GSL 3: Qualification Statistics

Race Breakdown

GSL 3 qualifying players by race: 26 Zerg, 25 Terran, 12 Protoss, 1 Random.

Obviously a historical comparison is in order:

The biggest news from the GSL 3 qualifiers was the race breakdown. Protoss has gone from having the most players in GSL 1 to having the least players in GSL 3. Combine that with the fact that no Protoss reached the semifinals in either GSL 1 or GSL 2 and there's some very unhappy Protoss fans out there. Certainly the change in Zerg's fortunes has to be at least partially attributed to changes from Blizzard's patching. It should also be noted that two of the maps used in every best of 3 match in the qualifiers (X'el Naga Caverns, Metalopolis, and Scrap Station) are considered to be Zerg-favored, at least in ZvP.

Blizzard likes to make long posts with lots of numbers about balance, but they improved Zerg even when their numbers didn't quite justify it, and I assume it was because of the poor Zerg numbers in GSL 1. It'll be interesting to see if they act to help Protoss given the GSL 3 situation, especially since their recent statistics post indicated Protoss is doing quite well below the very top level. And if Blizzard does patch balance again, will they do it during GSL 3?

Finally, enjoy the fact there's a Random player while you can. This is the first time someone has made it to this level playing Random and it's very likely to be the last.

Team Breakdown

As always, you have to take the team numbers with a grain of salt because the information we get in the English-speaking world about the shifting allegiances of Korean players is a little patchy. But of the teams still active in GSL 3, here's my best attempt at a count of how many players from each team qualified for each GSL:

Team	GSL1	GSL2	GSL3
ZeNEX	11	11	10
Prime	15	7	8
fOu	0	5	7
oGs	9	8	5
StarTale	1	2	5
TSL	3	4	4
IM	2	4	4
TeamLiquid	1	1	3
sls	0	1	2
EG	1	1	1
fnatic	0	0	1

oGs clearly had a tough time, with several very good players like oGsNada, oGsInCa, and oGsTOP failing to qualify. But the larger picture is very positive. The players are much more evenly spread between the various teams than ever before. Partly this is because of the scattering of WeRRa players, but mostly I think this is just a natural stabilization process. We'll have to see how the quality shakes out, but with every team except perhaps fOu having at least one or two strong players, it's my feeling the quality is evening out as well.

Experience Breakdown

The final consideration is experience. 23 players from GSL 1 qualified for GSL 2. Of those who qualified for GSL 3, 15 played in either GSL 1 or 2, and 14 played in both, for a total of 29 GSL veterans. The fact that's still less than half shows the SC2 world has yet to stratify, but I think that's a good thing. There's a lot of churn in the lower ranks, but hopefully that allows unheralded players like Kyrix and Foxer to emerge instead of leaving us with just the same players who've been winning tournaments since the beta. Right now the structure of the 2011 tournaments is still a little unclear, but I hope there'll be a lot of avenues for players who don't make S or A Class to compete with the best.

I'm going to list the 14 players who have qualified for all three GSLs since that's such an impressive achievement:

TSLFruitDealer (Z)
IMNesTea (Z)
jookToJung (Z)
EGIdrA (Z)
CheckPrime (Z)
NsPGenius (P)
STRainbow (T)
oGsMC (P)
oGsZenio (Z)
oGsHyperdub (T)
TSLClide (T)
MakaPrime (T)
HongUnPrime (P)
oGsTheWind (Z)

That's 7 Zergs, 4 Terrans, and 3 Protoss representing at least 7 different teams (I'm not sure of jookToJung's affiliation, if any): oGs, Prime, TSL, ST, ZeNEX, IM, and EG. Only half of them have reached the quarterfinals in either GSL 1 or GSL 2 and thus assured themselves of S Class, but you can bet many of the rest--if not all--will also get that status at some point during GSL 3.