[Monk]

Originally Posted by Scarecrow

Seriously, you're saying Protoss is struggling on GM/M ladders because they're a bunch of cheesing noobs? You can cheese your way to high ladder with any race. Really sick of seeing the argument that toss players are less "skilled" (all 3 races have relatively easy mechanics), especially from silver zergs.

Then you say it's fine at pro level because they're doing "great" (how about some actual stats?). Mentioning Tyler and inc just shows how clueless you are, they're both under 50% win rates and haven't won shit.

Enjoying this thread, Tom's somehow made a non-whiney balance related OP o.O

Incontrol coming 4th at the last MLG isn't great? Jesus christ high expectations right there. And sure Tyler hasn't been producing results, but his consistent and is one of the best protoss players out there. Tyler and inc <50% win rate? So ******* what. Maybe they have been playing top notch players, like they have in MLG this season. I don't know, nor do I really care. If we're going to look at stats and win rates, then how about this:

NASL - Season 1
TvZ: 50-65 (43.5%)
ZvP: 49-45 (52.1%)
PvT: 57-41 (58.2%)

Ohh my what is this? Protoss taking 58% of games over T and 48% of games off of Z. I really honestly don't call that underpowered.

MLG - Dallas
TvZ: 77-71 (52%)
ZvP: 68-57 (54.4%)
PvT: 63-72 (46.7%)

And yeah Protoss is so underpowered at pro level, winning 46% Against T and losing 46% against Z.

MLG - Columbus Day 2
TvZ: 7-18 (28%)
ZvP: 11-9 (55%)
PvT: 4-3 (57.1%)

With a 57% win rate over T so far, and a 45% win rate against Z they're definitely underpowered!!!!

P.S I hope I read those percentages correctly :x big backfire if I didn't.

And all 3 races have cheesy builds sure, but Protoss has the easiest cheese-skill level available in my opinion AND I don't know about you, but when I ladder on NA 80% of the time I get cheese from Protoss. Cannon rush, Proxy Stargate etc. Terran I've met are generally good with the occasional mass thor/banshee.

What I am saying is, with the above tournament results(In NA atleast) Protoss are doing fairly well.

EDIT::

Originally Posted by Tom

I'll leave to one side what some people might interpret as a general insult to Protoss players.

I don't think the issue is "people know how to respond to cheese now", as you appear to be suggesting. If you watch the games from the GSL super tournament, the best results in the round of 64 came from players who used relatively gimmicky timing attacks (eg Ace and HongUn). No disrespect intended to these players - you need to do what works in the circumstances. The Protoss players who played what we might consider a "solid macro game" seemed to be the ones who did not advance.

I don't really watch GSTL, but what I have watched are mainly TvT's/ZvT's or ZvZ's. So that's saying something huh?

Maybe the Protoss 'idea' now is not actually a straight up macro game then? Maybe a new discovered 'gimmicky' timing push needs to be made?

It's like the 2 rax bunker play against Zerg. Why wasn't it thought of even earlier? A lot of Zergs would of been shot in the foot and unable to proceed in rankings or tournaments just because it's a very very strong build. Protoss needs to find an equivalent. 4 gate won't cut it now because a lot of people know how to hold it off, and know what signs to look for. I guess there is a Protoss equivalent.

Zerg Baneling bombs weren't all that used in pro leagues before, now they're really dominant. I guess Protoss have to find this 'new' style of play to come out of the slumps?

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Monk

NASL - Season 1
TvZ: 50-65 (43.5%)
ZvP: 49-45 (52.1%)
PvT: 57-41 (58.2%)

Ohh my what is this? Protoss taking 58% of games over T and 48% of games off of Z. I really honestly don't call that underpowered.

MLG - Dallas
TvZ: 77-71 (52%)
ZvP: 68-57 (54.4%)
PvT: 63-72 (46.7%)

And yeah Protoss is so underpowered at pro level, winning 46% Against T and losing 46% against Z.

MLG - Columbus Day 2
TvZ: 7-18 (28%)
ZvP: 11-9 (55%)
PvT: 4-3 (57.1%)

With a 57% win rate over T so far, and a 45% win rate against Z they're definitely underpowered!!!!

Thank you for drawing my attention to this data. Lets have a closer look at what it tells us.

MLG Dallas

MLG Dallas is a good, large dataset. However, as MLG Dallas was played at the very beginning of April, it is not actually relevant to the "apparent" trend I am referring to. This tournament is also taken into account in the "international tournament" trend data referred to in my OP, which showed at that time the win rates for each race approaching 50%.

NASL Season 1

In relation to the NASL Season 1 data, you appear to have used total qualifiers data from TLPD, much of which was also played in early April (although games have been ongoing). However, I should point out that the race distribution for those who actually qualified for the main bracket of NASL is - 5 Zerg (MorroW, Moon, July, Ret and Sen), 3 Terran (Strelok, SeleCT and BoxeR), and 2 Protoss (Squirtle and White-Ra).
(Source: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft...eague_Season_1)

MLG Columbus

Your data for MLG Columbus appears to be inaccurate or highly selective (you refer to "Day 2"). Could you please provide a source to confirm. The data I have accessed at TLPD shows the following:

TvZ: 81-76 (51.6%)
ZvP: 56-61 (47.9%)
PvT: 63-80 (44.1%)

(Source: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/sc2-i...it%3A_Columbus and http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft...rcuit/Columbus)

In terms of micro analysis of MLG Columbus, the racial distribution for the pools that qualified for the finals was as follows: 10 Terran, 9 Zerg, 5 Protoss. To put these figures in context, there were 56 Protoss, 47 Terran and 44 Zerg playing in the qualifiers. In other words, Protoss players made up 38% of those competing in the qualifiers, but only 20% of those who qualified. By contrast, Terran started out with 32% of competitors, but made up 42% of those who qualified, and Zerg started out with 30% of competitors, but made up 38% of those who qualified.

