Do some races have major advantages over others in Starcraft 2?

For example, do Protoss usually beat Zerg, who usually beat Terran, who usually beat Protoss? (Or the other way around?)

Can anyone support his answer with statistics?

Edit - I'm not looking into "which race is best", because I believe they are rather balanced. But balanced just means they have similar win ratio against random. The statistics that was linked to in one of the answers is not what I'm looking for - I'd rather know how much does Zerg beats Protoss, not how much Zerg wins overall.

Solution 1:

The three races are actually quite balanced compared to other RTS games.

However, I think that statistics wouldn't be a very good source of information for something like this because of the way leagues are set up. Your placement is based on who you win and lose against. However, Blizzard tries to keep your win ratio at 50% so they match you accordingly against easier or more difficult opponents to try to normalize that ratio. So if there was an overpowered race, the usage statistics and win ratios would remain relatively constant. It would probably only be visible at the very top level of play, but the game was just released a few weeks ago so it's too early to be making conclusions.

As for race usage, Protoss and Terran are effectively tied, but Zerg has less players than the other two races. See http://sc2ranks.com/stats/all/1/all. I suspect the reason for the Zerg underuse is because the Zerg macro mechanics are less intuitive than that of Terran, which players are already familiar with from the single player campaign. Some also say the race is the most difficult to learn and master.

From a non-statistical standpoint, I would say there are some tweaks needed, but overall the game is fairly balanced. For example, Terran's EMP (from ghosts) is a little bit too strong against Protoss because it drains all energy AND removes 100 shield points, yet requires no research to obtain. But you can be fairly certain that a good level of balance will be obtained a few patches down the line.

Solution 2:

It depends who you talk to. Everyone will have their own opinion and its usually the race they lose most often too. I wouldn't necessarily say one race is stronger than another. They each have their own advantages and play style. There is another question floating around that has addressed all the differences, I'll see if I can find it again.

What are some pros and cons of the different races?

Thanks to Grace Note for finding the link.

Solution 3:

No matter what the answer is, it will change and Blizzard will keep balancing. People will find new strats or Blizzard will nerf or buff. This is even more prevalent with the always-connected nature of SC2 now.