There have been, by my count, 1625 total non-mirror-match games played at premier tournaments so far this year, as classified by liquipedia (including the games played so far at GSL season 3). Here are the winrates from all of those games, taken together.
TvZ: 50.95%
ZvP: 60.74%
PvT: 53.11%
Note that I calculated these myself based on the map statistics presented by liquipedia for each tournament, and the percentages could be slightly off.
Take from these statistics what you will. I will say that these statistics seem to give evidence to the conclusion that PvZ is Zerg favored, at the highest level of tournament play, while PvT might hold a slight Protoss advantage. TvZ might be more or less balanced.
These likely arenāt the only statistics to consider when deciding if the game is balanced at the highest level of play, but they are significant. What do you think?
ZvP win rates are screwed because Serral and Reynor both got Protoss heavy groups in DH. Same thing with Scarlett in NA. Simply better players winning more games.
Heavy nerf to abduct, it hardcounters a lot of P stuff such as collo, disruptor,carrier,tempestā¦ and in zvt is not used on the same level, only some tank pulls, but if needed, blinding cloud can be buffed a bit to allow vipers to counter tanks by clouds instead of of abducts.
Winrates aside, itās clear that there is a design problem in zvp, Z has a lot of viable units and on top of that, viper enables an abusive style because if you make them you can counter the enemy counters, you trade energy for expensive and important units with almost no counterplay because the spell has a good range, is instant, the unit flies and is fast.
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Code S Finalā was won by āTYā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 3 Qualifier Day 1 Group E WB Finalā was won by āSolarā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group C WB Finalā was won by āTYā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 3 Qualifier Day 1 Group B WB Finalā was won by āTrapā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 3 Qualifier Day 1 Group F WB Finalā was won by āByuNā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 1 Group B WB Finalā was won by āZestā (Protoss).
Event āDouyu Cup 2020 #1 Qualifier CN Finalā was won by āCyanā (Protoss).
Event āDouyu Cup 2020 #1 Main Event Playoffs WB Finalā was won by āSerralā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 1 Group C WB Finalā was won by āsOsā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 2 Qualifier Day 1 Group D WB Finalā was won by āMaruā (Terran).
Event āIEM Katowice 2020 Qualifier Korean #2 Stage 2 WB Finalā was won by āRogueā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group D WB Finalā was won by āsoOā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 2 Qualifier Day 1 Group F WB Finalā was won by āDongRaeGuā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 2 Code S Finalā was won by āRogueā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 2 Group A WB Finalā was won by āsoOā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 1 Group F WB Finalā was won by āStatsā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 2 Group C WB Finalā was won by āTRUEā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 1 Group D WB Finalā was won by āHurricaneā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group B WB Finalā was won by āINnoVationā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 3 Qualifier Day 1 Group D WB Finalā was won by āsOsā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group H WB Finalā was won by āZestā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 2 Group B WB Finalā was won by āTaeJaā (Terran).
Event āDouyu Cup 2020 #1 Qualifier US Finalā was won by āNamsharā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 3 Qualifier Day 1 Group A WB Finalā was won by āBunnyā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 2 Group D WB Finalā was won by āCreatorā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group E WB Finalā was won by āStatsā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group G WB Finalā was won by āPartinGā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 1 Group E WB Finalā was won by āTYā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group A WB Finalā was won by āRogueā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 2 Qualifier Day 1 Group B WB Finalā was won by āsOsā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 3 Qualifier Day 1 Group C WB Finalā was won by āZestā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 2 Qualifier Day 1 Group A WB Finalā was won by āsoOā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 2 Qualifier Day 1 Group E WB Finalā was won by āScarlettā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 1 Group A WB Finalā was won by āPartinGā (Protoss).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Qualifier Group F WB Finalā was won by āMaruā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament #1 Main Event Finalā was won by āMaruā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 2 Group F WB Finalā was won by āScarlettā (Zerg).
Event āIEM Katowice 2020 Playoffs Finalā was won by āRogueā (Zerg).
Event āDouyu Cup 2020 #1 Main Event Playoffs Finalā was won by āReynorā (Zerg).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 1 Qualifier Day 2 Group E WB Finalā was won by āBomberā (Terran).
Event āGSL 2020 Season 2 Qualifier Day 1 Group C WB Finalā was won by āRogueā (Zerg).
