LCS Team's Performance vs Expectations (AKA why Team Coast is the most under-rated team in the LCS)
A few weeks ago I wondered how I could quantify how well a team was doing compared to how well they were expected to do. Luckily, Riot allows everyone to vote on the outcomes before each game. I started messing with this data until I created a few charts that I feel accurately reflect how well each team is doing compared to how well we, the fans, expect them to do.
Here are two links to google spreadsheets. You'll find the cool stuff on the first sheet (Chart Summary), but you're more than welcome to look through the other sheets as well.
Since the charts and data will update automatically as I add more games, I didn't want to put any conclusions in the spreadsheets themselves. However, here are a few of the surprising nuggets I found:
Europe LCS
- After their 0-7 streak, Fnatic is now the most under-performing team in Europe, just barely edging out Alliance
- Not only are they the most under-voted teams in Europe, SK Gaming and Supa Hot Crew only wins are in games they were voted to lose (7 games each)
- SK Gaming and ROCCAT are the only two teams that have been outperforming their fan votes since week 1.
North America LCS
- Team Coast is the most under-rated team in all of LCS, with a record that is 73% better than their fan votes would suggest
- Despite their relatively abysmal performance so far, XDG has a record only slightly less than what fans think they should have.
- Curse and Evil Geniuses are the only two teams in NA yet to break even with their fan votes. People keep expecting them to win, but they don't.
- Overall, team performance is much more in line with fan votes in NA. This is probably due to 2 reasons.
- Europe had 3 challenger teams make it into the league whereas NA had 0 (1 if you count EG). This means more unknown teams and more uncertainty
- Europe currently has a lot more parity in team quality, but similar disparity in fan bases as NA.
Of course, these probably aren't the only conclusions that can be made. What do you think? Which team do you think isn't getting as many votes as it should? Which team has disappointed you the most?
(Disclaimer: Yeah, I know this data is finicky to begin with since you can vote multiple times for each game, you can vote even once the game is started, and some teams (TSM!) have exceptionally large fan bases. But hey, it's for fun. Also, I like underdogs.)
