I think what was ignored a little bit is, no matter which mappool. The longer the mappool stayed the same, the better for zerg because they could learn to deflect all kind of bo's. I remember Maru stating that the mappool (it was this one), while winning the tournament but after the next few tournaments results went worse. For serral it was the other way around after each years big change.
This is of course an hypothesis and it would be cool but also a little bit of effort to test it. How does the win ratio for each race evolve after map changes.
On March 03 2022 09:32 SpecKROELLchen wrote: I didn't read all the posts but most. I think what was ignored a little bit is, no matter which mappool. The longer the mappool stayed the same, the better for zerg because they could learn to deflect all kind of bo's. I remember Maru stating that the mappool (it was this one), while winning the tournament but after the next few tournaments results went worse. For serral it was the other way around after each years big change.
This is of course an hypothesis and it would be cool but also a little bit of effort to test it. How does the win ratio for each race evolve after map changes.
Oh, I agree with you. I've said elsewhere that the map pool and the format, and the long lead up time to Katowice will mean that it is almost certainly a Zerg winner. This map pool is Zerg favoured, and the longer that we stayed on this map pool the stronger the Zerg players become. The format also does not allow the players to rest and develop strategies given how long the days are. In Katowice 2022, I can visibly see the players getting tired, and their play suffered going towards the end of the day.
Lastly, there was close to two months in the lead up to Katowice from DH Last Chance. I knew when Maru won Last Chance that he will most likely not win Katowice, simply because his playstyle will be studied, esp in this map pool, and countered, which was exactly what we saw.
Something needs to be done about the format of IEM Katowice, and the map pool, otherwise we'll keep getting Zerg winners over and over. (I think over the past 5 years, Zergs have won all IEM Katowices and Blizzcons). By Ro12, I knew immediately that a Zerg will win Katowice, and I completely lost interest in the tournament. There simply wasn't any chance for any other non-Zerg player.
They should change up the map pool, maybe using Rotti's suggestions a while back, by using the favourite maps (chosen by the players) over the past year, instead of sticking to the same map pool. This way, it eliminates a potentially race-favoured map pool, and also lets the players decide more strategies.
On March 03 2022 09:32 SpecKROELLchen wrote: I didn't read all the posts but most. I think what was ignored a little bit is, no matter which mappool. The longer the mappool stayed the same, the better for zerg because they could learn to deflect all kind of bo's. I remember Maru stating that the mappool (it was this one), while winning the tournament but after the next few tournaments results went worse. For serral it was the other way around after each years big change.
This is of course an hypothesis and it would be cool but also a little bit of effort to test it. How does the win ratio for each race evolve after map changes.
Oh, I agree with you. I've said elsewhere that the map pool and the format, and the long lead up time to Katowice will mean that it is almost certainly a Zerg winner. This map pool is Zerg favoured, and the longer that we stayed on this map pool the stronger the Zerg players become. The format also does not allow the players to rest and develop strategies given how long the days are. In Katowice 2022, I can visibly see the players getting tired, and their play suffered going towards the end of the day.
Lastly, there was close to two months in the lead up to Katowice from DH Last Chance. I knew when Maru won Last Chance that he will most likely not win Katowice, simply because his playstyle will be studied, esp in this map pool, and countered, which was exactly what we saw.
Something needs to be done about the format of IEM Katowice, and the map pool, otherwise we'll keep getting Zerg winners over and over. (I think over the past 5 years, Zergs have won all IEM Katowices and Blizzcons). By Ro12, I knew immediately that a Zerg will win Katowice, and I completely lost interest in the tournament. There simply wasn't any chance for any other non-Zerg player.
They should change up the map pool, maybe using Rotti's suggestions a while back, by using the favourite maps (chosen by the players) over the past year, instead of sticking to the same map pool. This way, it eliminates a potentially race-favoured map pool, and also lets the players decide more strategies.
I think I may go to my deathbed but the pool is too small, especially for how long it’s in rotation. And extra especially given how maps are so similar, in general.
You don’t have much room to get it wrong, even 2 or 3 maps that are experiments that don’t ultimate play out well and the pool is fucked for a long period. It’s understandable therefore that the maps are chosen through quite a risk averse process, but that is forced by not having a bigger pool to accommodate more experimentation.
Also obligatory complaint that the one interesting map that gave for really interesting pro games departed after one season. #BringBackTheWall
By the time Katowice rolls round Zergs have been asked similar questions on similar maps so many times that they’ve got the answers. It’s how the race works, both a lack of patches as well as a lack of variety just accelerates the process of them (largely) figuring out how to deal with whatever Terrans and Toss can throw at them.
To say nothing of players, pro or casual alike getting sick of playing the same maps for aeons.
I’d like to see some XvX non-standard maps in rotation. I’d also like to see some experimentation in making maps for specific matchups to see how that looks.
This is simply not possible with the current map pool, you’d end up with a few standard maps, a weird map and PvZ/PvT/TvZ maps and not enough vetos to filter them down to would be built for general standard play, or your race’s specific matchups
On March 02 2022 22:54 honorablemacroterran wrote:
On March 02 2022 21:26 Balnazza wrote:
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
No, it isn't. You people still completly ignore skill and think, there is a hard-coded rule that every race should win the same amount, but there isn't. Zerg literally survives through four outstanding players, that are dominant for years by now. If Zerg was overpowered, why isn't Lambo just playing GSL, smashing everyone easily and then goes out in a ZvZ? Saying "Zerg is so OP because there are four players winning a lot, even though the rest is kinda meh" is the same as "Italy and Finland are the two strongest nations in Starcraft 2 because they won the last two IEMs".
It's literally not the same four players. You can look at the winnings history on liquipedia, dummy.
