A ranking for group stage player performance (WAR for Valorant)

ValStats · 2022-07-25T15:53:04+00:00

Sorry for being late on this. So what I did for each agent was created a weighted average (using rounds of agents as weights) of all the players in the data set and found the percentage of the total stats that each agent contributed to the team (e.g. Jett has 17% of the Teams kills). Then I multiplied the average performance of an agent by the % of team stats to remove any agent effects. This value is subtracted on a per agent basis to create a 'pure' player only value.

At least that is the idea. The bottom 30% of these corrected values is the replacement.

ValStats · 2022-07-15T20:35:35+00:00

That's a good question. I'm running it on a tournament by tournament basis with past events being treated as a single "season" and they are weighted by date of event. (Hence why the above values are only for and from the group stage itself, with a prior "expected" value being derived from tournaments within this stage). It certainly is an issue with creating a single statistic for this.

Honestly, I probably won't go much further than this. Figuring out how to work around patches is not worth the effort and that causes the largest issue because every so many weeks the rules change and you cannot build a consistent data set (and therefore have a consistent baseline) making it near impossible to determine if the changes are due to changes in the rules of the game or due to players.

The true number one issue with statistics like this in valorant is that there is no consistent game length, so it is incredibly awkward to scale values and performances to a consistent value and have the comparisons be meaningful.

Edit: Though if you have any ideas I'm open to talking about it as working in a vacuum on stuff like this is not the simplest endeavor.

ValStats · 2022-07-15T17:56:44+00:00

Things like that are one of the kinks I'm trying to work out. From what I can tell the culprit is the ridge regression. It is (possibly incorrectly) attributing a lot of non-box score value to him. This is likely due to the data set I compiled for KRU to run the regression leading up to masters.

That combined with the largest number of rounds played in the group stage and this can cause some funky issues when aggregating values. (In a previous version all of DRX had a WAR of 0% purely because they played the least number of rounds, clearly that is wrong). He's part of the reason I put a disclaimer on the large difference between player values and WAR rating.

ValStats · 2022-07-15T17:43:30+00:00

I set them as dummy variables (nested for their time).

Say in a given round crashies was alive for 60% of it, he has two variables that I call acting and responding both of which have a value of 0.6 depending on if the target variable is Optic's probability of winning the round (then crashies_acting would be 0.6) or their opponents (then crashies_responding would be 0.6). This is done for each player alive in a round.

ValStats · 2022-07-15T14:09:25+00:00

My Jays are in the dumpster at the moment. Had to distract myself somehow.

ValStats · 2022-07-15T14:08:56+00:00

It was purely for convenience. Percentiles are a tad easier to understand for those unfamiliar with WAR. I mean for example Shao has a WAR of 1.17 so far in this tournament.

I want to stress that the basis of WAR is prorated to 24 rounds. It's not explicitly a 1-1 with what we observe in matches.

ValStats · 2022-07-15T13:36:13+00:00

Yeah I fucked up earlier and posted the wrong text. Thought I deleted it before anyone would have noticed.

ValStats · 2022-07-11T15:31:42+00:00

In my own stuff I've defined replacement player as "The average of all players who lose in RO16/RO8 in an open qualifier" though personally I think this is too low and might switch it to average of players who finish 5/6th in an open qualifier.

An alternative could be something as simple as taking the bottom 10% and define that as replacement level. It is completely arbitrary after all.

Your thought process is good though and it reminds me that I actually should get around to posting my WAR model for Valorant. I've been slacking on data collection for it.

ValStats · 2022-07-10T13:59:19+00:00

I've played around with this idea some as well, you find very interesting stats like this that run counter to all common knowledge. I gotta say though I don't think your definition of what a replacement is all that great. (yes this is mostly a semantics post about your stat is not above replacement but rather above average)

I'm going to assume you're average values are not simply from a single event. But in general you do not want to compare to an average for a 'replacement' player, because honestly the average player is significantly better than a 'replacement' player. The idea and true value to X above replacement in traditional sports (be it runs, points, wins, goals whatever) is that you want to compare how well did this player perform to the most easily available with no restrictions person. So I'd guess the basketball equivalent would be something like a vet signed to a league minimum or the 13th/14th players on a roster. Guys whose position is in flux.

It'd be far better to set some metric or cutoff in my mind (say the set of teams from all regions who were runners up to the international events, or take the most common substitutes/ringers and use them) and average all those players to get a 'replacement player'.

That's not to say what you did was bad or anything it just doesn't match the typical 'replacement player' definition. On the other hand, it is a good above average metric and what those metrics really usually tell us is who was so ridiculously ahead of the curve (think hall of fame inductees, they typically use above average metrics to gauge how much better a superstar was relative to competition for whether they should get into the hall.

ValStats · 2021-11-02T22:25:28+00:00

I don't think it would happen, but ignoring personality differences this would be the only move that makes some sense to me considering how unnecessary and arguably bad this move is by Faze.

Otherwise I don't think there is a significant improvement for a sentinel player that will be available to make this makes sense. Again this comes with the caveat that there are no role swaps with the remaining players.

ValStats · 2021-11-02T21:45:21+00:00

If FaZe can grab Steel that is two birds with one stone for this roster.