Win-rates of every matchup for all premier events split by region:
Korean vs Korean:
Terran vs Terran: 0.497382 (382)
Terran vs Protoss: 0.423913 (552)
Terran vs Zerg: 0.497268 (366)
Protoss vs Terran: 0.578378 (555)
Protoss vs Protoss: 0.500000 (552)
Protoss vs Zerg: 0.458525 (434)
Zerg vs Terran: 0.515789 (380)
Zerg vs Protoss: 0.541475 (434)
Zerg vs Zerg: 0.500000 (244)
Foreigner vs Foreigner:
Terran vs Terran: 0.490196 (102)
Terran vs Protoss: 0.466667 (120)
Terran vs Zerg: 0.523490 (149)
Protoss vs Terran: 0.529412 (119)
Protoss vs Protoss: 0.500000 (202)
Protoss vs Zerg: 0.450704 (213)
Zerg vs Terran: 0.493671 (158)
Zerg vs Protoss: 0.549296 (213)
Zerg vs Zerg: 0.500000 (262)
Foreigner vs Korean:
Terran vs Terran: 0.500000 (96)
Terran vs Protoss: 0.365854 (82)
Terran vs Zerg: 0.589474 (95)
Protoss vs Terran: 0.634146 (82)
Protoss vs Protoss: 0.500000 (98)
Protoss vs Zerg: 0.423913 (92)
Zerg vs Terran: 0.434343 (99)
Zerg vs Protoss: 0.576087 (92)
Zerg vs Zerg: 0.500000 (86)
Korean vs Foreigner:
Terran vs Terran: 0.500000 (58)
Terran vs Protoss: 0.438776 (98)
Terran vs Zerg: 0.568807 (109)
Protoss vs Terran: 0.554455 (101)
Protoss vs Protoss: 0.500000 (92)
Protoss vs Zerg: 0.431579 (95)
Zerg vs Terran: 0.431193 (109)
Zerg vs Protoss: 0.568421 (95)
Zerg vs Zerg: 0.500000 (88)
All vs All:
Terran vs Terran: 0.496865 (638)
Terran vs Protoss: 0.426056 (852)
Terran vs Zerg: 0.525730 (719)
Protoss vs Terran: 0.574096 (857)
Protoss vs Protoss: 0.500000 (944)
Protoss vs Zerg: 0.449640 (834)
Zerg vs Terran: 0.487936 (746)
Zerg vs Protoss: 0.550360 (834)
Zerg vs Zerg: 0.500000 (680)
Once again the cherry pickers of Battle.net push false narratives based on highly limited data. PvZ is slightly zerg favored in the context of premier events. ZvT is Terran favored. TvP protoss favored. All matchups except TvP/PvT are within Blizzardās +/- 5% tolerance to be considered ābalancedā.
I see the infographic, and it is interesting. The numbers donāt match what liquipedia shows - in fact there are many more games played in your infographic than liquipedia reports. I assume the qualifier statistics were taken into account in computing these winrates. I didnāt take qualifier statistics into account in my 1625 total games played. I am open to arguments that qualifier statistics should be taken into account, though it seems to me that the 1625 games played in the main parts of the tournaments themselves are sufficient to draw conclusions from.
ZtAbhEt,
I see you also included qualifiers in your statistics. Unlike minor tournaments, Iām open to the idea that qualifiers represent sufficiently high level play to consider in determining balance. I didnāt include them because the 1625 games included seemed sufficient to draw conclusions from. I will say that think the games played in the main parts of the tournaments represent somewhat higher level play than the games from the qualifiers. Further, often it is the case that the most talented and successful players need not participate in qualifiers, as they have already qualified for the tournaments, thus lowering the level of play in qualifiers.
However, there is a serious flaw in your data, once again, ZtAbhEt. In your list of events you donāt even include ANY premier tournaments from Europe. You later include winrates of foreigners, but since the premier tournaments from Europe arenāt listed Iām assuming you take into account only those foreigners participating in the GSL events or the few (Katowice, Douyu cup) where elite Europeans joined in. The two best Zerg players in the world (according to Aligulac) only participated in two of your events, by my count (IEM Katowice, and the Douyu Cup). Of course, by excluding most of the tournaments with the best Zerg players, the data will be skewed to show Zerg is less successful than they really are. This is cherry picking, my friend. Notably, even removing all of these tournaments, ZvP according to you sits at 55%. This is the most surprising part of your analysis, to me.
Further, it doesnāt really make sense to claim that a win for a race in the qualifier of a tournament is of the same significance of the winner of the entire tournament. By definition, the winner of a qualifier has merely qualified to participate in the tournament in question. It is not even of the same class of prestige as winning the entire tournament. So your list of premier event finalists is misleading at best.
Why would you include tournaments which ban the highest skilled players on Earth if you are interested in, and I quote, āthe highest skill levels of playā?
My standard is to include all premier tournament play. You are excluding a significant body of premier tournaments where literally the two best players in the world compete. You are cherry picking.