By the logic of this thread: Do you know the last time a Zerg that wasn't Rogue, Dark, Serral or Reynor has won a Premier tournament (according to Liquipedia), not counting the regional DreamHack Masters? It was soO in 2020. Do you want to know the last one before soO? Freaking Elazer in 2017 (WCS Valencia). And before that...Snute in 2016, WCS Intercontinental. If you go back to Elazers win (2017), you have terran wins from Innovation, Cure, ByuN and TY. For Protoss names like Trap, Classic, Stats, herO or even Patience and Neeb pop up. Notice something? Most of those winning terrans and protoss retired, while the Zergs stayed the same or rather actually got reinforced with Serral and Reynor. So while a lot of high-ranking terran and protoss S-Tier players retired, Zerg was in the very lucky position that two more players just reached that level (or rather that age) at that time. Sorry, but I really can't get behind your logic, that seems to be that if there are four S-Tier Zergs, there HAS to be four S-Tier Protoss and Terrans at all time. Like Bunny magically gets better at the game as soon as Innovation retires, because he needs to fill in the slot...
I don't know how much simpler you can make it than if you're a top zerg you're likely to make a significantly larger amount of money than a top terran or top protoss.
On March 02 2022 22:54 honorablemacroterran wrote:
On March 02 2022 21:26 Balnazza wrote:
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
No, it isn't. You people still completly ignore skill and think, there is a hard-coded rule that every race should win the same amount, but there isn't. Zerg literally survives through four outstanding players, that are dominant for years by now. If Zerg was overpowered, why isn't Lambo just playing GSL, smashing everyone easily and then goes out in a ZvZ? Saying "Zerg is so OP because there are four players winning a lot, even though the rest is kinda meh" is the same as "Italy and Finland are the two strongest nations in Starcraft 2 because they won the last two IEMs".
It's literally not the same four players. You can look at the winnings history on liquipedia, dummy.
By the logic of this thread: Do you know the last time a Zerg that wasn't Rogue, Dark, Serral or Reynor has won a Premier tournament (according to Liquipedia), not counting the regional DreamHack Masters? It was soO in 2020. Do you want to know the last one before soO? Freaking Elazer in 2017 (WCS Valencia). And before that...Snute in 2016, WCS Intercontinental. If you go back to Elazers win (2017), you have terran wins from Innovation, Cure, ByuN and TY. For Protoss names like Trap, Classic, Stats, herO or even Patience and Neeb pop up. Notice something? Most of those winning terrans and protoss retired, while the Zergs stayed the same or rather actually got reinforced with Serral and Reynor. So while a lot of high-ranking terran and protoss S-Tier players retired, Zerg was in the very lucky position that two more players just reached that level (or rather that age) at that time. Sorry, but I really can't get behind your logic, that seems to be that if there are four S-Tier Zergs, there HAS to be four S-Tier Protoss and Terrans at all time. Like Bunny magically gets better at the game as soon as Innovation retires, because he needs to fill in the slot...
I don't know how much simpler you can make it than if you're a top zerg you're likely to make a significantly larger amount of money than a top terran or top protoss.
Because they won the very prizepool heavy world championships? Sorry, but if three different Zergs win the GSL in a year, but Maru wins Worlds, terran would still made double the money Zerg did in that year. But would terran be imba then? No, of course not, because that is a stupid way to look at it. Honestly, what is your thing? Like...what is your basis? As far as I'm gathered from your comments, it seem to be "Maru is like the best player ever and he isn't winning everything, Zerg is imba"? Can you maybe tone done the bias a tad?
On March 03 2022 14:06 honorablemacroterran wrote:
On March 03 2022 09:01 Balnazza wrote:
On March 02 2022 22:54 honorablemacroterran wrote:
On March 02 2022 21:26 Balnazza wrote:
On March 02 2022 13:21 honorablemacroterran wrote: Comparing the records of Cure and Byun to any of the top zergs is copium. Look at the tournament winnings. Byun was champion literally 6 years ago. Cure has won ONE premier tournament in his career. I don't think you could be any more completely wrong. Let's take a look at the average earnings of the top 4 players of each race since 2018.
2021 2020 2019 2018 P $68,473.75 $70,459.50 $91,533.00 $136,504.25 T $65,443.50 $75,244.50 $111,540.25 $143,009.00 Z $81,724.50 $108,476.75 $225,199.50 $240,882.75
Although the prize pools have been shrinking especially since Covid, these are quite ridiculous differences. And no, it's not all the same players. This proves that Zerg is just expected to win more money, which is an injustice.
No, it isn't. You people still completly ignore skill and think, there is a hard-coded rule that every race should win the same amount, but there isn't. Zerg literally survives through four outstanding players, that are dominant for years by now. If Zerg was overpowered, why isn't Lambo just playing GSL, smashing everyone easily and then goes out in a ZvZ? Saying "Zerg is so OP because there are four players winning a lot, even though the rest is kinda meh" is the same as "Italy and Finland are the two strongest nations in Starcraft 2 because they won the last two IEMs".
It's literally not the same four players. You can look at the winnings history on liquipedia, dummy.
