Few Questions From a Newcomer

Hi all, I'm new to Starcraft, and I'd appreciate it if someone could answer the following:

1- Statistically from higher level matches, which side is coming out on top? I started with Terran and I'm going to stick with it, but I'd like to know this as a heads-up before matches.

2- What gameplay speed are tournament matches held in?

3- There are 5 leagues to my knowledge from diamond to bronze. Would I be right in assuming that the top 20% are in diamond and the next 20% are in platinum and so on and so forth?

4- Can your opponents see your scanner sweep from the orbital command?

 

1 - someone else know this?

2 - the fastest possible, I'm sure

3 - probably not, placement doesn't work well so sometimes bronze players get in gold and vice versa

4 - yes. But note that with nuclear strikes, your opponent doesn't see that giant red thing, just a tiny red dot. (Or if they use ultra settings, because of a bug, they might see nothing.)

 

1- Terran has the highest Win Ratio to Losses
Followed by protoss, Zerg in last.

Terran at the moment is a powerhouse in Gold and Diamond leagues, it's doing exceptionally well in 2's not to mention 3's.

 

I got a couple questions:

- what does the bonus pool do?

- if you play with a friend (not random) and win... do those wins count towards getting profile picture rewards and such?

 

your first question i dont quite understand the bonus pool either

and second question yes they count

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

3- I am aware that misleading placements may occur, but my question was a bit different. I just want to know if the system makes an effort to divide up the leagues with equal amount of players e.g. the number of players in platinum = number in gold etc. as opposed to keeping platinum/gold for only the top 5 or 10%. If the latter is true, it would make it tougher for people to make it to those leagues. I hope my question is clearer now.

4- If it's just a tiny dot, does the opponent sometimes completely miss the site of attack?

Does anyone have info on how big this difference is statistically? I hope it's not too big such that the Zerg and Protoss players whine when they lose (because my brothers play Zerg and Protoss)

I might be mistaken so don't take my word for it, but I think the bonus pool is something to negate the disadvantage in terms of points when you don't play for a long time. After coming back from absence, you get extra points for each victory so that you can catch up, or something along those lines.