So you admit that you lied in the other thread - you arenāt actually interested in āthe highest skill levels of playā?
Reality check: you were catering your sample to a conclusion by cherry picking and āthe highest skill levels of playā was the justification you choose.
I donāt understand what you find inconsistent between this and my other thread. In that thread, I was plainly arguing that premier tournament data should be preferred in determining the balance of the top tier of play to minor tournament data. This is because the best players play in premier tournaments but not often in minor tournaments. In this thread, Iām simply presenting the winrates from all premier tournaments. There is no inconsistency.
Your winrates ignore several premier tournaments where the two best players, and several from the top 10 of each race, compete. I argue these should be included. Do you disagree? Why?
Your justification for using premier events over all events was that premier events were āthe highest skill levels of playā. But premier events arenāt the āthe highest skill levels of playā since many of them ban the most talented players from the event (itās called the region lock). You just stated that you prefer all premier events over premier events that werenāt region locked which is in direct contradiction to your claim that you care about āthe highest skill levels of playā. Itās blatantly obvious you are catering your sample to your conclusion, since your justifications are flip-flopping to preserve your conclusion.
Do you care about āthe highest skill levels of playā or not? Make up your mind. If you do, then you need to remove region-locked premier events from your sample and if you did youād find the only imbalanced matchup is TvP which is protoss favored. If you do not, then you need to accept the conclusion from the other thread which showed, yet again, that Protoss is overpowered vs Terran.
I see. You believe we should exclude region-locked tournaments from the data, which include the European tournaments. I disagree with this. Although region locked, these tournaments still contain players at the highest level. Serral and Reynor go without saying. Clem and Heromarine are listed as the number 2 and 4 Terran in the world, currently, according to Aligulac. High-level Protoss representation is somewhat more limited, but Showtime is listed as the 5th best Protoss. It doesnāt make sense to exclude these tournaments which include some of the best players in the world. And the reality is, even if GSL isnāt region locked, only 3 foreigners participated in the main part of the tournament of GSL season 2, for example: Special, Scarlett, and Astrea. There might as well be a region lock, since the reality is the best foreigners donāt play in GSL. Excluding them from all considerations of balance seems problematic, donāt you agree?
Nope. That is in direct contradiction to everything Iāve said. I have clearly stated that ALL events should be included. YOU have stated that events that are not āthe highest skill levels of playā should be excluded yet you donāt apply that to tournaments that ban the worldās best players. If you are to be consistent with your own logic, you must remove region-locked events from your sample. The problem is that I already did that for you, you didnāt like the conclusion and accused me of cherry picking. Yet you wonāt admit that you cherry picked in the other thread, even though that was your justification for removing tournaments in that thread. Lmao. Your logic is a trainwreck.
Where do you get your data from? In the main part of DH SC2 Master Fall: Season Finals, liquipedia shows TvZ at a grisly 21.1%. And I agree this is one of the few (also IEM Katowice, Douyu) tournaments with the best of the best from all races. Perhaps there is reason for concern here. But on the other hand, there were only three Zerg who participated in this tournament, Reynor, Serral, and Risky. Risky dropped out early but Reynor and Serral had predictably strong showings in TvZ in this tournament. The sample size is also small. If you include the divisions statistics, then TvZ was at 54.4% winrate for this tournament, according to liquipedia. Where is the 44% coming from?
Edit: Oops, I was looking at the Summer Season Finals, my bad. The Fall season finals do show a 44% winrate for the main part of that tournament. But again the sample size is somewhat low, and the best Terran player, Maru, did not participate.
I see. You still maintain that balance at the highest level of play should also take into consideration every minor and obscure tournament. But youāre saying that by my logic, I should exclude the elite European premier tournaments because they are region locked, and region locked tournaments cannot represent the highest level of play, since players from some regions are excluded.
I see your point to some extent, actually. Region locking does make the statistics hard to interpret. TvZ especially has few tournaments with representatives from both the very top tier Terran AND top tier Zerg players. However, I believe I convincingly showed that just because the European tournaments are region locked doesnāt mean that they donāt include some of the highest level of play. I disagree with your point that region locked tournaments cannot include play at the highest level, and indeed the current second best Terran and the best and second best Zerg only participate in those elite European tournaments. They should be included.
Furthermore, GSL is de facto region locked, since the best representatives from other regions simply do not participate in that tournament. Only a few mid-tier (no hate to them, I enjoy watching Special Scarlett and Astrea too) players from other regions participated, for example, in GSL season 2. Despite this, GSL is obviously a premier tournament and the winrates there should be included in the balance discussion at the highest level of tournament play.