By the logic of this thread: Do you know the last time a Zerg that wasn't Rogue, Dark, Serral or Reynor has won a Premier tournament (according to Liquipedia), not counting the regional DreamHack Masters? It was soO in 2020. Do you want to know the last one before soO? Freaking Elazer in 2017 (WCS Valencia). And before that...Snute in 2016, WCS Intercontinental. If you go back to Elazers win (2017), you have terran wins from Innovation, Cure, ByuN and TY. For Protoss names like Trap, Classic, Stats, herO or even Patience and Neeb pop up. Notice something? Most of those winning terrans and protoss retired, while the Zergs stayed the same or rather actually got reinforced with Serral and Reynor. So while a lot of high-ranking terran and protoss S-Tier players retired, Zerg was in the very lucky position that two more players just reached that level (or rather that age) at that time. Sorry, but I really can't get behind your logic, that seems to be that if there are four S-Tier Zergs, there HAS to be four S-Tier Protoss and Terrans at all time. Like Bunny magically gets better at the game as soon as Innovation retires, because he needs to fill in the slot...
I don't know how much simpler you can make it than if you're a top zerg you're likely to make a significantly larger amount of money than a top terran or top protoss.
Because they won the very prizepool heavy world championships? Sorry, but if three different Zergs win the GSL in a year, but Maru wins Worlds, terran would still made double the money Zerg did in that year. But would terran be imba then? No, of course not, because that is a stupid way to look at it. Honestly, what is your thing? Like...what is your basis? As far as I'm gathered from your comments, it seem to be "Maru is like the best player ever and he isn't winning everything, Zerg is imba"? Can you maybe tone done the bias a tad?
Zerg has not made more purely because of world championships. You can subtract both the Blizzcon and Katowice first place prizes from their totals in 2019 and 2018 and Zerg still won the most money both of those years. That's with a Terran winning $200k at WESG both years. Even with how top loaded world championships are overall prize money is still more about the average performance of a race than who wins the world championships. Unless it's really close to start with.
Another example of this is that despite never winning the 6 figure prizes Toss was still finishing ahead of Terran despite Maru and Inno winning $200k each.
On March 03 2022 09:32 SpecKROELLchen wrote: I didn't read all the posts but most. I think what was ignored a little bit is, no matter which mappool. The longer the mappool stayed the same, the better for zerg because they could learn to deflect all kind of bo's. I remember Maru stating that the mappool (it was this one), while winning the tournament but after the next few tournaments results went worse. For serral it was the other way around after each years big change.
This is of course an hypothesis and it would be cool but also a little bit of effort to test it. How does the win ratio for each race evolve after map changes.
Oh, I agree with you. I've said elsewhere that the map pool and the format, and the long lead up time to Katowice will mean that it is almost certainly a Zerg winner. This map pool is Zerg favoured, and the longer that we stayed on this map pool the stronger the Zerg players become. The format also does not allow the players to rest and develop strategies given how long the days are. In Katowice 2022, I can visibly see the players getting tired, and their play suffered going towards the end of the day.
Lastly, there was close to two months in the lead up to Katowice from DH Last Chance. I knew when Maru won Last Chance that he will most likely not win Katowice, simply because his playstyle will be studied, esp in this map pool, and countered, which was exactly what we saw.
Something needs to be done about the format of IEM Katowice, and the map pool, otherwise we'll keep getting Zerg winners over and over. (I think over the past 5 years, Zergs have won all IEM Katowices and Blizzcons). By Ro12, I knew immediately that a Zerg will win Katowice, and I completely lost interest in the tournament. There simply wasn't any chance for any other non-Zerg player.
They should change up the map pool, maybe using Rotti's suggestions a while back, by using the favourite maps (chosen by the players) over the past year, instead of sticking to the same map pool. This way, it eliminates a potentially race-favoured map pool, and also lets the players decide more strategies.
I think I may go to my deathbed but the pool is too small, especially for how long it’s in rotation. And extra especially given how maps are so similar, in general.
You don’t have much room to get it wrong, even 2 or 3 maps that are experiments that don’t ultimate play out well and the pool is fucked for a long period. It’s understandable therefore that the maps are chosen through quite a risk averse process, but that is forced by not having a bigger pool to accommodate more experimentation.
Also obligatory complaint that the one interesting map that gave for really interesting pro games departed after one season. #BringBackTheWall
By the time Katowice rolls round Zergs have been asked similar questions on similar maps so many times that they’ve got the answers. It’s how the race works, both a lack of patches as well as a lack of variety just accelerates the process of them (largely) figuring out how to deal with whatever Terrans and Toss can throw at them.
To say nothing of players, pro or casual alike getting sick of playing the same maps for aeons.
I’d like to see some XvX non-standard maps in rotation. I’d also like to see some experimentation in making maps for specific matchups to see how that looks.
This is simply not possible with the current map pool, you’d end up with a few standard maps, a weird map and PvZ/PvT/TvZ maps and not enough vetos to filter them down to would be built for general standard play, or your race’s specific matchups
I'm in full agreement. I loved the games on Golden Wall! Such a fun map!
I agree with many of the sentiments in this thread. Zerg isn't op. It's just that the maps favor zerg, the gameplay favors zerg, zerg players perform the best, zerg players earn the most money. I know by every measure people have put forward it looks like zerg is a bit imba, but my feelings tell me that the zerg players are just better. They're probably practicing harder, and if not then they're practicing smarter. I mean the results speak to that. I think we should give the meta some time to settle before doing anything drastic. I do think the idea to have a larger map pool is a good one though.
On March 05 2022 04:28 AcrossFromTime wrote: I agree with many of the sentiments in this thread. Zerg isn't op. It's just that the maps favor zerg, the gameplay favors zerg, zerg players perform the best, zerg players earn the most money. I know by every measure people have put forward it looks like zerg is a bit imba, but my feelings tell me that the zerg players are just better. They're probably practicing harder, and if not then they're practicing smarter. I mean the results speak to that. I think we should give the meta some time to settle before doing anything drastic. I do think the idea to have a larger map pool is a good one though.
I will get a bigger map pool if it kills me!
