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Even a casual StarCraft fan would notice that since
Fantasy overwhelmed 
GGPlay with his revolutionary TvZ build, mechanic TvZ builds have been unprecedently common. How popular is mech TvZ? How successful is it? On what maps? In the hands of what players? And how much of Zerg's recent troubles against Terran can we attribute to mech TvZ?
In an attempt to answer these questions, I threw together this statistics report.
Even a casual StarCraft fan would notice that since
Fantasy overwhelmed GGPlay with his revolutionary TvZ build, mechanic TvZ builds have been unprecedently common. How popular is mech TvZ? How successful is it? On what maps? In the hands of what players? And how much of Zerg's recent troubles against Terran can we attribute to mech TvZ?In an attempt to answer these questions, I threw together this statistics report.
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This little project is based on a brief examination of each of the 179 Terran versus Zerg games played between (and including) Fantasy's Incruit OSL semifinal series against GGPlay on October 17, 2008 and January 24, 2009. I refer to games from this period as post-Fantasy, and games prior to it as pre-Fantasy. Don't be miffed that I sometimes use the grandiose terms "pre-Fantasy era" and "post-Fantasy" era - if you read this, you'll understand why they're warranted.
Using TLPD, VODs, live report threads, and my memory I classified the Terran's build order choice in each post-Fantasy game as either mech, bio, or other. The first two categories are fairly self-explanatory. The third, other, is for games which were decided before the Terran committed to a typical mech or bio build (i.e. center raxes, wraith builds). Note that six of the 179 games I included (six Terran wins) are from undocumented GOM matches. I was unable to record build order choices for these games, and thus I left them out of any build-related calculations or statistics. Edit: note also that non-mech is bio and other combined.
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Edit: at the request of some posters below, I have added a row labeled "Immediately pre-Fantasy" which displays statistics for the 192 TvZs played immediately preceding Fantasy's series against GGPlay on October 17. The immediately pre-Fantasy TvZ winrate, 60.4%, reveals that Terrans have been whipping Zergs for almost a year now. This raises an interesting question: has the popularity of mech allowed Terran to stay dominant despite more balanced maps and stronger Zerg players, or has mech simply taken the place of bio as top Terrans' weapon of choice in TvZ? I suspect the former more than the latter, but either way the TvZ mech winrate remains relatively high: it's three percentage points above the immediately pre-Fantasy winrate.
According to this OP by PoP (and some quick math), before Fantasy vs. GGPlay Terrans won 53.8% of their 2,808 games versus Zerg. Since Fantasy vs. GGPlay, Terrans have won over 60% of their games vs. Zerg - an obvious increase in winrate.
The fact that Terrans' post-Fantasy non-mech (bio and other) winrate, 56.9%, is also higher than their pre-Fantasy winrate suggests mech isn't solely (or even primarily) responsible for this dip in TvZ balance - however, that post-Fantasy Terrans playing mech have won over 63% of their games (a full 10 percentage points above the pre-Fantasy TvZ winrate) illustrates the power of mech against Zerg. A record of 36-21 is solid to say the least (compared to 58-46 for bio builds).
The "build use rate" column shows the rate at which Terrans chose each build (mech, non-mech, bio, other). Since I wasn't about to slog through pre-Fantasy VODs looking for mech, I can't use these figures to make a statement about the relative popularity of mech in post-Fantasy TvZ. However, mech's build use rate of 32.9% means it's being used in about one out of every three TvZs - a ratio which common sense dictates is probably the highest ever over a 179-game span.
A recent OP in BW by a now-banned user asked the question "mech build now standard?" I think the numbers here have his answer: yes. A build which appears in one of every three games should be considered pretty damn standard. The by map and over time sections both substantiate the claim that not only is mech standard today, but it's likely to become even more popular over the coming months.
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The maps in this chart are sorted by mech use rate, so you can read it as a list of contemporary maps in order of their "mech-ness" (with the caveat that this chart relies on a limited number of observations - for example, I included Plasma's one game mainly in an effort to be complete).
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First note that Terrans have tried mech on every single new map from the post-Fantasy era - evidence of their faith in the build. Even Harmony and Neo Requiem, maps which seem obviously hellish for mech builds, have seen some mech TvZ. This chart means mech TvZ is much more versatile than I had originally suspected, and perhaps even that mech TvZ is not merely a product of a few metal-friendly maps but rather a permanent, game-changing strategy shift.