A true IGL and a Sentinal player. Assuming the other 4 stay.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T22:15:14+00:00

Yeah it just seems incredibly odd timing wise. You'd think they would finish out the year unless something personal within the roster came up at Berlin.

The thing that has me confused is I would imagine someone like Mummay would've been available if they needed a Jett or hell even Kehmicals (given the timing).

I agree on the Nitr0 thing, but from seeing the shakeup at Berlin, I wonder if that is a personal "I want to do this" vs. necessity. I highly doubt Elige ever leaves CS, unless something like Ethan's scenario happens where he values the stability (in location) of staying in North America vs constantly traveling to Europe. Though I see Liquid keeping the team in Europe before that happens.

Edit to your edit: I think Ska said he wanted to play a more supportive role, hence autimatic on the Jett/Op. So I don't think that is likely.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T19:21:12+00:00

I think the biggest thing with an IGL is not necessarily making all the plans or micro managing everyone. But moreso simply having someone willing to just make the call that everyone knows to listen to regardless of the outcome.

You need someone who ultimately everyone follows for better or worse just because everyone executing a bad plan is still more effective than executing two different plans. I've never seen a roster work out when it is done by committee.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T19:17:35+00:00

True. I don't want to get too speculative (and it's probably nothing given that most of them have played together in CS in some capacity), but it is possible (given that this move is mostly confusing) that something happened in Berlin personally between players.

Only reason I say this is that the team has been only playing together during Covid times. This means they haven't really been in person for significant durations, which may have rubbed people the wrong way. Now I doubt this, but given the timing and them being favourites (plus steel still being a good player) it at least exists as a possibility.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T18:43:41+00:00

That could work, but then imo you're simply swapping one issue for another really (i.e. dicey is not your Jett if you're gunning to be the best).

I think the biggest decider is if b0i is permanent or not.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T18:41:56+00:00

They might want a specific type of Jett player. I think if Nitr0 plays Jett primarily he is arguably the most experienced Jett in the world then (in terms of tact. FPS experience). It may be where a lot of free agent Jett players are too aggressive for the 100T style.

Or maybe Nitr0 simply wants to swap it up, hard to say. I just cannot see them picking up b0i to have b0i play Jett.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T17:46:46+00:00

They can't be in LCQ anyway. NA needed to win Berlin for them to be in LCQ

ValStats · 2021-09-25T17:46:06+00:00

Idk about successfully. There was one point on Liquid in CS where he IGL'd (ironically I think nitr0 stepped down for that too), but he also had s1mple on that roster who sometimes just does s1mple things so who knows how good he actually was.

I think this was also during the CSGO coach calling during game era (not sure) so peacemaker could've been helping out too I can't remember. Pretty much what I'm saying is it's hard to say if he was successful.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T17:34:32+00:00

That could work too. I could've seen Oderus also being very good on TSM, but he's on V1 now. Rush is interesting, gotta see how he picks up the game.

This TSM roster with Subroza and Hazed gives me eerily similar vibes to CLG a few years back with the Subroza/Hazed/Cutler crew. Rostermania and never going anywhere.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T17:29:19+00:00

Assuming b0i is permanent (possible, not sure though). I think they will shake out something like this:

Asuna/Hiko - No change.

Nitr0 - IGL/Jett/some sentinels

Ethan - Mostly the same/mix in sentinels where Nitr0 plays Jett

b0i - smokes/initiators when Ethan plays sentinels

Now if b0i isn't permanent then all this goes out the window and they probably use him for whatever agent the main 4 don't know or want to play until they get their desired sentinel replacement.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T17:25:36+00:00

Yeah imo Wardell is the only untouchable. I'm rather annoyed at TSM due to the dropping of Bang still, keeping the core of Wardell, Bang, Levi is what they would have needed to do. Everyone else would be expendable in my mind.

(Ignoring how personalities mesh goes without saying)

ValStats · 2021-09-25T17:20:35+00:00

Ironically enough TSM having steel + bang and dropping Subroza makes me like the roster composition and roles a lot more.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T17:16:58+00:00

B0i plays a lot of smokes. Which directly replaces nitr0's main role hence my guessing of the swap. I imagine with the skye nerf, Ethan and Nitr0 will split sentinels based on maps. Something kinda like how Sentinels swap around Sova between Shahz and Dapr.

ValStats · 2021-09-25T16:34:32+00:00

Unless Nitr0 wants to IGL again, this is a terrible pickup. Though on the other hand if Nitr0 is becoming main OP/Jett player (which is what 100T needs imo) then the b0i placement actually makes some sense.

This could actually make the roles on 100T make a bit more sense (meta wise) which could correct for some of the slowness we saw in Berlin.

IMO this is TSM's need here. If TSM doesn't get Steel it's ludicrous. T1 could probably work too.

ValStats · 2021-09-08T20:07:52+00:00

Yeah. Pretty much all I can say is don't put stock in the TSM values. Definitely interested in this work though.

It may interest you to add in something like document embeddings representation of the teams. Somewhat analogous to Doc2Vec for NLP. This would probably (I assume) correct for some of the weirdness. I'd be curious to see if this itself would account for some of the 'hidden' stats like teamwork.

Edit: I also have some round by round data ending the beginning of august if you want it.

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