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.
Analysis and Opinion

NA LCS Semi-Final 1 Preview: Cloud9 vs. Team Liquid, Head to Head

Cloud9 vs. Team Liquid is a matchup between two veteran rosters. Today we’ll take a look at the teams head to head, both by position and overall, drawing on various statistics from the regular season and tiebreakers to guide our comparisons. We’ll see why Cloud9 are the favourites coming in, and where Team Liquid’s relative points of strength lie throughout their roster.

These stats don’t tell the whole story, but they draw attention to some interesting facets of the players and teams which we might not otherwise notice. Through these comparisons we’ll see the strengths of each team’s roster, and get some insight into their overall strategic approaches, as well.

I’ve presented my interpretations based on these numbers, but as always, I encourage everyone to draw their own conclusions! Continue reading NA LCS Semi-Final 1 Preview: Cloud9 vs. Team Liquid, Head to Head →

Stats Theory

Team Vision: Warding Statistics from NA LCS 2015 Spring Split

Vision control is a huge part of competitive League of Legends. We can measure teams’ level of vision control by looking at both how many wards they purchase and place, and how many of their opponents’ wards they clear out.

The statistics below are from the 18-game 2015 Spring split. Tiebreaker games are not included.

TeamTotal Wards PlacedAverage Wards Placed per MinuteTotal Stealth Wards PurchasedTotal Vision Wards Purchased"Free" Wards ProportionTotal Wards ClearedAverage Wards Cleared per MinuteAverage Proportion of Enemy's Wards Cleared
Cloud91,8402.7144028061%6981.0439%
Counter Logic Gaming1,8622.7528833866%7671.1339%
Dignitas1,7592.5131231165%6410.9134%
Gravity2,0892.8821626077%6590.8934%
Team 82,0362.9130627472%7271.0239%
Team Coast1,7262.6032135061%5560.8332%
Team Impulse1,6712.5426126668%6020.9033%
Team Liquid1,9942.7836232965%6270.8734%
Team SoloMid1,7572.5635130563%6510.9433%
Winterfox1,9262.8137028066%6280.9133%
Points of Interest:

Warding Volume: Team 8 and Gravity placed the most wards, both in total and per minute.

Free Wards: More than three-quarters (77%) of Gravity’s wards were placed for “free” (that is, they came from a trinket or a Sightstone). Compare to TSM, Cloud9, and Coast, all of whom placed 63% or less of their wards for free. This suggests that perhaps the junglers on those teams are less likely to buy a Sightstone, which has certainly been true for C9 Meteos in recent weeks.

Ward Clears: CLG, Cloud9, and Team 8 clear the most wards per minute. All three teams cleared out almost 40% of their opponents’ wards, on average.

Opponent Warding Volume: Team Solo Mid is in the bottom three for proportion of enemy’s wards cleared, but is fourth in wards cleared per minute. This is because teams place a very high number of wards when playing against TSM: in fact, TSM is second for average Opponent wards placed per minute (CLG is first). In effect, TSM and CLG seem to instill a lot of fear in their opponents, leading to greater gold investment in vision.

Analysis and Opinion

Don’t Call Him “Just Consistent”: Cop’s Rise to the Top

Cop, AD Carry for Gravity, is a long-term veteran of competitive League of Legends, and one of the North American scene’s mainstays along with high profile names like Dyrus, DoubleLift, and Xpecial. But through his time with Dignitas and Curse, Cop never enjoyed the same level of celebrity and respect as those players, instead garnering a reputation as a consistent, but unexciting, mid-level performer.

A common concept when describing Cop is that he is the measuring stick for NA LCS AD Carries: if you’re better than Cop, you’re good; if you’re worse than Cop, you’re bad. That perception has stuck with Cop for years, to the point that no matter what he does, he is seemingly never seen as better than average, never more than “just consistent”. The phrase implies that Cop can’t put his team on his back and carry them to victory, that he isn’t capable of exceptional performances.

In a recent profile video produced by Riot, Cop even describes himself using the “just consistent” label.

The 2015 season brought about a new opportunity for Cop. He was playing for a new team, Gravity, and was joined by Bunny FuFuu, one of the several Supports he had worked with in 2014.

Even though it may not seem obvious on the surface from Cop’s overall statistics, this new opportunity has been just what Cop needed to break away from his “just consistent” label and prove himself as one of the top AD Carries in North America.

Need proof? Let’s dig into some statistics from the 2015 Spring regular season.

Read the full article on GoldPer10.com.