[sunsetkid]

Originally Posted by ZoomDog

That's every account that's completed the 5 placement games. If you exclude "inactive" accounts (only Blizzard knowing what exactly counts as inactive), the ratio pretty close to 20/20/20/20/20.


I vaguely remember reading that they count this as abusing the system, and could get you temp banned. I wouldn't recommend it.

actually i think the fella who was doing this was this code S korean who was win-trading. gomtv took action against him but not blizzard because there's nothing in the EULA that states that his action violates it. He didn't modify the game(maphack) or use any known bug(space colossus/immortal warp etc) to his advantage. If someone is willing to lose games to you, then so be it.

[mustapusta]

Originally Posted by sunsetkid

actually i think the fella who was doing this was this code S korean who was win-trading. gomtv took action against him but not blizzard because there's nothing in the EULA that states that his action violates it. He didn't modify the game(maphack) or use any known bug(space colossus/immortal warp etc) to his advantage. If someone is willing to lose games to you, then so be it.

that would be ChoyafOu for playing "scissors paper stone" and have the loser quit the game. both sides agreed but gom didn't like it.

[Tom]

"True" proportion of Masters on SEA

There appears to be a common error in data sorting (this error is regularly made on teamliquid.net too). As Blizzard said, Masters are the top 2% of active players. And remember, Masters only applies in the 1v1 bracket, so we can actually say Masters = top 2% of active *1v1* players.

Now, go to go to sc2ranks.com. Sort by "Bracket" = "1v1" and "Activity" = "Last 14 days". For SEA, the proportion of Masters satisfying this criteria is 2.1% (more or less what Blizzard).

(Interesting, NA Masters = 3%, which could be explained by a large number of players playing one or two games to get promoted, but not playing enough games to be demoted despite having an MMR outside the top 2% of active 1v1ers.)

Masters' levels of activity

One thing we can't see from sc2ranks is how many games an "active player" plays per 14 days. Obviously, you only need to play one game per fortnight to appear in the "last 14 days" bracket for sc2ranks.com. However, my hypothesis is that Masters, while making up 2.1% of active 1v1 players, account for far more than 2.1% of 1v1 games played. This is indicated by, for example, the high proportion of masters players with over 1000, 2,000 or in a few cases 3,000 1v1 games, compared to the general population sitting in the 100s. My (anecdotal) experience is that Masters also play a lot of customs on top of their ladder games (although I could only guess whether Masters play more custom games than non-Masters).

I think a reasonable "guestimate" is that the average Master players between 5 and 10 times as many 1v1s per 14 days than the average player (there are exceptions). So whilst making up 2.1% of active players, they probably account for 10-20% of games.

The most common trend that appears amongst Masters players is number of games played. This suggests to me that starcraft, like most other things, is principally a skill learnt through repetition. While this may annoy some people who attribute some sort of mystique to a player's league, in all probability the mundane truth is that anyone of average intelligence who plays a lot will eventually be promoted to Masters.

[sunsetkid]

I like Tom's explanation. The more you play, the more it becomes practice, the more you improve, the higher your MMR will creep, and inch towards promotion. Unit counters can be trained. Decision making can be trained. Build orders can be practised. Scouting can be turned into a habit. The only problem is actually dexterity which is particularly difficult to train. It is largely inborn and can only be improved to an extent. Some have it better than others. Anyone can duplicate a top player's strategy, build order and scouting time. The only problem lies in the execution. but the way starcraft is made, superior macro and unit composition can compensate for most things---this can be trained.

Its even more apparent when i was in the army. the IPPT test required running, jumping and pullups. running can be trained. some can run faster, some slower, but over 90 percent of people with adequate training can be pushed to the gold standard. it was the same for pullups. but however much you tried or pushed or trained, some people just cannot jump for nuts.