Of those Protoss players who qualified, most were knocked out early in the qualifiers (cf. Cruncher and MC). MC's dominant performance in particular appears to have almost single-handedly dragged up the results. Again, this is the problem with looking at one tournament in isolation as it can be highly biased by the performance of one "outlier" like MC.

Discussion of this data

I am not going to discuss MLG Dallas as it is not relevant to the period I am talking about. However, it seems to me that both NASL Season 1 and MLG Columbus are consistent with the "apparent" trend I have observed in other tournaments/leagues - that is, a disproportionately low representation of Protoss players at the top level (in these cases, in qualifying for the main stage of the tournaments). The MLG Columbus data is really quite dramatic - 38% of players in the qualifiers were Protoss, but this proportion nearly halved for the finals, whereas the proportions of Terran and Zerg players who qualified both increased significantly. In other words, and let me stress this, Protoss players were less than half as likely to qualify as Zerg and Terran players. I don't know about you, but I am truly astounded by this. MC appears to have defied an otherwise general trend in Columbus - really, what can you say about this guy?

[Monk]

At the time of pulling the data off of TLPD, the 2nd day of MLG just finished - so it was still probably day 1 results, but it didn't occur to me.

And in regards to CrunCher not qualifying.. that is just.. bad insight. A lot of people doubt CrunCher as a pro-level player, so I don't think he should be mentioned but I will for the sake of the argument.

If we're fighting Data, then I take you back to one of your links in the OP.
http://www.playxp.com/sc2/jingjing/

Such a small data sample, and it's being more prominent of Zerg again now. Does this mean that korean protoss have found out how to deal with the losing 'slump' now as compared to april? And doesn't this mean that your referred april slumps, that the protoss have found ways of winning?

MLG - Colombus

I seriously don't see Protoss at high level being under powered. You say MC's games should be excluded because his such an amazing player, but his Protoss at the end of the day.
MLG - Colombus results

+ Show +

T Z P Z P Z
1 Terran, 3 Zerg and 2 Protoss

Now I ask this:
How many Pro Protoss are out there? Is it because Protoss is the least played race professionally that they aren't producing results? You show out of 147 qualifiers of MLG 56 were Protoss - I don't see how this is relevant as this is 'high level' Protoss we're talking about.. yes? Isn't that GM+? I don't see much Masters players as 'high level' at all. And anyways, if we are referring to them PLEASE look here:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft...Bracket/Losers

Look at all the PvP's. I think I counted 32 PvP's

So that's already 16 of those 56 Protoss taken out by a mirror matchup - so that is only 40 Protoss that didn't get taken out by a PvP.
32 PvP's___ 56 protoss 56-16 = 40 Protoss
18 ZvZ's____44 zerg 9-44 = 35 Zerg
14 TvT's____47 terran 7-47 = 40 Terran

That's why not a lot of Protoss qualified. They knocked each other out in the losers bracket.

And there were a ******* ton more PvP's in the winners bracket, to be precise 24 PvP's. So wait what! that's half the amount of protoss that can make it!!!! So 12 Protoss at this time.

24 PvP's____40 Protoss 40-12 = 28 Protoss
12 ZvZ's____ 35 Zerg 35-6 = 29 Zerg
24 TvT's____ 40 Terran 47-12 = 35 Terran

Seeing the reasoning I'm conducting? PvP's knocked nearly every Protoss out. By the winners bracket, Protoss' numbers were HALFED from PvP's alone.

And at the end of the winners bracket, there were no protoss that survived. They were all knocked out by professional gamers, Morrow, Fenix, ViBe, Thorzain, July and Major. And all the other "professional" protoss were knocked out by other "professional" protosses.
(I'm defining Professional as invites/notable signups)

Championship bracket:
CrunCher - Agh
MC - NaNiwa
CrunCher - KiWiKaKi


3 PvP's in Championship brackets, and there were only 8 Protoss in the Championship Bracket- 3 of which went out in PvP's so 5 left and 2 were seeded pretty far in the tournament too(MC and NaNiwa). No protoss remained after #3 in Pool round apart from MC and NaNiwa who were seeded. And then having to take out a protoss in PvP again so far in? Wittiling down the Protoss numbers yet again.

I just don't see the 'a lot of protoss entered' so that's obviously going to mean a lot of PvP's which is basically taking out a quarter of the population of Protoss in the Losers Bracket. And again took out quarter of the protoss in the Winners bracket. This is not including PvZ/T DNS'. You just looked at numbers and posted.

Edit:
Mirrors: 94 TvT | 44 ZvZ | 84 PvP
Taken from TLPD.

NASL
I can't say much about NASL because you're right - not very good there. But basing it off of one tournament is pretty silly. All of the protoss bar Artosis and Grubby were around the top/middle so it's pretty reasonable to assume that they were outplayed.. right?


To close it out, I think basing it off of tournaments alone isn't a solid way of doing it. The same thing I said about NASL can be said about MLG Colombus(basing it off of one tournament).

Quick Comments

holyforker:

nice stats!