Starcraft – Why are there so many Terran players at GSL

starcraft-2starcraft-terran

In the GSL tournament hosted by gomTV (often refered as gomTVT), there are a lot of Terran players. On the ladder, the race balance seems to be a lot better.

Why is Terran so favored in top level play?

Best Answer

Terran is extremely versatile. In GSL, where you have to face many opponents with varying playstyles who have had a chance to study your previous games, you can easily be sniped. The best Terrans, like MVP, are capable of playing dozens of different "standard" styles effectively. On the other hand, the best Zergs and Protosses are still funneled into three or four basic "standard" strategies that don't allow much room for strategic innovation or trickery.

On ladder, you'll rarely see anyone enough to get a good grasp of their playstyle and how to go about countering it, but teams in GSL specifically prepare for days to match up against one opponent. Additionally, there has been talk that the 1-1-1 build is the root of the problem because it allows so much versatility to either expand or hit incredibly hard-to-stop pushes.

Finally, Boxer and Nada were two of the first to switch from professional BW to SC2. In Korea, their influence should not be underestimated- they are probably the two biggest names in competitive StarCraft ever and that's liable to cause a good number of up and coming players to favor Terran. This is most notable on the SlayerS team, which is made up primarily of a number of incredibly good Terran players, all new faces: MMA, Ganzi, Ryung, Taeja.