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I was wondering how Protoss is doing these days relative to other historic periods. I decided to chart the moving average of race appearances in the finalists of premier tournaments.
I like this metric for a couple reasons:
1. It's simple and pure - did you appear in a top 2? Yes or no.
2. It captures reality - results matter, not theory.
3. It rolls in a ton of data - finalists have to get through the bracket.
4. Individual skill is minimized - one player cannot bring the average over 50%.
5. Adjustable resolution - a moving average can be modified to filter out certain one-sided periods (i.e. GOMTvT).
The data used is the premier tournament page on Liquipedia. It goes all the way back to the start of WoL. I manually entered each value, so I would expect an error here or there, but it was quite the enjoyable trip down memory lane.
Without further ado, here is the data [note the scales are not constant]:
![[image loading]](https://files.catbox.moe/6k4kfr.png)
![[image loading]](https://files.catbox.moe/6sttzv.png)
![[image loading]](https://files.catbox.moe/nsuyxi.png)
Terran appeared in premier finals 189 times, Zerg 250, and Protoss 208.
A couple things stood out to me. I was surprised to see Terran be the least represented race historically. Zerg has enjoyed being over-represented in tournament finals for quite some time. Protoss took a big hit when Zergs dominance began, and hasn't recovered. Currently, Protoss is the least represented any race has been since the start of competitive SC2, by quite a margin.
If we are talking about balancing at the top level, Terran is over-represented while Protoss is significantly underrepresented. Zerg is doing worse than usual, but is still doing better than the 33% "ideal" average.
I'm going to throw my hat into the fire here and say that this settles the modern GOAT debate for me. Maru's dominance coincided with a period where Terran rarely made the finals, whereas Serral and Rogue dominated when Zerg was the most overrepresented of any race in SC2 history. + Show Spoiler +I specified the modern debate as we all know the real answer was mvp all along.
One more interesting tidbit is that we can compare the representation to an ideal of 1/3. By calculating the difference between ideal and actual, we can plot how imbalanced the game is over time, and get metrics on how effective balances patches are. Note that this will never be 0%. The following chart shows relative imbalance on a 1-year moving average:
![[image loading]](https://files.catbox.moe/3qdnsz.png)
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On November 02 2024 02:06 Monochromatic wrote:I'm going to throw my hat into the fire here and say that this settles the modern GOAT debate for me. Maru's dominance coincided with a period where Terran rarely made the finals, whereas Serral and Rogue dominated when Zerg was the most overrepresented of any race in SC2 history. + Show Spoiler +I specified the modern debate as we all know the real answer was mvp all along.
Yup.
People don't seem to remember that until 2020, Terran was almost unplayable at the pro level outside of Korea. The ONLY international competitions that Terran won were won by traveling Korean Terrans. Special and Kelazhur dominated Latin America and pretty much always have, but everywhere else it was Zerg and Protoss only.
It's only been very recently that Terran has seen success outside of Korea by non-Korean players.
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On November 02 2024 02:10 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2024 02:06 Monochromatic wrote:I'm going to throw my hat into the fire here and say that this settles the modern GOAT debate for me. Maru's dominance coincided with a period where Terran rarely made the finals, whereas Serral and Rogue dominated when Zerg was the most overrepresented of any race in SC2 history. + Show Spoiler +I specified the modern debate as we all know the real answer was mvp all along. Yup. People don't seem to remember that until 2020, Terran was almost unplayable at the pro level outside of Korea. The ONLY international competitions that Terran won were won by traveling Korean Terrans. Special and Kelazhur dominated Latin America and pretty much always have, but everywhere else it was Zerg and Protoss only. It's only been very recently that Terran has seen success outside of Korea by non-Korean players.
I know people like to make up stories to boost Maru’s achievements
That’s because there was simply no good terrans outside of Maru in Korean 2020. Are we really going to pretend the other terrans were better than the other players or that they were losing cause terran was weak?
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Nice.
Statistical evidence that imbalance has increased whilst the Balance Council have been in charge.
I'm not surprised or angry, I'm just disappointed.
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On November 02 2024 02:18 Blitzball04 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2024 02:10 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 02 2024 02:06 Monochromatic wrote:I'm going to throw my hat into the fire here and say that this settles the modern GOAT debate for me. Maru's dominance coincided with a period where Terran rarely made the finals, whereas Serral and Rogue dominated when Zerg was the most overrepresented of any race in SC2 history. + Show Spoiler +I specified the modern debate as we all know the real answer was mvp all along. Yup. People don't seem to remember that until 2020, Terran was almost unplayable at the pro level outside of Korea. The ONLY international competitions that Terran won were won by traveling Korean Terrans. Special and Kelazhur dominated Latin America and pretty much always have, but everywhere else it was Zerg and Protoss only. It's only been very recently that Terran has seen success outside of Korea by non-Korean players. I know people like to make up stories to boost Maru’s achievements That’s because there was simply no good terrans outside of Maru in Korean 2020. Are we really going to pretend the other terrans were better than the other players or that they were losing cause terran was weak?