I’d disagree with letting the meta settle though, it tends to be the last few years that when the meta is basically fleshed out that Zergs are crushing it the most.
I don’t know what it is aside from maps that sees BW’s meta still evolve slightly after 20 years of no patches, and SC2 seems to (largely) settle within 6-12 months. Perhaps some of you guys, especially more knowledgeable about BW have theories.
I think part of it is how fast the game is in going from 1 base to 3, fully saturated, with tech and maxing, plus quite similar maps. Unlike in BW 1 base play outside of cheese is largely dead in SC2. You tend to get to the same place, a lot quicker by a similar route.
I think a natural consequence of that is metas settle quicker because the timings are pretty rigid and there’s only so much one can deviate and experiment without having just bad builds.
Most TvZs involve generally some harassment followed by some kind of attempt to push the Zerg’s 4th. TvP it tends to be harass and a timing to the Protoss’ 3rd. PvZ either the Protoss is aggressive or they’re digging in to hold their 3rd.
I still think the game is great and the meta’s not too terrible, so I’m not complaining too hardcore, but I think the pacing of eco and tech, especially in Legacy does tend to see things homogenise reasonably quickly.
I’m unsure what qualifies a player as better or worse, the game has so much that makes it up and different skill sets too.
But yeah the top four are clearly damn good, certainly in the group of the world’s best players, any hypothetical patch or set of maps where those guys aren’t featuring at the top end of tournaments reasonably consistently would likely be pretty broken.
On March 05 2022 04:28 AcrossFromTime wrote: I agree with many of the sentiments in this thread. Zerg isn't op. It's just that the maps favor zerg, the gameplay favors zerg, zerg players perform the best, zerg players earn the most money. I know by every measure people have put forward it looks like zerg is a bit imba, but my feelings tell me that the zerg players are just better. They're probably practicing harder, and if not then they're practicing smarter. I mean the results speak to that. I think we should give the meta some time to settle before doing anything drastic. I do think the idea to have a larger map pool is a good one though.
I thought this was sarcasm until I got to the last sentence, and now I'm just confused about whether any of it was sarcastic at all.
On March 05 2022 04:28 AcrossFromTime wrote: I agree with many of the sentiments in this thread. Zerg isn't op. It's just that the maps favor zerg, the gameplay favors zerg, zerg players perform the best, zerg players earn the most money. I know by every measure people have put forward it looks like zerg is a bit imba, but my feelings tell me that the zerg players are just better. They're probably practicing harder, and if not then they're practicing smarter. I mean the results speak to that. I think we should give the meta some time to settle before doing anything drastic. I do think the idea to have a larger map pool is a good one though.
I thought this was sarcasm until I got to the last sentence, and now I'm just confused about whether any of it was sarcastic at all.
On March 05 2022 07:05 honorablemacroterran wrote:
On March 05 2022 04:28 AcrossFromTime wrote: I agree with many of the sentiments in this thread. Zerg isn't op. It's just that the maps favor zerg, the gameplay favors zerg, zerg players perform the best, zerg players earn the most money. I know by every measure people have put forward it looks like zerg is a bit imba, but my feelings tell me that the zerg players are just better. They're probably practicing harder, and if not then they're practicing smarter. I mean the results speak to that. I think we should give the meta some time to settle before doing anything drastic. I do think the idea to have a larger map pool is a good one though.
I thought this was sarcasm until I got to the last sentence, and now I'm just confused about whether any of it was sarcastic at all.
Haha yeah, exactly my feelings too
I read it as all sarcasm apart from the last sentence, where AFT stopped joking.
Regarding the practice bit: Years ago, when Solar won the first big tournament after BlizzCon (could have been DH winter, I don't remember) he was asked in the interview why he believed that he won and the rest lost. His answer was that the best players practiced for BlizzCon, which was on another patch. Solar claimed that he simply practiced more and will probably start losing when the rest get back to their normal level of practice on the current patch. Just wanted to share this tidbit with those that missed it.
I do think that alot of TvZs came down to maps. If there was a second hardwire in the pool I could see Maru beating serral maybe reynor to. We had a better map pool for Terran last map rotation. Maybe we could cool it down a bit on having many large maps that are very wide. I think this is something not pointed out very often but in late game zvt Terran really struggles on any map where there army is unable to rotate quickly from one edge base to there center bases and the other edge base. This is why Maru looks invincible on hardwire but on other maps has more vulnerabilities.
Still I don’t think Zerg is massively op. It’s mainly just we need to ballance them with maps. Zerg is really only crazy on big, wide maps with many bases were there speed forces there opponent to split there army three ways while also covering nyduss and trying to deny zerg from grabbing all neutral bases, this just isn’t feasible even for the best in the world.. We can even have mostly big maps as long as they are tall but skinny. But more small maps would also do a lot for tvz and pvz ballance.
I think toss is a bigger problem for most of the player base since gm is so toss heavy. Yet they underperform at a pro level. If we ever get a balance patch I would hope we get changes that push toss to having a higher skill ceiling but also a higher skill floor. This way good toss players can push thier limits and mechanics further but bad toss players are less carried by easy to use mechanics and units.
On March 06 2022 03:51 Haku wrote: Can‘t believe people still waste their time even creating these threads or answearing them, including myself.
Its been 12 years guys. Its boring and pointless. SC2 race circlejerk never ands for Z/T/P.
ZombieGrub was hyping Wardi for an announcement on his Twitter coming today, and everyone thought it was a balance patch (would be weird if he was the one to announce it, but maybe balance patch tournament?). She actually had to tweet again saying it was not a balance patch. To put it simply: a lot of people are still super hyped by the idea of a balance patch. Enough people still care to be hyped about it so that’s cool and threads like this are fine.
