Too Long;Didn't Broadcast: Meet the Regions
MSI is just around the corner and with the last regional final wrapping up this weekend we now know every team who will represent their regions in Berlin. As this event is all about regional pride we wanted to dig around the stats to see if we could highlight any differences in how regions like to play. Don’t worry if you’re less than thrilled about the idea of taking a stats class to fulfill your math requirement - we don’t get too analytical. A lot of the times we highlight standout regions but present you with all the data so you can see build a holistic picture for yourself.
Housekeeping
We broke this up into a few sections. The first half of this article is written by Eike who covered the early game, Average Game Time and Combined Kills per Minute. You might notice a bit of a style change for the rest of the article which is written by Connie who looked at snowballing, Barons, and resource and Damage Shares.
Before we kick off we have a touch of housekeeping that needs to be done, the first of which is the ever exciting matter of sample size.
Games Played
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Here are all the games played across the 14 regions and off the bat you’ll see LPL soaring above the rest in terms of games played. And that’s without the Third Place Match and Finals data added! While we do have a big sample size for LPL we are missing some data points - generally anything that is calculated on a per second basis (like Jungle Proximity or Baron steals) won’t be available for LPL.
As GPL is essentially the Finals between 5 different smaller South East Asian regions, the sample size is very small. The number you see in the graph of 83 games played is actually the number of games played in the GPL and TPL combined (Ascension Gaming, the GPL representative, is from the TPL). However we only have data for GPL and the TPL finals (27 games in total). In this article whenever we refer to GPL we are actually including the TPL finals as well to bolster the sample size a little bit. You will see that GPL are generally an outlier, which is could partly be due to the fact that a few games skew the average.
Early Game
In this section we’ll look at different early game metrics. Some regions stand out at being slow and controlled, while others fight more, take earlier objectives, and come out of the early game with one team being far ahead more often.
Jungle Proximity
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For those familiar with the LJL it should come as no surprise that their teams average the lowest Jungle Proximity out of all region - historically they have been one of the most passive early game regions. LCK Junglers are not much different and the gap between those two region and the next lowest (NA LCS) is a whopping 3.1 percentage points. Towards the high end we have the LLN, VCS, TCL and CLS (41.9% JP).
Kills @15
Given this information, we would assume that other early game metrics align with this observation.
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If we look at early game kills, we can see that for most regions, being towards the top/bottom end of Jungle Proximity aligns with their placement in Kills per Game at 15 minutes. The biggest exception to that is the CLS. Despite the high Jungle Proximity, their games only have an average of 4.3 Kills@15. This raises the question if their Junglers are wasting more time on non-successful ganks compared to other regions.
Another interesting trend to follow throughout this article is the performance of the five major regions (EU LCS, NA LCS, LCK, LPL & LMS). In both Jungle Proximity and Kills@15, four of the five are positioned somewhere between average and the the lowest end of the scale. They often times play more controlled games (possibly due to the other regions trying to mirror the LCK playstyle) resulting in less action. The outlier to this is the LPL, a region that has been known for its action heavy games for years.
CS@15
More early skirmishing should result in less farming. Let’s find out if the data agrees.
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We can clearly see that, again, the LCK stands out. Their games feature lots of early farming (1100 CS@15 per Game - this is both teams combined). After that we see NA, LMS and EU in close proximity to each other, further highlighting the fact that the Major regions (minus LPL) fight less and farm more. The LPL spotting the 5th highest CS@15 might speak to the skill level of their players who are likely above average in picking up farm in lane.
On the other end of the spectrum, GPL teams combine for only 997 CS@15 per game, more than 100 less than the LCK. At first glance it is surprising to see the LLN accumulating so little CS in the early game, despite not being one of the kill heaviest regions. The reason for this lies with their Junglers who gank a lot and therefore post the 2nd lowest CS@15 average among all regions. The VCS on the other hand is harder to figure out. Despite their high early kill counts and Jungle Proximity, their 1041 CS@15 ranks a respectable 7th.
Towers@15
More kills = more Towers? Yes!
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There is a clear correlation between early kills and towers, early kill-heavy regions also tend to have more early towers taken. One standout here is the EU LCS which, despite having the 2nd least Kills@15, ranks 7th in Towers@15 with 1.39.
First Objective Timers
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Taking a look at First Blood and First Tower Timers, they closely align with Kills@15 and Towers@15. Similar things can be said for the correlation between First Blood and First Tower Timers. EU, NA (slow First Bloods, average First Towers) and LPL (fast First Bloods, average First Towers) are the regions sticking out the most here. First Dragon Timers on the other hand seem to be all over the place when compared to the other two. The biggest surprise here, at least to people who don’t watch the league on a regular basis, might be the LCK who, for once, finds itself towards the more proactive side of the spectrum (4th fastest First Dragon Timer).
