By the Numbers: What do you do with all that gold?
Riot·10/15/2014, 8:55:48 PM·0 votes·14,863 views
You don’t necessarily need lots of farm or massive damage to win games. Extracting the most damage out of your items is efficient enough. If Uzi had just a Pick Axe to Imp's BF Sword, but was able to deal 90% of Imp's damage to champions (DPM), does that make Uzi more efficient? What about 90% of Imp's total damage (TDPM)? The question we want to ask is: What did these ADCs accomplish given the gold they had?
First, a bit about our methodology. We'll be looking at gold spent rather than gold earned. If you start a fight with 1,550 gold earned but haven't bought anything yet, the fight’s outcome will be less favorable than having purchased an extra BF sword earlier. Therefore, we're going to deprioritize gold earned per minute (GPM), which is a common metric used to determine a player's farming ability. GPM just isn't as accurate as gold spent per minute (GSM) when we're trying to represent the relative strength of a champion in a teamfight.
Now then, let's take a look at some of the most effective ADCs given their GSMs, and also some of their specific play styles.
Note: All data was calculated without Semifinals stats. For this particular article, because wards don't strongly impact a player's DPM, we'll subtract this number (75*number of green wards bought + 100*number of pink wards bought) from a player's overall GSM.
High Priority Farming
High Priority Farming
These carries have a considerable gap between their high TDPM/GSM and low DPM/GSM. This is a result of prioritizing farm and pushing towers over dealing damage to champions. By pushing lanes and pressuring towers, it forces the enemy team to respond quickly to defend or hard-engage a 5v4. All their gold spent can be used to push even faster and threaten major objectives like inhibitors and Barons if left unhindered.
One notable player is Rekkles, who has the highest TDPM/GSM ratio, but also owns one of the lowest DPM/GSM ratios through the quarterfinals. Despite having the highest GPM, he couldn't quite translate his farm into teamfight dominance. Also, one wildcard player sneaks into significance after further review. KaBuM's Minerva, despite falling behind in many of his games, was able to maintain the 4th highest TDPM/GSM out of all the ADC's. Although prioritizing farm over champions was not the winningest strategy at Worlds (since the players at the top this graph have been eliminated), we can still study this play style to find ways to make our own farming mechanics more efficient.
High Priority Fighting
These carries are the opposite of the previous guys; the gap is reversed as they tend to have a low TDPM/GSM compared to DPM/GSM. Why farm minions when you can constantly fight and force champions out of your way (or simply kill them in some cases)?
Imp, for instance, is fortunate enough to be paired with Mata as his support, and the duo has been terrorizing bot lane the entire tournament with a focus on relentless aggression. It happens to reflect in the stats; Imp's TDPM/GSM is relatively low, but his DPM/GSM is No. 2 overall, only below Deft.
Twitch, one of Imp's most-played champions, reflects this story quite well. Twitch's weak lane phase, combined with a time-consuming wave clear ability, tends to result in him falling behind in TDPM compared with other champions that can quickly farm, like Corki. But Twitch is the type of champion that will stray away from a lane in order to set up an ambush on an unsuspecting enemy champion.
And it should be no surprise that Deft tops the DPM/GSM charts; his immaculate positioning and skillshot accuracy ensures he squeezes out every ounce of damage with the gold he spends.
One cool fact is when we were calculating the gold spent on wards: Deft nearly doubled the amount of wards bought per game compared to the next highest player. So not only was he providing tons of damage, but he was helping out in the vision war, too.
Overall, these players prioritize finding positioning weaknesses of opponents, whether it’s in lane or in teamfights, as they try to eke out as much damage as their item build provides. Those of you looking specifically to capitalize on enemy mispositioning should take a look at a few of Imp’s and Deft’s games.
The Middle Ground
Lastly, we find the middle ground, players who do both TDPM and DPM as efficiently as they can. They don’t necessarily excel in either category but you can count on them to be solid in all phases of a game.
Uzi and Bebe have high TDPM/GSM and DPM/GSM relative to other carries. They balance farming creeps and helping their allies out extremely well. In fact, both carries are in the upper half of both categories. With both Royal Club and TPA relying on their ADC to do the heavy lifting at all phases in a game, these two players definitely follow through. The underrated Bebe (TPA went 1-5) had high damage numbers relative to the amount of gold he had to work with, a trait not many other carries can claim, while Uzi finds himself in contention for a World Championship title again.