I'm fine if you want to make that argument, but if you're going to, you have to IMMEDIATELY apply that logic to Protoss in the current game and cease all other balance arguments for why Protoss isn't winning.
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On November 02 2024 02:28 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2024 02:18 Blitzball04 wrote:On November 02 2024 02:10 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 02 2024 02:06 Monochromatic wrote:I'm going to throw my hat into the fire here and say that this settles the modern GOAT debate for me. Maru's dominance coincided with a period where Terran rarely made the finals, whereas Serral and Rogue dominated when Zerg was the most overrepresented of any race in SC2 history. + Show Spoiler +I specified the modern debate as we all know the real answer was mvp all along. Yup. People don't seem to remember that until 2020, Terran was almost unplayable at the pro level outside of Korea. The ONLY international competitions that Terran won were won by traveling Korean Terrans. Special and Kelazhur dominated Latin America and pretty much always have, but everywhere else it was Zerg and Protoss only. It's only been very recently that Terran has seen success outside of Korea by non-Korean players. I know people like to make up stories to boost Maru’s achievements That’s because there was simply no good terrans outside of Maru in Korean 2020. Are we really going to pretend the other terrans were better than the other players or that they were losing cause terran was weak? I'm fine if you want to make that argument, but if you're going to, you have to IMMEDIATELY apply that logic to Protoss in the current game and cease all other balance arguments for why Protoss isn't winning.
No, that doesn't follow. In one scenario we have a terran doing well (Maru, btw Maru wasn't the only korean terran doing well but whatever), and the others can't get to that level, so we can say that the others need to up their level of play to reach the level of the people doing well. In the other we have nobody doing well, so we have no basis to assert the existence of a level of play that they are unable to reach.
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On November 02 2024 02:33 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2024 02:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 02 2024 02:18 Blitzball04 wrote:On November 02 2024 02:10 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 02 2024 02:06 Monochromatic wrote:I'm going to throw my hat into the fire here and say that this settles the modern GOAT debate for me. Maru's dominance coincided with a period where Terran rarely made the finals, whereas Serral and Rogue dominated when Zerg was the most overrepresented of any race in SC2 history. + Show Spoiler +I specified the modern debate as we all know the real answer was mvp all along. Yup. People don't seem to remember that until 2020, Terran was almost unplayable at the pro level outside of Korea. The ONLY international competitions that Terran won were won by traveling Korean Terrans. Special and Kelazhur dominated Latin America and pretty much always have, but everywhere else it was Zerg and Protoss only. It's only been very recently that Terran has seen success outside of Korea by non-Korean players. I know people like to make up stories to boost Maru’s achievements That’s because there was simply no good terrans outside of Maru in Korean 2020. Are we really going to pretend the other terrans were better than the other players or that they were losing cause terran was weak? I'm fine if you want to make that argument, but if you're going to, you have to IMMEDIATELY apply that logic to Protoss in the current game and cease all other balance arguments for why Protoss isn't winning. No, that doesn't follow. In one scenario we have a terran doing well (Maru, btw Maru wasn't the only korean terran doing well but whatever), and the others can't get to that level, so we can say that the others need to up their level of play to reach the level of the people doing well. In the other we have nobody doing well, so we have no basis to assert the existence of a level of play that they are unable to reach.
Oh it absolutely does follow, but I don't have the patience right now to break out the white board and break it down for you again, especially since you keep showing again and again that you don't read everything I write when I get detailed about it.
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On November 02 2024 02:18 Blitzball04 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2024 02:10 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 02 2024 02:06 Monochromatic wrote:I'm going to throw my hat into the fire here and say that this settles the modern GOAT debate for me. Maru's dominance coincided with a period where Terran rarely made the finals, whereas Serral and Rogue dominated when Zerg was the most overrepresented of any race in SC2 history. + Show Spoiler +I specified the modern debate as we all know the real answer was mvp all along. Yup. People don't seem to remember that until 2020, Terran was almost unplayable at the pro level outside of Korea. The ONLY international competitions that Terran won were won by traveling Korean Terrans. Special and Kelazhur dominated Latin America and pretty much always have, but everywhere else it was Zerg and Protoss only. It's only been very recently that Terran has seen success outside of Korea by non-Korean players. I know people like to make up stories to boost Maru’s achievements That’s because there was simply no good terrans outside of Maru in Korean 2020. Are we really going to pretend the other terrans were better than the other players or that they were losing cause terran was weak?
Quickly checked liquipedia, and it showed both innovation and ty still active in 2020
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EPT
