Season 5 Retrospective

It's that time again - time to slap together some tables and reflect on another season of the 1v1 ladder!

	After Qualifier	Final Standing
League	Bronze	Bronze
Rank	80	25
Rank Points	0	356
Bonus Pool	28	155

Rank

I always find this statistic odd. I was very surprised to get top 25 in my division, especially given how few games I played. Even in Bronze league, most players at the top of the division have won A LOT of games - and likewise have played even more games total!

I could do a whole blog post on the workings of the ladder rank (and still hope to)...

But for now, let's just observe that apparently when I was demoted to Bronze, I was demoted far far down the ladder. Almost all my games this season were played against favored opponents, which increases the rank points gained from winning and decreases the points lost from losing. I also always had bonus pool available, so I always got double rank points from winning.

Both of those combined with a fairly decent win-rate (although in my opinion a very temporary win-rate) and playing a small number of games (less exposure to risk of losing) led to a lot of points!

Matchup Wins Losses Total Win Rate TvP 2 3 5 40% TvT 9 2 11 82% TvZ 2 2 4 50% PvT 1 1 2 50% Total 14 8 22 64 % Green = best match up for race Race Played As Games Terran 20 Protoss 2

Match-ups & Race I found this very weird. I suspect that Terran is fairly popular with casual players as it is in some ways, the easiest race to understand - so that might explain the high Terran numbers. My Terran win-rate is less explanable. Perhaps it had to do with those externally triggered timing pushes? Casual Terran players are more likely to hole up in their base and hope for a long game - and those massive all-ins were simply not expected. I used BYOB for most of my games as well, and I don't think most players expect banshees in a unit composition against Terran - or banshees in general. I've always had trouble against Zerg and Protoss - especially with upper Bronze or Silver league players (as you'll know from previous seasons!). Those players know how to use banelings and upgrades. I am so excited to start playing Protoss next season!

Map Wins Losses Total Win Rate Entombed Valley 4 2 6 67% Antiga Shipyard 3 2 5 60% Arid Plateau 2 1 3 67% Xel'Naga Caverns 2 1 3 67% Shakuras Plateau - 2 2 0% Tal'darim Altar LE 2 - 2 100% The Shattered Temple 1 - 1 100% Metalopolis - - - 0% Green text = map was new for Season 5 Red background = map removed for Season 6

Maps I ordered these by number of games played, and the results were interesting. Every player can veto 3 maps (I don't veto any). My suspicion is that many players veto the 2-player maps, and one of the older maps (The Shattered Temple or Metalopolis). This would lean the map pool towards newer, 4-player maps. As for my performance on each map, I really don't think I played enough games to draw any conclusions. As the maps get better, the less likely one-base all-ins and cheese like drone rushes will succeed. I am really looking forward to the new 2-player maps in Season 6 though - both were community-created maps (not Blizzard) and were chosen for their tournament worthiness. There should be some awesome macro games coming up!

Opponent's League Wins Losses Total Win Rate Gold 2 1 3 67% Silver 7 3 10 70% Bronze 4 4 8 50% Qualifier 1 - 1 100%

League Ok, there have been lots of surprises so far - but this one REALLY surprised me. My last season was filled with low win-rates against all leagues, and so my high rate against Silver players was a big shocker. One change from previous seasons is that most of my games were played before the ladder lock. I have a feeling that many of my Bronze opponents in previous seasons were up and coming Silver players. But who knows? Maybe I'm actually getting better? Hard to say - though I do believe that this indicates I'm at least a high Bronze player, if not low Silver.

Well, that about does it - all-in-all it was a great season, and a nice parting experience playing Terran!