Can we talk about how unfair the PvZ balance discourse has become?
As a disclaimer, I just had to write this out because, as a 25-year Protoss fan, I’ve been pretty frustrated by this whole balance debate. This is long.
I’ll try to acknowledge what needs to be acknowledged from my side. Protoss is in the best state it's been in 10 years. Serral is GOAT. Protoss late game is strong. Protoss is strong in amateur levels. OK, let's start.
First, here are the numbers from the four major “premier” tournaments this year:
GSL 1 ZvP: Zerg win rate: 77.8%
GSL 2 ZvP: Zerg win rate: 62.5%
DreamHack ZvP: Zerg win rate: 52.8%
EWC ZvP: Zerg win rate: 67.7%
Across all major tournaments this year, Zerg has dominated Protoss. Even if you take out Serral, the Zerg win rate is still higher. Only in minor online cups, where neither Serral nor Reynor played, do you really see Protoss taking most of the wins with herO and Maxpax. And this is despite the buffs Protoss finally got this year.
Honestly, for the ten years since LotV released, Protoss has never won any $100,000 AND any year-end tournament. After Mothership Core was removed eight years ago, Protoss never really got a proper compensation buff. just nerf-mixed “buffs” and “buff-mixed” nerfs. The latest patch, *an accident*, only happened after the community basically revolted and the Balance Coucnil finally said, “Okay, here’s a real buff.” + energy overcharge turned out to be better than expected. That’s the only reason things are this way now. Protoss had been treated unfairly for 9 years with this year being the only exception.
And yet, all year, Zerg players have been screaming that Protoss is “OP,” especially in the late game.
Look, I can admit it: Protoss is definitely strong in the late game. That’s just a fact.
But in reality, 80% of games are decided before it ever gets to late game. If Protoss goes all-in, as long as Zerg build Roach Warren and they can stop 30% of all-ins even if they don’t scout it—meanwhile, if Zerg goes all-in and Protoss doesn’t scout it, they hold maybe 10% of the time? Sometimes even when you see it coming, you still get busted as Protoss.
The success rate of Zerg all-ins is 2-3x higher, but when people talk about balance, nobody ever brings up how strong Zerg is in the early/mid game. All anyone wants to talk about is “SkyToss is OP in late game.”
The stats show Zerg is crushing every major event, but Reddit keeps pushing for things like “remove Serral from the stats, him too good” + “oh wait but Classic counts" + "hero loss counts because he fumbled too hard" "lower level protoss don't count because they are supposed to lose" What is this silliness?
Let's look at some recent comments:
Yes, this is the state of balance discussions here. Somehow “remove Serral from the stats, him too good” + “oh wait but Classic counts" + "hero loss against lesser zergs doesn't matter because he makes too many mistakes" "lower level protoss don't count because they are supposed to lose" is fair and pointing that out is Protoss bias.
It’s true that Protoss is strong on ladder at lower MMR and in the late game, but if you’re asking whether Protoss is “OP” vs Zerg at the highest level, the answer is simply no.
The “Protoss OP” crowd always picks and chooses which stats to use. Sometimes they say balance should be set for pros, but then Serral shouldn’t count. Sometimes they say balance should be set for ladder, but only show GM stats, which are like 0.1% of the playerbase. Funny thing is, when Zerg was undoubted “OP” in 2019, GM was also stacked with Protoss. Protoss has always had a higher floor and lower ceilings. They are stronger in GM, degrees dependent on balance but it won't change, ever unless racial redesign happens. If you really cared about ladder balance, you’d look at Silver, Gold, and Platinum leagues, where most people play but that never gets brought up because it's not convenient, just like never discussing Zerg strength in early/mid games.
To sum up, you get balance discusssions like this:
“Balance should be set for the top level. But Serral shouldn’t count.” – What does that even mean?
“Balance should be for the majority of players. But only 0.1% GM stats count.” – Again, only cherry-picking whatever fits the narrative.
This is how slanted the conversation has become. On Reddit, you’ll see people seriously argue that we should exclude Serral from stats because he’s a *statistical outlier*, but keep in every inconsistent Protoss result. Serral is only an “outlier” if he has four hands or every other Zerg is getting stomped. But if you look at the data, Zerg has been as a whole is still dominating Protoss pre 2025 even if you take Serral out of the equation and this year's premier tournament even if you take out serral.
So what’s really happening? Serral is just a freakishly good player. He is GOAT. But also happens to benefit from favorable balance pre-2025. His 95% ZvP win rates 2 years preceding the recent patch weren’t just because Serral is perfect -it was the combination of skill and the balance. GOAT level esports players generally score 70~80% winrates. Serral was doing 95% vs protoss, while doing much less vs Zerg and Terrans.
