Blizzcon 2015: The Numbers
I had originally written this piece last week just before the Round of 16, but due to the mass of articles that we posted as TL writers, we never got round to publishing it. While obviously it's (slightly) out of date, there's still some interesting stuff in it, especially given the events of last weekend. Hopefully you'll find something to like. Special thanks to Zealously, who wrote parts of this with me, and from whose 2013 piece I've liberally borrowed. You can find his original post here
I had originally written this piece last week just before the Round of 16, but due to the mass of articles that we posted as TL writers, we never got round to publishing it. While obviously it's (slightly) out of date, there's still some interesting stuff in it, especially given the events of last weekend. Hopefully you'll find something to like. Special thanks to Zealously, who wrote parts of this with me, and from whose 2013 piece I've liberally borrowed. You can find his original post here
The winrates
Career winrates
- INnoVation: 67.28%
- Hydra: 67.20%
- Lilbow: 67.19%
- Rain: 66.24%
- Polt: 64.51%
- sOs: 64.46%
- PartinG: 64.40%
- Zest: 63.45%
- herO: 62.75%
- Life: 62.39%
- Classic: 61.65%
- Maru: 59.67%
- Rogue: 59.15%
- ByuL: 59.06%
- FanTaSy: 58.86%
- Dream: 56.39%
- Lilbow is the sole owner of a career winrate in a matchup over 70% (PvZ at 71.03%).
- Dream is the only player attending to have a sub-50% record in a matchup (TvT at 47.93%).
- Dream also possesses the greatest percentage point difference between his best matchup (TvP at 62.74%) and worst (TvT at 47.93%)—14.81.
- Meanwhile, the difference between INnoVation’s TvZ (68.21%) and TvP (66.67%) is a mere 1.54.
- Rogue has a 3-12 record in offline Bo5 series; however all three of his victories have been 3-0s.
- On the other hand, there are three players who currently hold a winrate above 70% in offline Bo5 series: herO (73.33%), Classic (73.91%) and Life (77.05%).
- Aligulac gives INnoVation a staggering 35.37% chance to win Blizzcon (for full stats see below). Interestingly, substituting ByuN for INnoVation would give the ex-Prime man a 19% chance of taking home the title.
+ Show Spoiler +
Win Top 2 Top 4 Top 8 Top 16
-----------------------------------------------------------------
INnoVation 35.37% 14.17% 17.91% 13.88% 18.67%
sOs 13.28% 13.72% 17.28% 26.02% 29.69%
Hydra 9.27% 12.23% 18.95% 35.15% 24.40%
Maru 7.30% 9.24% 18.32% 26.38% 38.75%
Classic 6.49% 6.40% 24.97% 22.22% 39.92%
Rain 5.77% 8.17% 11.10% 33.81% 41.15%
herO 4.00% 5.33% 18.67% 35.18% 36.82%
Zest 3.77% 3.41% 4.08% 7.41% 81.33%
Life 3.53% 4.27% 6.97% 40.51% 44.72%
ByuL 2.45% 3.86% 13.60% 20.01% 60.08%
Rogue 2.10% 4.85% 11.07% 20.74% 61.25%
PartinG 2.02% 4.06% 7.99% 15.62% 70.31%
Polt 1.50% 3.50% 11.60% 24.55% 58.85%
FanTaSy 1.42% 2.92% 9.89% 22.59% 63.18%
Dream 0.87% 2.12% 3.68% 17.73% 75.60%
Lilbow 0.85% 1.76% 3.91% 38.20% 55.28%
+ Show Spoiler +
herO 3 ┐
├──────── herO 2 ┐
FanTaSy 2 ┘ │
├───── Classic 1 ┐
Classic 3 ┐ │ │
├───── Classic 3 ┘ │
ByuL 2 ┘ │
├── INnoVation 4 ┐
INnoVation 3 ┐ │ │
├── INnoVation 3 ┐ │ │
Zest 1 ┘ │ │ │
├── INnoVation 3 ┘ │
Life 3 ┐ │ │
├──────── Life 1 ┘ │
Lilbow 2 ┘ │
├─ INnoVation
Rain 3 ┐ │
├──────── Rain 2 ┐ │
Polt 2 ┘ │ │
├───────── sOs 3 ┐ │
PartinG 2 ┐ │ │ │
├───────── sOs 3 ┘ │ │
sOs 3 ┘ │ │
├───────── sOs 3 ┘
Hydra 3 ┐ │
├─────── Hydra 2 ┐ │
Dream 1 ┘ │ │
├──────── Maru 2 ┘
Maru 3 ┐ │
├──────── Maru 3 ┘
Rogue 2 ┘
Estimated by Aligulac. Modify.
The money
- Lee “Life” Seung Hyun $423,214
- Choi “Polt” Sung Hoon $377,178
- Won “PartinG” Lee Sak $334,666
- Kim “sOs” Yoo Jin $317,903
- Lee “INnoVation” Shin Hyung $285,446
- Jung “Rain” Yoon Jong $231,858
- Joo “Zest” Sung Wook $224,335
- Kim “Classic” Doh Woo $176,367
- Cho “Maru” Sung Choo $165,443
- Kim “herO” Joon Ho $150,933
- Shin “Hydra” Dong Won $89,384
- Han “ByuL” Ji Won $68,858
- David “Lilbow” Moschetto $68,539
- Cho “Dream” Joong Hyuk $55,162
- Lee “Rogue” Byung Ryul $35,380
- Jung “FanTaSy” Myung Hoon $33,709
- If Life becomes the first player to retain the title of BlizzCon Champion, he will finally usurp MC as the highest earning SC2 player of all time.
