At the very top probably not, at least these days. But historically low APM players were often able to overcome that through better decision making and get to the top 4 or so. That’s generally still the case outside of the top 4-8.
Now the meta is quite established and it’s much easier to get better at decision making through practice than becoming physically faster.
It’s very complex though while the factions are mostly symmetrical there are over 30 of them and they all have marginal advantages/disadvantages. Games are more usually than not won through optimally utilizing them. So in tournaments drafting became very important since using the same civilization twice or by opposing players is almost universally disallowed. So to be successful you need to outwit the opponent by picking the right faction(s), be capable of making the optimal strategic decisions and be very fast/good at micro (which is also probably more important than in most other games since arrows are not heatseeking missiles and pathfinding is extra wonky)
Uh, dunno if I'd say that BW is dominated by "the young".
Top 4 at the latest ASL are all born before 1995 - they're all millennials. None of them are from the first generation of BW pros, but they've been in the game for a long time.
I think BW has the collapse of the infrastructure that used to support it as a ongoing televised event to blame for that one. It’s less popular among gen z so there isn’t the up and coming replacement and no one is paying them to do it as a full time job as even the mid-tier pros from its prime era were.
Now the meta is quite established and it’s much easier to get better at decision making through practice than becoming physically faster.
It’s very complex though while the factions are mostly symmetrical there are over 30 of them and they all have marginal advantages/disadvantages. Games are more usually than not won through optimally utilizing them. So in tournaments drafting became very important since using the same civilization twice or by opposing players is almost universally disallowed. So to be successful you need to outwit the opponent by picking the right faction(s), be capable of making the optimal strategic decisions and be very fast/good at micro (which is also probably more important than in most other games since arrows are not heatseeking missiles and pathfinding is extra wonky)