If toss has a 70% winrate then, by definition, 78.4% of zergs will be knocked out in the opening rounds of a tournament, if they face a protoss, in tournaments for which the opening round is a best of three. This changes how frequently zergs play, and changes the average performance level for zergs in the tournaments (tge ones to make it through are reliably higher performance players). There are second and third order effects that have to be accounted for, it’s not as simple as “herr durr PvZ rank go brrrrr.”
By the way, ladder win-rates can be used to estimate the proportion for each race in tournaments. If a toss has a 70% win-rate against Zerg, and the opening rounds of each tournament are roughly 1/3rd protoss, 1/3rd zerg, etc, then the number of zerg to qualify for tournaments should be (1 - PvZ_winrate) * ProportionOfZergs*ProportionOfProtoss which is 0.216 * 0.33333 * 0.33333=0.024. But that only accounts for Zergs who advance through the qualifiers via ZvP. We also need ZvT and ZvZ. Let’s assume ZvT is balanced. That makes it 0.5 * 0.333333 * 0.33333 = 0.055554944445 for ZvT. ZvZ has a 100% chance of a zerg advancing so it’s just the proportion squared aka 0.3333333^2=0.111. Now we add these together: 19.1%. We expect roughly 20% of each tournament, on average, to be Zerg if PvZ win-rates favor Protoss by 70%.
Let’s take a look at ESL spring masters to compare our calculations with reality:
https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/ESL_Pro_Tour/2023/24/Masters/Spring/Regionals/EU
Ah, what do you know, there are 7 zergs out of 32 players which is 22%. 6 zergs would round down to 18.75 which means our estimate of 19.1% is within rounding error for actual tournament representation.
In the famous words of Adriane Monk, “thus it is proved”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dSaw5kbeXM&t=257s
Or, should I say, “thus it is proved (again, again and again, because the balance counsel is blind as a cave bat when it comes to game balance, which is actually hilariously ironic if you think about it, LOL! RIP sc2 because, with these idio-- uh, I mean-- fine gentlemen at the helm, we’re doomed)”.
The balance counsel is obsessed with buffing protoss when protoss have a 70% win-rate in PvZ. Insanity. I am just calling it the way that it is. These people have no clue what they are doing. Who wins premier tournaments should be their last priority.
The SC2 balance counsel has shattered my belief in power structures. Power structures in theory favor competent people because competent people are the ones who can maintain the power structure and prevent it from eroding. Left wing political theory is skeptical of this because they view power structures as a manifestation of pure tyranny – it’s power used to maintain power for power’s sake. I am not sure I agree with the conclusion that power structures exist for the sake of power, but I am 100% convinced that power structures do not favor competency. In the case of SC2, some kids are handed the keys to the kingdom to manage a billion dollar video game enterprise, and they can’t recognize imbalance even when it’s so massive literally anyone with eyes can see. 70% is so huge you’d have to be blind not to see it.
In the case of SC2, I blame political correctness. The community lashes out at anyone who has a realistic conversation about balance. You can see it happen in this thread. George Orwell predicted that political correctness leads to double-think because people train themselves not to think the “unclean thoughts” which they do to avoid backlash. The balance counsel has been trained, like Pavlov’s dog, to pretend that imbalance doesn’t exist. Their pretending has gone on so long that they actually believe it now. That’s why words have power: if you don’t speak the truth, you will start to believe lies and you will build your life around those lies via the actions you take by believing them. That’s how we end up with 70% PvZ win-rates and tournaments 40-60% protoss.