Once the group stage of the League of Legends World Cup was over, it was time to take an interest in the different statistics, to understand the challenges of drafts in BO5. A user of Reddit went further and analyzed a rather unexpected trend, despite the changes made to the game by Riot Games:
“Looking at the group stage of the World Cup, it seemed to me that there was not much, if any comeback or throw from a team with a big gold lead. In each match, it seemed to me that those who took the advantage early on ended up winning the match.
So I did the math. For each game I took the gold advantage that both teams had and whether or not they won that game . Then, I used this data to see from which moment, the advantage starts to be decisive, which would represent a little the point of no return. This gave an edifying result.“, he explained.
A 93% win rate from 2000 gold in advance
This graph shows +X gold lead at any given time in a match on the x-axis (horizontal), and win percentage on the y-axis (vertical).
A gold lead as small as 1K leads to an 80% chance of winning the match, and a gold lead of 2K wins the game in 93% of cases. This data is quite impressive, as most commentators and viewers are often more generous in their estimates. Before the 5k gold difference, it is generally estimated that the lead is correct but not dramatic (depending on the length of the game, having a 2k lead at 5 mins and 2k at 50 mins does not really represent the same advantage ), and it is only from 10k that a game seems irretrievable. Seeing these posts, some interesting conclusions can be drawn.
The records of this world
- The biggest throw of the tournament took place during Top Esports against GAM , a game in which TES lost despite leading +7.5K gold at 40 minutes. Honorable mention for the RNG who were caught by T1 in their second match of the quarter-finals, and the DAMWON Kia who lost against JDG with a 4.7k gold lead at 17 minutes.
- The RNG are the only team to have won a game with a gold lead less than the maximum lead reached by their opponents. It was in the match against 100T, the LCS champions had a 3.1k lead as RNG concluded the match with a 2.4k lead. It is also the victory with the smallest gold lead of the entire tournament.
- Biggest Gold Advance current, was observed during the match between Gen.G. and 100T. The South Koreans had an 18.7k lead.
Who’s Too Strong: Snowball or Teams?
Even if taking a certain advance is very (too?) often decisivethe first quarter-finals showed that these situations were far from unsolvable. The JDGs had 2k behind at 7 minutes in game 3 against Rogue, while the T1s went up a delay of 6.5k in game 2 against RNG. Over the years, Riot Games has made changes to allow struggling teams to get back on track in a gamebut it seems insufficient on the professional scene. Moreover, comebacks have more often taken place thanks to well-managed teamfights, or an adequate composition which finally manages to set itself up like in game 2 of T1 vs RNG.
It seems that the professional teams have reached a sufficient level for the mechanics made for mere mortals no longer concern them.(by the way, let’s clarify that Riot Games never claimed to have implemented these comeback tools for the professional scene, unlike other things such as turret plates or the Herald) It is even possible that instead of hindering them, these mechanics are useful to them. It has already happened that teams play very cautiously with a substantial advance, because the players were unaware of the advantage they had managed to accumulate. Even the arrival of objective bonuses in a game therefore gives them this information. In the end, it seems that at the professional level, the best tool for comeback remains the good old Nash or Ancestral Dragon steal. Or kill the opposing team. Simple, basic.
esport-lol
The League of Legends World Championship continues. For this third quarter-final, we will review the strengths and weaknesses of the two LCK monsters.