These stats say that Terran is either under-powered or just too hard

General Discussion
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Is there any truth to the F2 + Amove and PROTOSSED memes? I did some research. Here’s what I found:

As of August 2nd, if we remove Random players from the player pool, there are 91,818 ranked players that play SC2 on NA. 32,945 of those players are Terran (~36%), 29,745 of those players are protoss (~32%), and 29,128 of them are zerg (~32%).

Since we know that more people play Terran, that means that there should be more Terran players in each league. But, it should be proportional. Each league should consist of about 36% Terran.

In GM there are 306 players. 36% of 306 is 110 players. So there should be 110 GM Terrans in NA right now. But there aren’t. There are only only 102.

In Masters, there are 4,369 players. There should be 1,573 Terran players in Masters (36%). Instead, there are only 1,485 (34%).

What about Diamond? There are 21,264 players in Diamond, so 7655 of those players should be Terran. But, instead, we find that there are only 6,866.

Platinum must be where Terran shines! Out of 19,793 plat players, Terran ought to account for 7125 of them, but instead comes in at only 6334.

The sad part is, these numbers include the Terran two base all ins. If these were strictly macro styled games, you can bet that these numbers would actually be much worse.

So what’s going on? Why is Terran in such a terrible place? My personal theory is that Terran is disproportionately hard compared to the other races. Every Terran unit must use an ability, be in it’s stationary sieged mode, or be excessively microed, to be at it’s full combat effectiveness (except for Hellions/Hell bats and Thors).

What are your thoughts? Please share them in the comments. Be civil. But more importantly, be honest.

UPDATE

bu-b-but what about Korea?

Here are the stats for KR as of today:

There are 33,449 KR SC2 players (excluding Random). 9,849 of them play Zerg (29%), 10,531 of them play Protoss (32%), and 13,069 of them play Terran (39%). Wow, Koreans love Terran…

In GM, there are 191 players. Instead of 75 Terrans, there are 66.
In Masters, there are 1,587 players. Instead of 619 Terrans, there are 529.
In Diamond, there are 8,285 players. Instead of 3,231 Terrans, there are 3314. Terran is over-represented in this MMR.
In Platinum, there are 7,988 players. Instead of 3,115 Terran players, there are 3020.
In Gold, there are 7,134 player. Instead of 2,782 Terran players, there are 2649.
Terran is over represented in this MMR.

This leaves our remaining 3,491 KR Terran friends in wood elo.

There ya have it. Even in Korea, the pinnacle of SC2 in the whole world, Terran is suffering from imbalance. Diamond KR players are most assuredly the most angry bunch of folks in this game. And who could blame them?

Source: rankedftw dot com/stats/leagues/1v1/#v=2&r=1&sx=a

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Your theory is wrong lol

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So how do you explain Terran being so underrepresented?

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if you’re going to go through different leagues and say “oh terran should be at this percent of representation” then you’re always going to be wrong, people play the race that they want to play.

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I’m not even going to bother dismantling your post. There are far too many flaws in your methodology and analysis.

What I will do is tell you the GM race distributions of global aggregate and korean server, which are far more significant than your NA statistics

using the same site you posted as your source:

Korean server - Terran has the highest representation at GM at 33.68%. Protoss the lowest at 30.58%
Global - Protoss has the highest representation at GM at 33.68%, and Zerg the lowest at 31.35%

Using your same method of analysis, the conclusion drawn is that Protoss is “under-powered or just too hard” on the most highly skilled and difficult ladder on the planet, or that Zerg is “under-powered or just too hard” when all GMs in the world are taken into account, not just the GMs on the server where Avilo hits GM.

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Don’t be condescending if you don’t understand how math works…

In Korea, there are 13,069 terran players and 10,531 protoss. There are 24% MORE terran players on KR than there are protoss players. That means that protoss representation should be lower in every MMR, because there are fewer of them. If there were only 200 protoss players on the KR server, you couldn’t expect there to be 33% race representation in GM, now could you?

So, first, lmao @ your bad attitude and being proven wrong in front of all your peers. Second, thank you for proving my point further.

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Youre completely clueless

Game is balanced around the highest level, not the poverty leagues, so ideal race representation would be 33% in GM regardless of total player base.

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So if there are 1,000 protoss players, 200 terran players, and 20 zerg players, then 33% of the GM should be zerg, 33% should be terran, and 33% should be protoss?

That’s not how numbers work. You should delete your posts now to avoid looking like a goober in front of your forum friends.

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You are delusional if you think Blizzard balances the game around players in gold league.