A few figures here are especially notable. First is Medusa's ridiculous mech winrate: over 70%, 26 points higher than bio's winrate. This chart says Terrans shouldn't even bother with MnM on Medusa - in the post-Fantasy era only
Yarnc, Shine[kaL], Saint, and EffOrt have survived metal here. Also note mech's relatively strong performance on the other two Batoo OSL maps, Return of the King and Tears of the Moon. Coupled with Medusa, these maps could make for the first (?) OSL proper without a single game of bio TvZ. These are truly strange times!Since my knowledge of SC strategy is limited, I won't get too into mech-friendly map characteristics here - with the exception of this thought question: could it be that mapmakers' eagerness to disrupt forge FE PvZ has led to a spat of wide open naturals which are disastrous for defending vulture runbys? In many ways, I think Zerg's recent success against Protoss has come at the cost of vulnerability to mech.
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This first chart is pretty simple: it displays a tally of non-mech TvZs and mech TvZs over the post-Fantasy era.
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For a short time in November (when Proleague and GOM were the only running tournaments), it looked like mech was a novelty build that would always sit backseat to bio - that's changed now that the OSL and MSL are underway. Through December and January, the frequency of mech TvZs has been almost on par with the frequency of bio TvZs.
This second chart compares mech, Terran, and bio winrates over the post-Fantasy era and also displays mech use rate over time.
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As you might have expected based on the first chart, mech use rate has actually increased over the past two months.
Mech's winrate has also increased, albeit marginally, over this period (overall Terran winrate and bio winrate have been fairly stable). This tells us that, not only have Zergs not figured out how to tackle mech TvZ yet, they're actually losing to it more and more often. More mech use and more effective mech use could mean a very dark Starleague season for the Swarm. Where is Coach
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Who are the kings of mech TvZ? This chart shows the top 10 post-Fantasy mech players, ranked by their game differential in mech TvZs.
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Fantasy may have started the metal trend, but
UpMagiC deserves almost equal credit for pioneering mech TvZ. His 13 mech games are more than one fifth the total played since Fantasy's OSL semifinal, and many of his wins came at the expense of tough opponents: Jaedong, Luxury, EffOrt, sAviOr, great, and Saint. Furthermore, UpMagiC is responsible for bringing post-Fantasy mech to five new maps - he was the first Terran to play this build on Athena 2 (win vs. great on 12/13), Byzantium 2 (win vs. great on 12/13), Return of the King (win vs. Shine[KaL] on 12/26), Rush Hour 3 (win vs. Luxury on 12/2), and Sin Chupung-Ryeong (win vs. Jaedong on 1/6). Essentially, UpMagiC's play is proof of concept for mech TvZ: this build is formidable across maps and opponents.Note that this list of Terrans, sorted by performance in mech TvZ, is basically a list of the best all-around Terran players. The point: all of the best Terrans are playing mech, with success. (There's one notable exception:
Sea. Sea is 2-4 against Zergs since October 17, and has yet to play a mech game...maybe he should?)If you look closely and use your thinking cap, you'll figure out
Leta has four wins in the other category. These are all wraith builds which sometimes rely partially on factory units, but usually end the game before they become necessary en masse. Keep an eye on Leta's upcoming TvZs - his blend of fast wraiths and mech is an effective variation on more common mech TvZ builds (he's now beaten Luxury twice using wraiths).One more interesting fact about the Terrans: Fantasy has only played one mech TvZ since losing to EffOrt's three-hatch speedling on Medusa on October 25, just one week after his Incruit OSL semifinal win.
And their opponents? Which Zergs can stand up to the metal onslaught?
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In short, not many. Only six Zergs have winning records against post-Fantasy mech (compared to 16 with losing records), and two of those six are
FireFist and ToSky (both 1-0 against mech after fluke wins). The other four are Yarnc, ZerO, sAviOr, and Saint.Including non-mech games doesn't make the picture much brighter: while 15 Terrans have winning records against Zerg since last October 17, only six Zergs have winning records against Terran (Yarnc, ZerO, Jaedong, ToSky,
Calm, July). Yarnc and ZerO are probably Zerg's best hope - they've both shown good play against mech while dominating bio builds.Most other Zergs - even those with impressive records against bio - have struggled against mech. Why bother to tackle Jaedong (7-2 vs. bio, uses queens) with MnM when you can beat him with mech? It's worked for UpMagiC,
Light, and Canata - three players who most likely could not stand up to Jaedong in a traditional TvZ.Unfortunately for all you Zerg players looking for a scapegoat, there's really no one player that's responsible for Zerg's poor record against mech. Losses to mech are spread quite evenly - perhaps an even distribution of mech games has prevented any one Zerg from mastering the build. If I had to finger anyone for Zerg's awful record against Terran lately (and I have, by including them at the bottom of the above chart), it would probably be FireFist and GGPlay. They've combined for 17 ZvT losses over the past four months...disgusting.
+ Show Spoiler [Stats for all Terrans] +
+ Show Spoiler [Stats for all Zergs] +
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+ Show Spoiler [Stats for all Zergs] +
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