On March 06 2022 04:14 CaRn1FeX wrote: Just seeing the headline I can cleary state that this whole thread is ridiculous :D Z>T>P and that's it, just check the win% of IEM Katowice ^^
More like Z > T, and P > T right now. That's why Terran has performed the worst in Premier tournaments over the last year.
On March 06 2022 04:14 CaRn1FeX wrote: Just seeing the headline I can cleary state that this whole thread is ridiculous :D Z>T>P and that's it, just check the win% of IEM Katowice ^^
More like Z > T, and P > T right now. That's why Terran has performed the worst in Premier tournaments over the last year.
P>T? That's definitely not what Katowice has taught us.
On March 06 2022 04:14 CaRn1FeX wrote: Just seeing the headline I can cleary state that this whole thread is ridiculous :D Z>T>P and that's it, just check the win% of IEM Katowice ^^
More like Z > T, and P > T right now. That's why Terran has performed the worst in Premier tournaments over the last year.
P>T? That's definitely not what Katowice has taught us.
As i said before the matchup is pretty swingy imo which is why i think there isn't really a correct statement on it. One tournament protoss mops the floor with the terrans the other it gets mopped, both happend over the recent times.
On February 28 2022 08:25 Pandain wrote: Yeah it's disingenuous to remove maru but not remove trap lol
when have tl terrans been anything but
Aren't you the guy that doesn't realize that nerf to widow-mine burrow is a buff for Protoss versus Terran?
Oh yes, yes you are.
On March 09 2022 07:10 Cricketer12 wrote: Protoss...nerfs? Is there something I'm missing? Thought protoss sucked as evidenced by the last two years of competetive results...
On February 28 2022 08:25 Pandain wrote: Yeah it's disingenuous to remove maru but not remove trap lol
when have tl terrans been anything but
Beats me.
The #TerranMasterRace types since the dawn of time both want to flex about how 1337 they are for playing the ‘hardest race’ while complaining their race is hard.
Given that innate contradiction at the core of their being, of course they’re going to spout nonsense for a decade+
For the sake of mods and my Terran playing brethren, I am very much talking about a certain type of Terran player. As many of us are PC gamers, a minority of us are #PCMasterRace obnoxious twats.
On March 06 2022 04:14 CaRn1FeX wrote: Just seeing the headline I can cleary state that this whole thread is ridiculous :D Z>T>P and that's it, just check the win% of IEM Katowice ^^
More like Z > T, and P > T right now. That's why Terran has performed the worst in Premier tournaments over the last year.
P>T? That's definitely not what Katowice has taught us.
I'd say Z > P, P = T, Z > T. I think Katowice accurate reflects this
On March 06 2022 04:14 CaRn1FeX wrote: Just seeing the headline I can cleary state that this whole thread is ridiculous :D Z>T>P and that's it, just check the win% of IEM Katowice ^^
More like Z > T, and P > T right now. That's why Terran has performed the worst in Premier tournaments over the last year.
P>T? That's definitely not what Katowice has taught us.
You forget the last GSL Super Tournament where P > T and the champion was a Protoss. In fact, the two best Terran players in the last GSL Super Tournament, Maru and Cure, were taken out by a Protoss player.
This is why you can't cherry pick a single tournament. You need to look at more Premier tournaments to determine the performance. And if you look at the Premier tournaments over the last year, Protoss has outperformed Terran (read the first post in this thread for the stats that show Protoss has outperformed Terran).
On March 06 2022 04:14 CaRn1FeX wrote: Just seeing the headline I can cleary state that this whole thread is ridiculous :D Z>T>P and that's it, just check the win% of IEM Katowice ^^
More like Z > T, and P > T right now. That's why Terran has performed the worst in Premier tournaments over the last year.
P>T? That's definitely not what Katowice has taught us.
I'd say Z > P, P = T, Z > T. I think Katowice accurate reflects this
Zest 3-2 over Bunny Zest 3-1 over Maru Maru 3-2 over Hero Zoun 3-0 over Cure
Doesn't seem very even to me in the last GSL Super Tournament.
Regardless, as I mentioned, you should be looking at a larger data set over the last year for Premier tournaments. And Protoss has outperformed Terran in Premier tournaments in the last year, this is the first post in this thread.
On February 28 2022 08:25 Pandain wrote: Yeah it's disingenuous to remove maru but not remove trap lol
when have tl terrans been anything but
Beats me.
The #TerranMasterRace types since the dawn of time both want to flex about how 1337 they are for playing the ‘hardest race’ while complaining their race is hard.
Given that innate contradiction at the core of their being, of course they’re going to spout nonsense for a decade+
For the sake of mods and my Terran playing brethren, I am very much talking about a certain type of Terran player. As many of us are PC gamers, a minority of us are #PCMasterRace obnoxious twats.
Some of these people you can have real, meaningful, interesting conversations with. But there's a subset of posters on this forum who will never be satisfied unless Maru wins absolutely everything ever.
On March 06 2022 03:51 Haku wrote: Can‘t believe people still waste their time even creating these threads or answearing them, including myself.
Its been 12 years guys. Its boring and pointless. SC2 race circlejerk never ands for Z/T/P.
It’s always been like this since WOL with the terran fanboys
When P wins. A move Imba When Z wins. Imba op When T terrans. godlike, other races need to l2p.
I do admit the terran tears after every big tournament is highly entertaining though. Mental gymnastics
But not all terrans obviously, just a few here. No offense to them, they have strong opinions and that's alright. It's just I don't think they are actually open to debate.
On March 06 2022 04:14 CaRn1FeX wrote: Just seeing the headline I can cleary state that this whole thread is ridiculous :D Z>T>P and that's it, just check the win% of IEM Katowice ^^
More like Z > T, and P > T right now. That's why Terran has performed the worst in Premier tournaments over the last year.