Early Game Summary
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Some regions seem to have a clear identity that can be seen across the board. The LCK, LJL and LMS are the leagues with the slowest early games. For both LCK and LMS this also shows in their GD with Lead@15. In general the Major regions seem more controlled and slow when compared to most of the emerging regions. The LPL often times finds itself in the middle of the pack which, when compared to the other top regions, highlights how different their games are. It seems that EU, NA and the LMS try to follow the Korean meta more closely.
On the other end of the spectrum there are leagues such as the GPL, TCL and VCS who are active early and end up with more lopsided games. This is likely due to a mix of more volatile early games as well as a larger imbalance between the teams within the region when compared to the top leagues. The one league which is almost always right at the center of the distribution is Brazil’s CBLoL.
Average Game Time
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After looking at the early game and how close (or not) games are in different regions, the Average Game Times should follow those trends.
GD with Lead@15 vs Average Game Time
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VCS, TCL and GPL have the fastest games, LCK and LMS the slowest. The only leagues bucking the trend are the LLN (long games despite high average leads) and the LCL (average game length despite relatively close early games).
Combined Kills per Minute
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No news here, LCK with the least action heavy games, GPL and VCS the opposite. Given how lopsided many games are in those regions, the high CK/M can partly be attributed to the high kill counts for the winning teams (especially for the GPL, a bit less so for the VCS). One other thing to note is the clear gap between EU, NA, and LMS and the next highest region (again no surprise, it’s the LJL).
Resource and Damage Share
A small disclaimer before we start the next section: there are tables with a lot of information! We’re going to delve into resource and Damage Share to see if we can highlight whether some regions chose to play more through different roles than others.
CS% 15-30
First we’re going to take a look at CS Share from 15-30 minutes (CS% 15-30). Alternatively we could look at Gold Share, however gold essentially follows from CS and if we want to look at how teams divvy up their resources looking at CS makes a bit more sense.
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Let’s take a lot at some of the regions that stick out here. CBLOL has the lowest CS%15-30 for ADCs out of all regions, distributing the extra resources pretty evenly between the Top Laner and Jungler. Conversely we have the EU LCS who pump a lot of resources into their ADCs, this average is definitely upped by Rekkles who has the highest CS%15-30 out of all players globally this split.
You’ll see that over in GPL their Mid Laners are getting short changed on CS for their Top Laners and Junglers. Their Jungler CS%15-30 minutes 2 percentage points above the global average!
CS15-30
While looking at the CS share from 15-30 minutes is important to see what positions different regions are prioritizing, we should also look at the raw CS numbers from 15-30. If a region farms more than another it might just be the case that despite vastly different CS%15-30 numbers the total CS accumulated is fairly similar.
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It should come as no surprise that LCK are better than any other region at farming, however the gap between LCK and the next best region is pretty stark! As we saw before, the LCK has the lowest CK/M freeing up time to farm minions rather than champions. Just like CS@15 the five major regions are topping the table when it comes to CS 15-30 - leading us to believe that the more established regions are just better at farming than the scrappier emerging regions.
DMG%
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Now let’s take a look at Damage Share (DMG%). VCS has the lowest DMG% for ADCs out of all regions. They’re the region with the fastest Average Game Time so their games just don’t go long enough for their ADCs to become the big carry threats they are in much slower regions like LMS and the EU LCS.
The damage distribution in the LMS overall is pretty extreme. They have the highest Damage Share for Top Laners and ADCs and the lowest Damage Share for Junglers and Mid Laners. And with Sejuani and Ryze as their most picked Jungler and Mid laner this makes a lot of sense.
If you look at both CS%15-30 and DMG% there seem to be some regions that are assigning a lot of resources to positions which aren’t dealing a lot of damage, and vice versa. Top Laners in the GPL have the highest amount of CS%15-30, at 25.3% this is close to the Mid Laner average. However, they have the lowest DMG% globally. On the other hand their Mid Laners fare pretty well on limited resources, tying at 2nd place for the regions
Snowballing
If you’ve watched a couple of different regions you might have noticed that some leagues just seem better at closing out games than others. We’ll delve a bit more into how effective regions are at utilizing Baron a little further in the article. For now we’ll investigate whether a region is good at snowballing their gold leads and closing out games by looking at win rate with gold leads at different time intervals.
Looking at this metric at 15 and 20 minutes we can see a stark difference between the most “snowbally” region and the least.
