Friday, April 10, 2020

An Observation On the End-of-Season Upsets in The LCK and LPL


We all feel like it's been a particularly bizarre past week or two in the LCK and LPL. I wanted to explore it in more detail. Below are my thoughts.

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LPL Trends:
(106 matches as of 4/10)

Favorites are 68-38 straight up (64.15%)
Underdog spreads (+1.5) are 64-42 (60.38%)
Underdog sweeps (2-0 win): 20 out of 106 matches (18.87%)

In the past two weeks (Week 5 Day 1 on March 30th through today)
32 matches
Favorites are 19-13 (59.375%)
Underdog Spreads (+1.5) are 21-11 (65.625%)

Underdog sweeps (2-0 win): 7 out of 32 matches (21.875%)

LCK Trends:
(81 matches as of 4/10)

Favorites are 55-26 straight up (67.9%)
Underdog spreads (+1.5) are 49-32 (60.49%)

Underdog sweeps (2-0 win): 13 out of 81 matches (16.05%)

In the past two weeks (Week 7 Day 1 on April 1st through today)
21 matches
Favorites are 12-9 (57.14%)
Underdog Spreads (+1.5) are 15-6 (71.43%)


Underdog sweeps (2-0 win): 6 out of 21 matches (28.57%)



 In Spring of 2019, the LPL played 28 matches over the final two weeks of the season.
 15 out of those 28 went to a third game (53.6%) Over the full season 69 out of 120 matches went to a third game. Removing the final two weeks we saw 54 out of 92 (58.7%) go to a third game. 

In Spring of 2019, the LCK played 16 matcches over the final two weeks of the season. 
14 out of those 16 were 2-0's (87.5%). Over the full season, 28 out of 90 matches went to a third game. Removing the final two weeks we saw 26 out of 74 (35.13%) go to a third game. (Note: MOST of these final matches in the LCK were heavy favorites which skews the data)

While it feels like it's been a really bizarre week, it's only slightly above the numbers for the season in the LPL but the LCK is a drastic difference. Perhaps the bigger shocker is just who has been losing and how they've been losing that we're reacting to. 


We're in some uncharted territory here. My theory is that a combination of multiple factors are delivering more upsets and more game threes. 

1) Fatigue - The condensed schedule has many of these teams playing more than twice as many matches per time period than they were this time last year. That means more preparation in less time, less downtime to relax and reset, and generally an overworked situation given how much scrimmaging these teams do.

2) Metagame - The season ten metagame is much more snowbally and lopsided than season nine's was. An early lead means way more now than it did last year. The dragon soul has added an inevitable win condition for early and mid game teams that lacked inevitability before and HAD to win early. Now they can sit on a lead after taking it. Generally speaking, making comebacks this season is significantly harder than it's been and that's often where favorites would win games they shouldn't. It's not happening this split

3) Environment - Playing frome home/team facilities isn't the same as playing on stage in front of a crowd I don't care what anybody says. We talked about this on the podcast this week but it's that psychological barrier. Some people struggle with working from home for example. Their concentration wanes and they don't have that psychological response to being in a "place of work." When you step into a stadium or studio "it's work time." I think some of the really bizarre performances we've seen can be attributed to this.

4) Hiatus - The break in the middle of the season disrupts a lot of things and as we've talked about before, definitely helped the underdogs get more time to prepare. In the past, as the season moves along, favorites get a big edge as they're quicker to adapt and make adjustments while bad teams fall behind. With so little time and so many games I don't think that's been able to overwhelm fatigue.

5) Perception - Since we're experiencing the condensed schedule ourselves, seeing all these upsets happen in rapid succession is creating the perception that it's even crazier than normal and while there is an uptick for the above stated reasons, I do think there is a bit of an overreaction happening because of who has lost and won.

We've seen some upsets and I think these observations are a very real thing. The fatigue feels very real in both the LPL and LCK and we should probably adjust for it in these last days of the regular season.


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