P>T? That's definitely not what Katowice has taught us.
You forget the last GSL Super Tournament where P > T and the champion was a Protoss. In fact, the two best Terran players in the last GSL Super Tournament, Maru and Cure, were taken out by a Protoss player.
This is why you can't cherry pick a single tournament. You need to look at more Premier tournaments to determine the performance. And if you look at the Premier tournaments over the last year, Protoss has outperformed Terran (read the first post in this thread for the stats that show Protoss has outperformed Terran).
I'm not, I'm just pointing out that Katowice isn't evidence of P or T domination against each other. Also lol, I can just as easily mention Gsl Season 3 where Cure took out Trap and Zest, the undoubtedly best two protoss players.
I think looking at premium tourney wins is sort of a silly metric -- nearly ALL of them are Trap/Zest for Toss and Cure/Maru for Terran, and if you match those guys against each other you get pretty much 50/50.
If you look at the total number of maps, I don't think you get a statistically meaningful measure either way.
This argument of course goes both ways, and people whining that P << T, Z are also wrong for similar reasons. I think the only thing that the statistics will back up is that Z is the strongest race, nothing else.
On March 09 2022 07:10 Cricketer12 wrote: Protoss...nerfs? Is there something I'm missing? Thought protoss sucked as evidenced by the last two years of competetive results...
Yes I'm clearing referring to the widow mine nerf when I refer to protoss nerfs
That's right. I have sworn and will not repent. I will never be satisfied until the Emperor Maru (long may he reign) wins literally everything, as is his right. Vivat Maru.
On February 28 2022 09:36 TossHeroes wrote: Simple cause terran has the least amount of S tier players
Zerg’s BiG 4 has always been the best players in the world by a margin for a while now
But carry on with the usual terran whining after every tournament
When terran wins its because “Mary and Clem GOdLike”
When terran lose its “oP Toss and Zerg”
Don’t terran fan boys get tired? Cause the rest of us sure do
The irony is, the longest running thread is Protoss whining, when the stats show that Terran performed the worst in Premier tournaments in the last year.
Protoss has performed better than Terran in Premier tournaments over the last year, and yet they have somehow convinced much of the community that Protoss is struggling the most, when it's actually Terran that is struggling the most in Premier tournaments in the last year.
Well, looks like Wardii's Balance Patch tournament has ended with two Protoss reaching the finals: WardiTV PTR Balance Cup
It gives a little insight into Terran's performance in this balance patch but not much, because only 3 Terrans participated, with Spirit and Kelazhur knocking each other out. But MaxPax did 3-0 Kelazhur so it seems that Protoss can still beat Terran with the right strategies and build orders, with this balance patch. Of course, more competitive matches will be needed for this balance patch before we can better determine how Terran will perform.
On March 15 2022 19:55 xelnaga_empire wrote: Well, looks like Wardii's Balance Patch tournament has ended with two Protoss reaching the finals: WardiTV PTR Balance Cup
It gives a little insight into Terran's performance in this balance patch but not much, because only 3 Terrans participated, with Spirit and Kelazhur knocking each other out. But MaxPax did 3-0 Kelazhur so it seems that Protoss can still beat Terran with the right strategies and build orders, with this balance patch. Of course, more competitive matches will be needed for this balance patch before we can better determine how Terran will perform.
It's pretty telling that EU terrans like Heromarine and Clem slowly stop competing in smaller tournaments just like Serral and Reynor riding their wave of success. Meanwhile poor Maxpax and Neeb absolutely need every chance to earn some money because protoss are fucked in real big tournaments.
On March 10 2022 13:31 honorablemacroterran wrote: That's right. I have sworn and will not repent. I will never be satisfied until the Emperor Maru (long may he reign) wins literally everything, as is his right. Vivat Maru.
Your name is honorablemacroterran yet you worship Maru, this makes no sense
The balance patch was released yesterday. So we have some early PvsT results from this balance patch from the AlphaX Alpha Pro Series: Alpha Pro Series: Ultimate Showdown/11
It's just 4 games, but Hero beat Gumiho and Dream easily. Hero beat Gumiho 2-0 and Hero beat Dream 2-0. Just as many pros said, including Harstem saying this, but the balance patch probably won't change PvsT too much at the highest level. So the overall balance changes will be good for PvsT, because at least it will put a dent in the rampant voidray + shield battery abusers on ladder.
On March 15 2022 19:55 xelnaga_empire wrote: Well, looks like Wardii's Balance Patch tournament has ended with two Protoss reaching the finals: WardiTV PTR Balance Cup
It gives a little insight into Terran's performance in this balance patch but not much, because only 3 Terrans participated, with Spirit and Kelazhur knocking each other out. But MaxPax did 3-0 Kelazhur so it seems that Protoss can still beat Terran with the right strategies and build orders, with this balance patch. Of course, more competitive matches will be needed for this balance patch before we can better determine how Terran will perform.
This tournament had like 80% Protoss from the start andhas no only Solar as current S class players in it. Huge grain of salt there
EDIT: Just realized Solar was top 8 at IEM so he is actually pretty good in shape right now
On February 28 2022 07:19 Nebuchad wrote: I know threads like these look infuriating but you have to remember, xelnaga doesn't believe what he says himself. He knows that protoss is doing worse than terran. Nobody truly believes that protoss will do better than terran in the next ten or twenty tournaments assuming no patch. This isn't a case where reality needs to be explained to him, this is just a case where reality is already known, and is being ignored.
