So far, this week has seen surprise showings in all four regions as we near the end of Stage 3. During these games, we saw some remarkable plays and standout flops, so let’s take a look at some of the numbers that drove this week’s results.
Latin America
The Ninjas in Pyjamas roster is struggling at the moment. They sit in eighth place in the BR6 League in Stage 3 results. A key issue during this stage has been Gustavo "Psycho" Rigal’s inability to secure entry kills, with him sitting at a -16 differential with four opening kills to 20 opening deaths.
For comparison, the next worst in the BR6 League is FURIA’s Rennan "R4re" Silva at -7, while G2’s Lucas "Hungry" Reich is the closest international comparison at -10.
The BR6 Stage 3 2021 stats ordered by worst entry K-D.
In fact, to find an equally worse entry figure in LATAM, you must go all the way back to Elevate during Season 10, where Lucas "Zyon" Paisana secured a -24 differential (followed closely by Psycho at -15).
However, this was across 16 maps compared to just eight during this stage. Meanwhile, globally, only one player has done worse than Psycho since Season 10. Chaos’ Aleks "VITO" Lyapun hit -17 during Stage 2 of 2020, but that figure was also across more maps.
The Pro League Season 10 entry stats ordered by worst entry K-D.
This is highly unusual for Psycho and NiP. The worst record anyone on the team notched since the new Pro Circuit format took over was just -4. At SI 2021, Psycho led the team with a +17 entry K-D and secured a +7 last stage.
Looking at Psycho’s teammates, João "Kamikaze" Gomes also dipped below the team’s lowest record at -6 this stage, showing it’s not just Psycho struggling. The team’s main entry player Gabriel "pino" Fernandes sits at +2, his lowest entry since he was briefly benched back in Season 10.
The BR6 Stage 3 2021 stats for just NiP.
The team has clearly hit a two-to-three-year low in both their individual performance and results. With the Elite Six Cup starting next week we should get an insight whether this is due to them not focusing this stage as the games were in effect just seeding matches or whether it’s a more fundamental issue with a loss in their fragging capabilities.
Global: Operator Stats
Following a nerf to Ash’s primary weapon and a loss of one of her three breaching rounds four months ago, SiegeGG reported that her competitive pick rate had dropped by two-thirds from a global pick rate of 80.7% down to just 27.2%. Now that we’ve had more time for these changes to be adopted, we've re-run the math with further interesting results.
As of October 7th, Ash’s pick rate has dropped a further 39% from its already decreased Stage 2 numbers reported previously. This totals a massive four-fifths drop (79.4% to be exact) from its pre-nerf levels in Stage 1.
Ash's pick rate in each region.
While the EUL and BR6 games did see slightly more Ash play, they were already the leagues with the least picks during Stage 2. APAC, meanwhile, has got with the times as they were a lot more Ash-friendly during Stage 2 and now her pick has dropped a further 65% down to be in line with Europe and Brazil.
As we did four months ago, we took another look at where the Stage 1 Ash-mains are now. The results here being particularly of interest.
The operator picks for each Stage 1 Ash main for each region.
While the initial look showed Zofia becoming the new “Queen of Attackers”, given more time all four regions have come around to Europe’s way of thinking with Iana now dominating as the operator of choice for the frag-centric roles.
Her pick rate has skyrocketed compared to Stage 1 before the Ash nerf, while Zofia’s has in fact fallen. Iana is also now the highest in pure pick rate of all the Ash replacement operators with just Thatcher and Hibana regularly beating her.
Ash, Zofia, and Iana's pick rate change between Stages 1 and 3.
So what does this all mean? Well, it wasn’t just an overreaction to the initial nerf, Ash is truly dead. What’s more, the entire world now agrees on who’s replacing her, Iana rather than Zofia.
Global: Player Stats
With the auto-relegation of Heroic this week, Jonathan "spokeN" Nolasco has joined a group of 15 twice-relegated players across Europe, Latin America, and North America.
While Alexander "Skys" Magor caught attention back in 2018 for earning this distinction, the number of players who have either lost a relegation match or been auto-relegated across these three regions on two occasions has since ballooned.
The number of players who have done this in subsequent seasons is now at three; Skys, David "p0Lo" Gómez, and Rémi "aPPROX" Ayari have the distinction.
The full list of players can be found below. APAC hasn’t been counted as its Pro League ran on a very different format to the initial three regions.
- Hansen: Epsilon Season 1 and Vitality Season 5
- P0lo: Barrage Season 4 and gBots Season 5
- Jahk: Epsilon Season 1 and Oplon Season 7
- Skys: CLG Season 7 and Obey Season 8
- aPPROX: Oplon Season 7 and Vitality Season 8
- fk1 & gCR: INTZ Season 6 and paiN Season 9
- Zyon: semXorah Season 4 and Elevate S10
- RevaN & ENEMY: Vitality Season 5 and PENTA Season 10
- Bounssi: ENCE Season 7 and GiFu Season 10
- Mity: Red Candids Season 7 and Elevate Season 10
- Levy: BD Season 8 and Elevate Season 10
- Cryn: NaVi Season 9 and Chaos Season 2020
- SpokeN: Oplon Season 7 and Heroic Season 2021
Skys is still the only NA player to hold this accolade, while nine out of the 15 are from Europe. This is most likely due to relegations usually being won by the Challenger League team in Europe, while in North America, relegations either didn’t take place or were shorter than usual in three out of the last four seasons.
What’s perhaps most interesting about this list is the inclusion of the reigning Six Invitational champion Mity and the reigning Major champion Juliano "Levy" Andrade.
These two -- along with one of the statistically worst players in Pro League history, Zyon -- were relegated together for the second time in their careers back on Elevate during Season 10. They clearly had the talent to do well, but were unable to fully manifest their talent into a functioning team until this year.
Elevate's stats for Season 10.
Out of the above names, six are still competing in a pro-tier team: Mity as the coach of NiP, Levy for oNe, Pascal "cryn" Alouane for Rogue, SpokeN for Heroic, Skys for SSG, and Cyril "jahk" Renoud as the coach of Na’Vi.
Furthermore, another four players could join this list by the end of the year, Santos’ Daniel "Lend4" Ferreira, Astralis’ Kevin "Easilyy" Skokowski, and Secret’s Alex "SlebbeN" Nordlund and Santino "Gomfi" Meulenaere.
These last two would be the third duo listed, and first players to be relegated across multiple regions. No player has been relegated three times of yet, a first that no one would want to hold.