Most of the stats confirm the various pros' play styles whether it's Uzi's aggressive lane phase and teamfight positioning or Rekkles' farm up the entire map strategy, but there are some key names like KaBuM's Minerva that may not be highlighted. You can be a valuable ADC in many different ways. As DPM becomes a stat people focus on to represent an ADC's effectiveness, there are other factors like GSM that should be taken into account, too. Don't think we've forgotten about the other positions though, their stats are coming soon.
These carries have a considerable gap between their high TDPM/GSM and low DPM/GSM. This is a result of prioritizing farm and pushing towers over dealing damage to champions. By pushing lanes and pressuring towers, it forces the enemy team to respond quickly to defend or hard-engage a 5v4. All their gold spent can be used to push even faster and threaten major objectives like inhibitors and Barons if left unhindered.
One notable player is Rekkles, who has the highest TDPM/GSM ratio, but also owns one of the lowest DPM/GSM ratios through the quarterfinals. Despite having the highest GPM, he couldn't quite translate his farm into teamfight dominance. Also, one wildcard player sneaks into significance after further review. KaBuM's Minerva, despite falling behind in many of his games, was able to maintain the 4th highest TDPM/GSM out of all the ADC's. Although prioritizing farm over champions was not the winningest strategy at Worlds (since the players at the top this graph have been eliminated), we can still study this play style to find ways to make our own farming mechanics more efficient.
High Priority Fighting
These carries are the opposite of the previous guys; the gap is reversed as they tend to have a low TDPM/GSM compared to DPM/GSM. Why farm minions when you can constantly fight and force champions out of your way (or simply kill them in some cases)?
Imp, for instance, is fortunate enough to be paired with Mata as his support, and the duo has been terrorizing bot lane the entire tournament with a focus on relentless aggression. It happens to reflect in the stats; Imp's TDPM/GSM is relatively low, but his DPM/GSM is No. 2 overall, only below Deft.
Twitch, one of Imp's most-played champions, reflects this story quite well. Twitch's weak lane phase, combined with a time-consuming wave clear ability, tends to result in him falling behind in TDPM compared with other champions that can quickly farm, like Corki. But Twitch is the type of champion that will stray away from a lane in order to set up an ambush on an unsuspecting enemy champion.
And it should be no surprise that Deft tops the DPM/GSM charts; his immaculate positioning and skillshot accuracy ensures he squeezes out every ounce of damage with the gold he spends.
One cool fact is when we were calculating the gold spent on wards: Deft nearly doubled the amount of wards bought per game compared to the next highest player. So not only was he providing tons of damage, but he was helping out in the vision war, too.
Overall, these players prioritize finding positioning weaknesses of opponents, whether it’s in lane or in teamfights, as they try to eke out as much damage as their item build provides. Those of you looking specifically to capitalize on enemy mispositioning should take a look at a few of Imp’s and Deft’s games.
The Middle Ground
Lastly, we find the middle ground, players who do both TDPM and DPM as efficiently as they can. They don’t necessarily excel in either category but you can count on them to be solid in all phases of a game.
Uzi and Bebe have high TDPM/GSM and DPM/GSM relative to other carries. They balance farming creeps and helping their allies out extremely well. In fact, both carries are in the upper half of both categories. With both Royal Club and TPA relying on their ADC to do the heavy lifting at all phases in a game, these two players definitely follow through. The underrated Bebe (TPA went 1-5) had high damage numbers relative to the amount of gold he had to work with, a trait not many other carries can claim, while Uzi finds himself in contention for a World Championship title again.
Most of the stats confirm the various pros' play styles whether it's Uzi's aggressive lane phase and teamfight positioning or Rekkles' farm up the entire map strategy, but there are some key names like KaBuM's Minerva that may not be highlighted. You can be a valuable ADC in many different ways. As DPM becomes a stat people focus on to represent an ADC's effectiveness, there are other factors like GSM that should be taken into account, too. Don't think we've forgotten about the other positions though, their stats are coming soon. 
