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Bringing back CS Riven

Tzuyuwu·9/15/2015, 9:22:23 AM·1 votes·984 views

Hi everybody, Lord Fulgrim here. Be nice in the replies, please. Recently I read about Riot's World's Pick'em promotion. I was incredibly excited when I saw Championship Riven was a prize... until I saw the criteria to get it. Now, I understand that Riot wants the skin to be rare, but this is ridiculous. What are the odds of getting a perfect pick? Let's do some math. If there are 4 teams per group and there are 4 groups, then there are 63 different ways to screw up and get it wrong, and only 1 way to get it correct, in just the group stage. And then we look at the Knockout stage, we see that there are 8 teams that go to play in Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Finals. Now I'm not entirely sure how the Knockout stage works, but assuming the losers of the best of fives are no longer eligible to play in further matches, there are around 16 different choices for Quarterfinals. Then there are 4 choices for Semifinals, and 2 choices for who gets the World cup. That's a lot of ways to screw up. I mean, I understand that the skin is supposed to be rare, but they brought back Championship Thresh the year after it's release, and I imagine they'll be bringing it and CS Shyvana back this year, too. If CS Thresh and CS Riven share a skin line, why can't we have Championship Riven brought back, too ? Maybe Riot does plan to bring Championship Riven back in 2016, as I read somewhere (Surrender@20, scroll down a little bit until you see the Championship Riven splash art,) as it would have been the 4th year after CS Riven's release, and legacy skins are generally brought back for a little bit at the 4th year after their release, but please, make CS Riven buyable again, at least during Worlds 2016 or something. ritopls (For those who are complaining that this shouldn't be in the eSports section, I sent a similar message to Riot Player Support staff "Prophet of the Void" told me to post it here...)

10 Comments

Cynical Rain9/15/2015, 12:04:21 PM2 votes

The math...

The possible arrangements of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place in the groups stage are equal to 4! = 24. The probability of picking the right order in one group is therefore 1/24. There are 4 groups, and you have to pick the right order for each one, so the probability of that occurring becomes (1/24)^4.

After that, the possible arrangements of 1st/2nd place is equal to 2. The probability of picking the right order in each match is therefore 1/2. There are 7 matches, and you have to pick the right order for each one, so the probability of that occurring becomes (1/2)^7.

**The probability of you picking both the groups and the brackets perfectly is therefore (1/24)^4*(1/2)^7 which is equal to approximately 1 in 42 million. **

This is assuming all of the events are independent and random - which they aren't. Skill counteracts some of the randomness, and previous events can influence future events because of the skill-variable. A very good team facing a very weak team has a higher probability of winning than 1/2. This is why the probability of predicting everything correctly in practice is much greater than 1/42 million. That said, it is still a very unlikely endeavor.

HexaDecimel9/15/2015, 2:01:56 PM2 votes

I wonder how many people complain about lotteries, and about how hard they are to win....

Kawai Unicorn9/15/2015, 11:37:38 AM1 votes

think about how many players will be participating dude :)

The Bíg Ticket9/15/2015, 3:51:56 PM1 votes

Just don't be retarded and actually pick correctly. It is not like lotto where it is random. some teams are clearly stronger than others. Also that champion is ugly and no one likes her, I could understnad your concern if you were talking about a great disabled skin like Pax Jax or Pax TF.

Cynical Rain9/15/2015, 4:27:04 PM1 votes

@ Fulgrim

You didn't show any explicit calculations, I explained how to arrive at an answer. You can find out more about it easily by searching "probability".

@ Icestar

No, you simply didn't read the post. You didn't even read the bold, which is supposed to be a TL;DR. Either that, or you are a troll. Where do you see 4^4?