[Tom]

I am extremely grateful to Darraxxi, Blizzard community manager, for recently providing the following insight into the Blizzard's ladder data.

Let's cover a situation that's started up quite recently that we're keeping an eye on:

While global numbers at all league levels are extremely good, (hovering at, or around, 50%) there's some fluctuation in the PvT match-up in the NA and KR Master's leagues. In those leagues terran are doing unusually well against protoss; they're sitting around that 60:40 ratio that was mentioned in the blog (note that this is not reflected in the EU Master's league, nor in the NA Master's league for PvZ or TvZ where all the numbers are also hovering around 50%).

In this case, the evidence suggests that this fluctuation may have its origin in the metagame because a new terran opener has become popular which has proven very effective against the most common protoss opener in those regions, and at that league level. Of course, many times in the past we've seen the metagame cause temporary fluctuations which swing in favor of one race or another to varying degrees.

Nevertheless, we take every event seriously, and we're paying very close attention to how the situation unfolds from here.

(Source: http://sea.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/t...5619?page=2#26)

So far as I know, this is the first we have heard in a long time in relation to the ladder data maintained by Blizzard. You read it here first on sc2sea.

You would have to have been living under a rock to have missed the outpouring of grief in relation to the Terran 1-1-1 build in recent times. This recent data backs up what we are already hearing almost universally, that is, a sudden and fairly dramatic shift in the PvT metagame in favour of Terran. Obviously, as Darraxxi says, the question now is how will this play out over time? I for one am glad that Blizzard are aware and monitoring the problem.

I note in passing that there have been signs of the PTR springing back to life (see for example http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=257041). A whisper of a new balance patch is in the air...