The statistics show for Premier tournaments that Protoss did better than Terran. This is a textbook example of, "if you don't have the facts on your side, pound the table."
Ughh, that Creator vs Gumiho late game in the GSL today. There was nothing Gumiho could do against late game Protoss as Terran. Gumiho even went BCs, but that didn't work either. Gumiho had all the tier 3 Terran units with ghosts and BCs, but late game Protoss army cannot be stopped by Terran.
On March 31 2022 20:38 xelnaga_empire wrote: Ughh, that Creator vs Gumiho late game in the GSL today. There was nothing Gumiho could do against late game Protoss as Terran. Gumiho even went BCs, but that didn't work either. Gumiho had all the tier 3 Terran units with ghosts and BCs, but late game Protoss army cannot be stopped by Terran.
Ryung did it with just Marine Ghost
yeah I know that was because Zest fucked up, just joking
but complaining about TvP balance from the terran perspective right now is pretty ridicolous
On March 31 2022 20:38 xelnaga_empire wrote: Ughh, that Creator vs Gumiho late game in the GSL today. There was nothing Gumiho could do against late game Protoss as Terran. Gumiho even went BCs, but that didn't work either. Gumiho had all the tier 3 Terran units with ghosts and BCs, but late game Protoss army cannot be stopped by Terran.
Ryung did it with just Marine Ghost
yeah I know that was because Zest fucked up, just joking
Actually, Zest did fuck up. He didn't make any disruptors. Tastosis were also questioning why Zest didn't make any disruptors.
And when Ryung turtled, Zest could have built shield batteries and cannons outsides Ryung's base, like Trap did. Go watch Trap again in the GSL vod from last week, and how Trap built shield batteries and cannons against Gumiho who was turtling.
That's two things Zest didn't do against Ryung: make disruptors, or build shield batteries/cannons outside Ryung's base.
On March 31 2022 20:38 xelnaga_empire wrote: Ughh, that Creator vs Gumiho late game in the GSL today. There was nothing Gumiho could do against late game Protoss as Terran. Gumiho even went BCs, but that didn't work either. Gumiho had all the tier 3 Terran units with ghosts and BCs, but late game Protoss army cannot be stopped by Terran.
Ryung did it with just Marine Ghost
yeah I know that was because Zest fucked up, just joking
Actually, Zest did fuck up. He didn't make any disruptors. Tastosis were also questioning why Zest didn't make any disruptors.
And when Ryung turtled, Zest could have built shield batteries and cannons outsides Ryung's base, like Trap did. Go watch Trap again in the GSL vod from last week, and how Trap built shield batteries and cannons against Gumiho who was turtling.
That's two things Zest didn't do against Ryung: make disruptors, or build shield batteries/cannons outside Ryung's base.
I know that, that's why I said I was joking, obviously I don't think Marine Ghost is the answer for TvP Lategame
This whole Terran is weak thing is kinda ridiculous. TY and Inno left and since then Terran wins took a huge blow. Cure just isn't up to par (yet?) in offline events. Bunny / Dream/ Gumi are not S class players. Byun still has occasional wrist problems. Ryung does great, though. Maybe he can fill the void
On March 31 2022 20:38 xelnaga_empire wrote: Ughh, that Creator vs Gumiho late game in the GSL today. There was nothing Gumiho could do against late game Protoss as Terran. Gumiho even went BCs, but that didn't work either. Gumiho had all the tier 3 Terran units with ghosts and BCs, but late game Protoss army cannot be stopped by Terran.
User was warned for this post.
Gumiho made a game ending mistake in the last battle: He didn't yamato immediately after jumping his BCs, which is like the whole point of jumping on top in the first place.
He only Yamato'd with like 3-4 BCs at the end of the fight, which didn't really kill anything since they weren't even target firing and the batteries were healing.
If you wait even *one* second before Yamato'ing after jumping, it can make the difference between winning the fight with several BCs alive or losing the fight with several Tempests alive.
In a straight up fight on equal supply, BC jump -> yamato always beats carrier/tempest.
Terran did so bad today in the GSL. And Maru is in last place in his group. Hopefully, the balance team made up of pro gamers are watching the results and will adjust the balance if this performance for Terran continues.
On the other hand, Trap did very well in his group, coming in as #1 in his group, even beating Rogue in the process.
Terran has been quite obviously the weakest race for a very long time. When Maru hasn't been carrying the race it's obvious that the Terran pros just can't win vs Zerg in particular.
On April 18 2022 22:57 totemjack wrote: Terran did so bad today in the GSL. And Maru is in last place in his group. Hopefully, the balance team made up of pro gamers are watching the results and will adjust the balance if this performance for Terran continues.
On the other hand, Trap did very well in his group, coming in as #1 in his group, even beating Rogue in the process.
Did they? Give Byun's wrists another pair of minutes of solace and you have one Terran advancing.
On April 18 2022 22:57 totemjack wrote: Terran did so bad today in the GSL. And Maru is in last place in his group. Hopefully, the balance team made up of pro gamers are watching the results and will adjust the balance if this performance for Terran continues.
On the other hand, Trap did very well in his group, coming in as #1 in his group, even beating Rogue in the process.
Did they? Give Byun's wrists another pair of minutes of solace and you have one Terran advancing.
Isn’t it part of the problem though? Terran being balanced around mechanical gods which have more troubles keeping their body healthy. For example afaik only PartinG has had publicly known huge issues and he is playing a peculiar style of Protoss that is probably more taxing than what other Protoss do
On April 18 2022 22:57 totemjack wrote: Terran did so bad today in the GSL. And Maru is in last place in his group. Hopefully, the balance team made up of pro gamers are watching the results and will adjust the balance if this performance for Terran continues.