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So why isn’t the game balanced at GM? Why isn’t the game balanced at Masters? Why isn’t the game balanced at Diamond? If you could comprehend my post you’d see that Terran isn’t in a great spot in any of the MMRs… It is actually represented almost perfectly at Gold though, which is weird, but I didn’t include that MMR in my OP.

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I never said the game was perfectly balanced

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this only proves newer players play terran because its the easiest

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After playing all three races, I firmly believe terran is the most difficult. Until I discovered rapid fire (lib siege and snipe/emp) that race was unplayable. Zerg became a little easier since I could then rapid fire biles early/mid game.

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Stats don’t work like that, there are things like variance that have to be accunted for. That there are 36% terran players means that out of all the outcomes, 36% in GM would be the most likely one, but not that 36% players is the most likely thing to happen.

Let me give you an example, if you toss a coin 10 times the most likely out of all the outcomes is 5 heads and 5 tails, but that outcome itself only has about a 25% chance of actually occuring. If all you care about is having 5 heads and 5 tails, it is much more likely to not get it than to actually get it.

Heck, 34% instead of 36%, 102 instead of 110, those numbers can be perfectly explained by variance alone without looking for any underlying factors. If you are looking for exactly 36% terrans in every league, well, let me tell you that the actual chance of that happenning is minuscule, the same way that if you tossed a coin 10000 times the actual chance of getting 5000 heads and 5000 tails is tiny.

If you have to go looking for an explanation, well, there are many that can fit. One that I particularly feel is extremely solid is the following: Terran has always historically been the race that newer players start with the most. With them having no initially strange mechanics like larvae, having access to great generalist units from the get-go, being the closest to other RTS humanoid races, being the main race of the first (and only free to play) campaign and similar factors, newer players tend to choose terran more than the other two races. This inflates the population of terran players at the lower levels, hence the population of terran players at the higher levels is lower than the mean.

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I can totally respect this answer. Over the years, how many new players do you think SC2 realistically attracts?

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sc2 is perfectly balanced in that the games play out exactly like the developers want and the crowd that they are pandering too. is it right for the majority of players perhaps not. well who knows. The game is balanced and then re-balanced every year or so in order to get a specific outcome. sometimes its slightly favored this race or that but does it even matter. just have fun and accept the game as is…

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I don’t have definitive numbers, but since the game became free to play the playerbase has continued to grow steadily. Also blizzard has been doing a much better job lately of promoting the game with events like the 20th anniversary, 9th anniversary, new warchest mechanics, twitch drops, etc. It is also reflected in streamers having much more views and subscribers and tournaments having higher viewership. There have been multiple reddit threads about breaking viewership records in tournaments since the game became free to play.

Hence, even though I don’t have hard statistics on the number of players, I think it is safe to assume that there is an influx of new players that has to be heavily taken into account.

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Just because lots and lots of wood league players play terran doesn’t mean that it should be 36% at all levels.

My counterproposal for why terran would be picked more at low levels than high levels is because the terran campaign is not only the first campaign, but also free. The fact is, the tutorial doesn’t cut it, and most people aren’t even going to attempt vs. AI until they play through some campaign.

This means that at best they will have a small, small amount of protoss experience, a (very) basic grip on terran mechanics, and literally 0 seconds played as Zerg. Well, what do you expect to see? Mostly terran, maybe a touch of protoss because the Zeratul levels had heroes and carriers and such, and Zerg looking very scary.

And then after they get a hang on vs. AI they MIGHT change race, but I think that at least through bronze and silver, you will see disproportionately high terran counts.

Finally, notice that GM is exactly 1/3 terran, and masters and plat both have over 1/3 terran, so maybe terran is overepresented a bit at top level too. I think if terran was bad, people would race switch away from it before then, don’t you?

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That would be true if the race selection is truly random which is an assumption that this data clearly casts doubt on. What you’ve established is a correlation between league and race played and you are trying to describe what the cause is. Since this is a correlation it means there could be several possibilities - it could be one thing or another, or two things in combination, or it could’ve happened just from chance in which case it was pure coincidence.

You need to detail all the likely explanations, which is your favored conclusion, and why everyone else should also favor that conclusion. Unfortunately, you do not mention any alternative theories nor do you even acknowledge the possibility of different causes. That’s not good for your argument - if you can even call your post an “argument” and not just a biased assumption.

Again, your stance hinges on the fact that race selection is not biased by any other factors such as skill (more skilled players may be more likely to pick zerg and protoss, and less skilled players may be less likely terran). Despite your argument being contingent on this, you present absolutely no evidence and make absolutely no argument as to why race selection is unbiased. Clearly your “argument” actually is just a biased assumption.

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lol. People still trying to push this narrative like it has any logic behind it…

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