With the conclusion of NGL-One playoffs, myMYM.com guest columnist grancalc have compiled the statistics and have produced an article, highlighting the most interesting facets of the entire tournament held last weekend.

Undead	Night Elf	Orc	Human
9:0 - 100%	0:9 - 0%	4:3 - 57%	1:2 - 33%
2:1 - 67%	3:1 - 75%	1:3 - 25%	0:1 - 0%
3:4 - 43%	1:0 - 100%	2:0 - 100%	0:2 - 0%

Most notably, UD went 100% against NE at this event and, as expected, had a losing record against OR. NE, meanwhile, aside from a glaring donut in the win column against UD, had a winning record against OR, which should be no surprise to anyone.

Patch 1.22 - Is it really necessary?

To someone on the sidelines, it might seem that WC3 at the competitive level has reached a sort of RPS (rock-paper-scissors) balance. Is it really worth patching the game now and changing the way we play WC3 when the meta-game has changed so profoundly in recent times?

I'd like to see how the top players deal with some of the things we've seen, to see the game further evolve, but provided that the 1.22 patch comes out within a month, it looks like that won't be happening. When the patch is finally released, the game at the highest levels of competitive play could change substantially, or it could only change minutely.

Even though we can theorize on paper all we want based on any information we know about proposed or final changes, it doesn't really matter. We won't know for sure how the patch will impact the game until enough time has passed, and even then, we may not know for sure its final impact until a year or two later (hopefully WC3 will still be around and in a big way by then).

Rock-paper-scissors vs Warcraft 3

However, the reality of the situation is, this RPS sort of balance is subject to question because true racial balance is the real concern. The most we can say is that this RPS balance has been demonstrated at an iron man-style event. Who's to say it applies to a best-of-3 or best-of-5 format, where players have more time to study and prepare for their opponents and have time to devise counters between games? And who's to say this wasn't a one-time thing? Maybe something like this won't happen again, or maybe it will, though we probably won't get the chance to find out when the patch is released.

Still, the fact that UD did not drop a single game against NE is astounding, and against three of the current best and still active NE players. Will that racial dominance continue into other events? Will the new strategies and tactics unveiled at the finals cascade down to the rest of the competitive UD players, and will they be able to incorporate them successfully? We can only wait and see, and I'm excited to find out.