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 2016 Spring Mid-split GSPD Standings

Gold spent percentage difference (GSPD) is a measurement of the average gap in gold spent between the teams at the end of the game. In other words, GSPD measures whether a game was really close, or a big stomp. This gives us a more nuanced picture of how well teams are performing than simple win rate. To learn more about GSPD, read the theory article.

Here are the GSPD standings for the LCK, following week 7 of the 2016 Spring split.

LCK Mid-split GSPD

More LCK Spring 2016 team stats

Takeaways

Longzhu Gaming stand out for their relatively strong GSPD but just a 5W-4L series record that has them tied for fifth in the overall standings. Longzhu have won just one of the four Game 3s they’ve played in; one or two more Game 3 victories could have put them in second place instead of fifth. Pairing their GSPD with the LCK’s second-best early-game rating (58.4) suggests that Longzhu may be due to climb the standings soon.

GSPD suggests that KT Rolster and the Jin Air Green Wings are overachieving in the standings, and may be due to come back down to earth in the second half of the Spring split. There’s more to the story, though, because these two teams rely heavily on Dragon buffs in their strategies. Dragon buffs aren’t factored into GSPD because they give power that isn’t tied to gold, so while a game may end with very close gold values, it’s possible that one team had a meaningful advantage from four or five stacks of Dragon buffs.

The Green Wings have the LCK’s highest First Dragon rate at 67%, and have secured 59% of the Dragons taken in their games, second only to the ROX Tigers. KT Rolster have the third-best Dragon Control rate at 57%. The Green Wings have secured the fourth Dragon buff nine times and the fifth Dragon buff three times, and KT Rolster has earned the fourth Dragon seven times and fifth Dragon twice. Both teams have some of the longer game lengths in the LCK as well, the Green Wings in particular, because of playing around Dragon stacking.

The sky isn’t falling for the Jin Air Green Wings or for KT Rolster, but it’s interesting to see how they’ve taken different paths to victory than some of the teams that are ahead of them in the GSPD standings. With Dragon buffs being improved in recent changes, we may see the Dragon-stacking strategy become that much more popular and effective.

Analysis and Opinion, Check the Data

STAT CARD: Faker

Faker stat card

Faker has been the consensus best player in the world for years, and he’s continuing to lead the way for his team, SK Telecom T1, in the 2016 season. This year he’s playing with co-star MaRin, who left after their World Championship victory to play in China’s LPL with LGD Gaming.

In MaRin’s absence, and with stalwart Jungler Bengi struggling to find his place in the carry-jungler meta, Faker has been relied on more heavily to directly carry games. It’s been easier for opponents to predict Faker’s role in SKT’s game plans as a result, and limit the success of some of his early laning and mid-game playmaking. Faker has the second-highest death share of LCK Mid laners, as a result.

That hasn’t stopped Faker from keeping up his high-pressure play style, though, and he’s been topping the damage and gold charts while staying top-3 in farming numbers. If Faker can get a little bit more playmaking support from his teammates, so that he doesn’t have to carry so much of the load himself, SKT should keep challenging near the top of the LCK standings.

Find more LCK player stats on the 2016 Spring Regular Season page.

Legend:
DPM: Average damage to champions per minute.
DMG%: Average share of team’s damage to champions.
EGPM: Average earned gold per minute.
GOLD%: Average share of team’s earned gold.
CSD@10: Average creep score (minion+monster kills) difference at 10 minutes.
CS per Minute: Average creep score (minion+monster kills) per minute.

Photo courtesy of lolesports.com.

Analysis and Opinion

Froggen’s Echo: Is Rick Fox’s Team Playoff-Bound?

Froggen + 4.

That was the general impression of the Echo Fox lineup when it was announced in January. With Challenger Series players Hard and Big at Jungle and Support, journeyman Keith at AD Carry, and kfo coming into the Top lane from Korean solo queue, Froggen’s new teammates didn’t inspire an abundance of confidence. Maybe Froggen could carry his underwhelming team to a handful of wins. Maybe this squad could surprise us and earn a little bit of respect. But even that was in doubt.

It’s not a maybe anymore: Echo Fox have made a loud and clear statement that they belong in the playoff conversation.

So let’s discuss.

After a reasonable 1-1 record in their first week, Echo Fox’s prospects started tumbling like oil prices, as three of their players were locked out by work visa issues. With Froggen, kfo, and Hard benched, Echo Fox forfeited a game to NRG, then stumbled through five sequential losses, finding themselves in last place with a 1-7 record. Hard’s return partway through that run didn’t make a noticeable difference, but finally the news came that Froggen and kfo would be available for week 5.

What a change that made.

Read at Unikrn →