All posts by Tim Sevenhuysen

Tim Sevenhuysen is the founder and sole developer of Oracle's Elixir and provides a variety of consulting and contracting services throughout the esports industry. He is the former Director of Esports Analytics for 100 Thieves, served as Head of Data Science for Esports One, led Shadow.gg from 2017 to 2019, and was Statistical Consultant for Fnatic in 2015. Follow Tim on Twitter at @TimSevenhuysen.
Check the Data

LCK Spring 2016 – Alternative Team Rankings

The LCK Spring split regular season has wrapped up, and the gauntlet-style playoffs will be kicking off soon. Did the “right” five teams qualify? Here are a couple of alternative ways to rank the teams based on their game results.

LCK Ranks

Pure win percentage leaves almost all of the teams in the same order, because it’s used as the first tiebreaker in standings. CJ Entus did benefit one spot in the official standings by winning seven of their ten Game 3s, which made them look slightly better than they may deserve.

By Gold Spent Percentage Difference, the standings are shaken up pretty significantly. Suddenly KT Rolster and the Jin Air Green Wings don’t look so good, while the Afreeca Freecs seem like legitimate contenders and Longzhu Gaming are bumped all the way up into a playoff spot.

GSPD rewards teams who win decisively and lose by narrow margins, and that definitely fits the profile of the Freecs, who are one the LCK’s better early-game teams but sometimes struggle to close things out in the mid/late-game. In Longzhu’s case, their GSPD is higher than their place in the standings in part because of their struggles in Game 3s, where they had just a 2-5 record.

The table below has the actual numbers for each of these metrics.

LCK Results

Based on these numbers, it could be argued that Longzhu deserved a playoff spot over the Jin Air Green Wings, but in the end the wins are what matter.

For complete LCK team statistics from the Spring regular season, hit the Team Stats page.

Analysis and Opinion

Rearview: Looking Back at My Preseason Power Rankings

Way back in January, I put out a pair of articles previewing the NA LCS Spring split. I ranked all 10 teams from weakest to strongest, based on what I thought of their offseason moves and the potential strength of their new rosters.

After a two-and-a-half month regular season, including an array of roster changes and substitutions, it’s time to look back at those preseason rankings as a way to remind ourselves of the expectations we held and to dissect some of the unexpected outcomes. We also get to see how accurate I was with my predictions, so that’s fun!

Let’s kick things off with the team I, and the rest of the world, predicted for a 10th-place finish.

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