On the other hand, Trap did very well in his group, coming in as #1 in his group, even beating Rogue in the process.
Did they? Give Byun's wrists another pair of minutes of solace and you have one Terran advancing.
Isn’t it part of the problem though? Terran being balanced around mechanical gods which have more troubles keeping their body healthy. For example afaik only PartinG has had publicly known huge issues and he is playing a peculiar style of Protoss that is probably more taxing than what other Protoss do
Dark was out for a year due to wrist issues. TLO quit because of his wrists... I'm sure there's others.
Anyway, people get Carpal Tunnel from making Excel spreadsheets or programming Java. Insofar as anybody knows it has very little to do with how much you move a mouse/keyboard and a LOT with how long you sit in front of a computer and in what posture.
On April 18 2022 22:57 totemjack wrote: Terran did so bad today in the GSL. And Maru is in last place in his group. Hopefully, the balance team made up of pro gamers are watching the results and will adjust the balance if this performance for Terran continues.
On the other hand, Trap did very well in his group, coming in as #1 in his group, even beating Rogue in the process.
Did they? Give Byun's wrists another pair of minutes of solace and you have one Terran advancing.
Isn’t it part of the problem though? Terran being balanced around mechanical gods which have more troubles keeping their body healthy. For example afaik only PartinG has had publicly known huge issues and he is playing a peculiar style of Protoss that is probably more taxing than what other Protoss do
Dark was out for a year due to wrist issues. TLO quit because of his wrists... I'm sure there's others.
Anyway, people get Carpal Tunnel from making Excel spreadsheets or programming Java. Insofar as anybody knows it has very little to do with how much you move a mouse/keyboard and a LOT with how long you sit in front of a computer and in what posture.
Among the small population size of pro-gamers, Terrans are over-represented in injuries.
From my own anecdote, I experience more fatigue in the arms when playing SC2 as opposed to Diablo 2. In fact, I switch to D2 when im feeling tired for a more relaxed pace of gaming.
What on earth are you guys on about? Neither Zerg nor Terran have had lack of wins or presence in any tournament in SC2 for years. The only race that ever truly struggled has been Protoss now close this stupid thread its a waste of time
On April 19 2022 12:10 Drahkn wrote: What on earth are you guys on about? Neither Zerg nor Terran have had lack of wins or presence in any tournament in SC2 for years. The only race that ever truly struggled has been Protoss now close this stupid thread its a waste of time
On April 19 2022 12:10 Drahkn wrote: What on earth are you guys on about? Neither Zerg nor Terran have had lack of wins or presence in any tournament in SC2 for years. The only race that ever truly struggled has been Protoss now close this stupid thread its a waste of time
Protoss players who are unable to count unironically believes this.
Issue is with neither Terran nor Protoss its always been the Zerg design and the maps and how the 2 work hand in hand. And newsflash - neither is getting solved because its too late to adjust game design and everyone wants standard maps (standard = most of the time good for Zerg).
Also its not possible to blame the DEVs or anything like that. No-one could have known what the skill caps for the races will be due to base design, the players needed to get super good first. So its really only the last 5 years or so we see the huge disparity. Maybe LOTV economy change contributed to that as well, thats again biggest advantage to Zerg.
Think its time to stop taking the game and the competitive scene as seriously. It has not been a completely fair competition for quite some time now so we could have gone used to it already. Just enjoy the games while we still have a competitive scene
On April 19 2022 12:10 Drahkn wrote: What on earth are you guys on about? Neither Zerg nor Terran have had lack of wins or presence in any tournament in SC2 for years. The only race that ever truly struggled has been Protoss now close this stupid thread its a waste of time
This is not true though. Look at the very first post of this thread. Protoss had better results in 2021 to 2022 Premier tournaments than Terran did.
On April 19 2022 12:10 Drahkn wrote: What on earth are you guys on about? Neither Zerg nor Terran have had lack of wins or presence in any tournament in SC2 for years. The only race that ever truly struggled has been Protoss now close this stupid thread its a waste of time
This is not true though. Look at the very first post of this thread. Protoss had better results in 2021 to 2022 Premier tournaments than Terran did.
And if you follow the thread you can see that this fact is only a fact as it counts NA as premier and not e.g. the last 2 King of battle tournaments (and other reasons to why arguing this is stupid + zerg is the problem in the end)
as a longtime sc2 terran player, i have retired from sc2 long time ago (bunch of times actually) i keep coming back and coping that zerg is op (and protoss is as well), but the truth to be told i picked terran because i though it was most op race, thats basically the reason i picked it in WoL. Is it still Op? Who knows, but i sure as hell will never admit that terran is op. Zerg and Toss is OP.
Is it rly fair to count america tourneys, I wouldn't say Neeb, Astrea and Scarlett are dominating. If you discount these then the tallies become: Z: 20 P: 12 T: 10 On the nose this might seem broken, but lets look at unique victories: this shows us how many players have shown that they are capable of achieving victory with each race. Z: 5 P: 3 T: 3 Now it doesn't look as bad. Then what if we look at only victories, counting all tournament wins: Z: 10 P: 6 T: 5 Again counting only victories Terran is slighty on the lowest end. Now lets do only victories and unique players: Z: 5 P: 2 T: 3 Well now Protoss is the worst performer. This isn't to say that this is the most important stat of the aforementioned. But if we count how many Protoss have actually showed that they are capable of achieving victories, then the stat for Protoss is absolutely abbysmal.
The thing is depending on which stats you chose to look at, you can get different results, we could also tinker with the time frame. How about this stat: the last time Protoss won vs a Terran in a finals was Classic defeating GuMiho in 2019!
EPT
ESL Pro Tour/2020/21