- Zest is the highest earner of 2015 so far, taking home $78,491 (55% of his 2014 earnings). $68,707 came along with his IEM Katowice championship.
- FanTaSy has earned the least, although his total of $14,544 represents his best monetary haul in a calendar year since his switch from Brood War.
- The BlizzCon champion is guaranteed to take home over $100,000 from the year. Six players in attendance have taken home six figure sums in annual prize money in the past; only Life and sOs have done it twice.
Note: Statistics only include earnings from Starcraft 2. They do not include minimum guaranteed earnings from BlizzCon.
The championships
- Five players have won two premier tournaments this year—herO, Life, INnoVation, Rain and Classic.
- Four players have managed to qualify for BlizzCon without a premier championship win this year—ByuL, Dream, Rogue and FanTaSy. Of those players, Rogue is the only player without a top four finish this year.
- Of the thirteen players in attendance based in Korea, Dream and ByuL are the only two players to earn 100% of their WCS points from the year in Korean events.
- Meanwhile, two Korean based players earned more than half of their points totals from foreign events—FanTaSy (1650 at 55%) and PartinG (3,050 points at 52%).
- FanTaSy is also the player to have earned the least amount of WCS points from league results, at 1,000.
- herO has amassed 5,000 WCS points from the Korean individual leagues this year.
- ByuL is yet to lose a finals to a Zerg player. In the Grand Finals, he could come to face either Rogue or Hydra.
- PartinG, herO and ByuL tie for most finals appearances this year, at 3.
- It has been 27 days since INnoVation last won a championship (2015 GSL Code S Season 3)
- It has been 1738 days since FanTaSy last won a championship (Bacchus OSL 2011)
- Life has won the most premier championships out of any attending player, at 10
The matchups
- herO and FanTaSy are dead even in their head to head records (3-3 in games, 2-2 in series). While herO has won 27 of his 36 PvT series this year, his record in Bo5+ is 3-4. Meanwhile, FanTaSy is 8-2 in his past 10 TvP series, with a 6-3 record in Bo5+.
- Classic has a 6-0 record against ByuL, spread across three series. In particular, game 1 of their clash during Season 2 of the SSL was one of the best games of the year.
- INnoVation has traded Bo5 series wins with Zest this year (at IEM Katowice and Season 3 of the GSL). On both occasions, the victor went on to win the tournament.
- Lilbow’s career winrate against Korean players is 47%—a 20 point drop from his overall record. Life’s record against foreign players is 79%—a 17 point increase.
- Rain has met Polt three times in Starcraft 2—although he won twice in 2012 just after he switched over from Brood War. he lost the most recent one at IEM Cologne last year.
- Although sOs has won three of his four Proleague clashes with PartinG, he also lost the only Bo3+ series that the two have played—at the Red Bull Battlegrounds finals in 2013, just after his BlizzCon win.
- Dream has an 0-3 series record against Hydra—all from early 2014. Interestingly, despite the incredible peaks he’s hit in TvZ this year, his winrate this year in the matchup is a miserable 45%.
- Maru has a 3-1 lead in series played against Rogue, including a win in the only Bo5+ series the two have played (3-1 in the GSL quarterfinals in Season 3).
The other stuff
- The top four teams in Proleague 2015 are also the only teams to send multiple competitors to BlizzCon this year. The two finalists—Jin Air Green Wings and SK Telecom T1—are the only teams to send three.
- This bracket should please Classic. The SKT protoss has won all three of his championships by beating a teammate (or ex-teammate, in the case of PartinG at IEM Shenzhen). If the pattern’s to continue, he should hope for Rain, PartinG or Dream to progress from the opposite side of the bracket.
- The Rogue Curse has been coined this year to showcase the plight of the Jin Air zerg, who has lost in five quarterfinals out of five played in individual leagues this year. Interestingly, though, there is a sub-clause—the player who beats him always goes on to lose in the next round to the player who eventually wins the whole tournament. With this unassailable logic, our winner is bound to be one of Rain, Polt, PartinG or sOs.
- Two previous champions will be present—sOs and Life.
- Every match-up is possible in the finals. Yes, even ZvZ.
- For all fans in Europe and Asia, herO and sOs are on opposite sides of the bracket—possibly leading to an earlier than expected finish. Unfortunately, so are INnoVation and Hydra, so we could be here forever.
- Although an SKT teamkill is a possibility in the finals (Classic/INnoVation vs Dream), no other teamkills are possible in the finals—players from Jin Air, KT and CJ Entus are all on the same sides of the bracket.
- A minimum of 46 games will be played at Blizzcon. The maximum amount of games is 77.
Time until Blizzcon Quarterfinals
Statistics from Aligulac, E-Sports Earnings