"Oh wait, Clem's too good, that's why. Let's exlcude Clem from the stats. But didn't you say Serral is the only outlier? Forget about it. Serral is the only statiscal outlier. But let's exclude Clem. What about Serral's vs Zergs? Well, you see, we have to exclude that because of ZvZ's volatility and other Zergs are generally better than top protosses. That's why protoss cound't pick a win for years against zergs and serral Balance has nothing to do with it." Wow. Serral have benefited from PvZ balance doesn't lessen his achievement. The whole SC2 fandom, to defend Serral's honor, is too prone to cherry picking and not acknowledging anythign that even dampens and recognizes any other contributions. Mind you, not every balance; I'm just pointing out his PvZ insanity preceding the patch because other top zergs been murdering protoss for 9 year pre-2025 too.
You know, in all things, not just SC2, a phenomenon, historical, social, international, science, is almost always a result of multiple contributors. It's almost never a result of one thing and one thing only, the unfair narrative SC2 fandom loves to push.
Now that Protoss finally got a real buff, you’re seeing Serral drop maps. Now because Serral isn't showing 95% winrates vs protoss, now because in games he wins he struggles in the late game *he won*, everyone cries “Protoss is OP” crowd wants to immediately swing things back and nerf everything again. Wow.
And when it comes to ladder, people talk about “balancing for the masses,” but always only bring up GM stats which, again, is a tiny portion of the player base and covers a huge MMR range (5000–7000). That's a gap of masters-diamond-platinum combined. You can't group GM as one tier level players.
Everyone loves to hate on late-game Protoss, but no one wants to talk about how Zerg all-ins in the early/mid-game just run Protoss over unless you play perfectly. If you want to have a real discussion about balance, let’s at least be fair and talk about both sides.
Is anybody even saying this? No, not that I've seen. Is this used to attack Protoss fans? Yes, frequently. See the 'imbalance' in this discourse?
For the record, I’ll gladly admit: Serral and Clem are straight-up better players than herO and Classic when it comes to skills. Late-game Protoss is powerful. Protoss is strong at the lower levels due to higher floor, too. But the anti-Protoss crowd never acknowledges how fragile Protoss ground is vs lurkers, how hard it is to defend all-ins, or the real skill ceiling. The whole debate has just been completely taken over by these one-sided arguments, and the broader community just repeats them.
I’m not saying Protoss is underpowered now. I'm of the opnion they are slightly overtuned now after 9 years of being slightly undertuned. I won't say protoss was garbage for 10 years, but that slight undertuned nature made it impossible for top protosses to break out because Serral playing perfectly meant even in odd days protoss played perfectly meant they still lost all the time. Protoss ground army being extremely weak vs lurkers and in the late game motership abduct click granting instant 800 resource loss guaranteed that at the highest levels of play, this was bound to happen in every premier tournament. (which protoss never won) Hey hey, before you brings up herO voidray throwaway, question yourself if that was a shining example of the odd match protoss playing perfectly. But why have I seen those 'arguments' so many times? As I've been saying unfair discourse, that's why.
Honestly, I was just happy to see Protoss win 2 GSLs this year after nearly a decade. If this patch sticks, I think Protoss actually has a real shot at winning championships again. I agree with slight adjustment, not the whole decry of bring protoss back to pre-2025 shouts. If you want to nerf something, maybe nerf energy recharge with 100->50 rechrage with half cooldown and half mana so no extra instant storm and more intensive micro with less energy charged at once. Or maybe lower the combat power of the Mothership(roll it back) but if you just revert things like Mothership abduct immunity, it’s going to be back to another decade of misery for Protoss at high level tournaments. Like how Protoss was hit with double-nerfs after Hero's s 2 GSL win and entered the dark age. Let’s not repeat that cycle.
Again, this isn’t a post saying Protoss is weak. They’re in a good spot right now - for the first time in nearly 10 years, and pretty much by accident, since nobody even realize how big a deal the energy buff would be and Clem saying ghosts OP. But the arguments being pushed now, demanding immediate heavy nerfs and acting like everything is broken, are just repeating the same pattern that’s kept Protoss in a rut for so long. The fact protoss being overtuned happened for the first time thanks to accidents should be telling.
tl;dr:
Zerg’s been dominating Protoss in every major tournament this year, even without Serral.
The “Protoss OP” narrative relies on cherry-picking stats, ignoring early/mid-game Zerg strength, and dismissing legitimate Protoss struggles.
Protoss is finally competitive and slighlty overtuned, not OP, and kneejerk nerfs are just going to push things back to another decade of imbalance.
If you want to have a real balance discussion, let’s use all the facts, not just the ones that fit your narrative.
Posted Aug 7, 2025, 1:01 AM UTC