Win rate with gold leads
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From the above graphs we can see that LMS and EU are the worst at closing out games when they have a gold lead at 15 or 20 minutes. On the other end of the spectrum we have GPL who are miles ahead of the rest: when you give them an inch they’ll take a mile. In fact, over in Garena the game is all but won if you have a gold lead at 15 minutes - with a pretty convincing 96% win rate when they hit the 20 minute mark.
We can see these snowball stats reflected in the Average Game Time of the regions: GPL has the third fastest game time, conversely LMS and EU LCS are trailing behind at 12th and 13th respectively.
Gold leads and win rate @ 20 minutes
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It’s important to look at the actual gold lead these regions average when they have a lead. Unsurprisingly GPL is topping the charts - with an average of a 4.5K gold lead at 20 minutes they’re pretty much riding an avalanche rather than throwing a snowball. In fact in the no team in the GPL and TPL finals lost after getting a lead at 20 minutes. Following the same trend teams within the LMS and EU LCS don’t have outstanding leads when they are ahead.
While there is a fairly strong correlation between average lead at 20 and win rate with lead at 20 minutes there are outliers. One of these is LCL - we can see that although they have a moderate lead of 3.1k at 20 minutes (9th among the regions), they have the second highest win rate when they get a lead.
Barons
Baron is one of the most important objectives and the way teams play around it can make or break the game. We want to see how Baron is played around and how it is utilized when it is secured.
First Baron Time vs Average Game Time
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The first thing we want to look at is average First Baron Time - as we can see from the graph above there is a strong correlation between Average Game Time and average First Baron Time. At a glance CBLOL and NA LCS are the nonconformists here, taking a longer time to close out games after they have secured the first Baron.
Baron to End Time
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We’ll call this metric “First Baron to End Time” to make this a bit easier. Considering their diversion from the trend of fast first Barons leading to fast game times, It is unsurprising that NA LCS and CBLOL have the first and third longest first Baron to End Time. The EU LCS ranks between them at second, taking a few seconds less to close out games after taking the first Baron.
If we look at these regions and their win rate when they secure the first Baron it paints a very different picture.
Win rate with First Baron
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Here we can see that despite NA LCS having the longest First Baron to End Time, they have a high win rate with first Baron. As we might expect in regions that struggle to close out games after taking the first Baron, CBLOL and EU LCS have much worse win rates. The EU LCS trails behind the rest, failing to utilize the first Baron to win the game in over a quarter of their games.
Now the question is how exactly are these regions utilizing Baron? One thing that we look at is Baron Power Play. This is the Baron team’s gold difference at the start of Baron buff subtracted from the gold difference at the end of the buff. We generally use this as an overall metric to see how well Baron is being utilized.
Baron Power Play
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Alongside their long First Baron to End Time both the LMS and EU LCS have very low Baron Power Plays. If you don’t get a lot done with your Barons it follows that it might take you a bit longer to close out the game. However LCK disproves this theory, they have the fourth slowest First Baron to End Time but are leaps and and bounds above the rest in Baron Power Play. It very much fits in with how the region is seen as whole: slow, methodical and relatively risk averse.
Talking about risks we can see that some regions generally take more risks around Baron, one way we can measure this is by looking at the gold difference teams have when they take the first Baron.
Gold Difference pre Baron
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(no LPL data for GD pre Baron)
You can see here that EU LCS has the lowest gold difference when the first Baron is taken, and if you watched EU LCS this past split you would know that teams had a penchant for taking risky Barons. TCL and GPL are topping the table with over 4k gold leads when Baron dies. This isn’t necessarily because these regions are more cautious when it comes to taking Baron - in the TCL and GPL teams who are ahead at the 20 minute mark just have very decisive gold leads.
The EU LCS’s slightly more dicey playstyle around Baron can also be seen in the large amount of Baron steals they had during the split.
Baron Steals
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(Baron steal data not available for LPL)
In terms of Baron Steals per Game, the EU LCS is unsurprisingly topping the leaderboard with CLS following shortly behind them! Baron Steals are pretty rare and generally not the best metric to look at to see how willing regions are to take risks around an objective, however combining Baron Steals with the EU LCS’s low gold difference when they take a Baron does speak to the region’s playstyle around the objective.
Conclusion
So now that we’ve looked at how these regions play, we can see that there are some very clear regional differences. We’ll need to see how the representatives from these regions will clash! We’re excited to see how the TCL, an explosive and action heavy region, will face off against the LJL, one of the most passive regions. How about in the group stage - how will the Baron dance play out between the precarious Baron takers in the EU LCS and the slow and meticulous LCK?
We’ll see how all these regional difference play out when MSI starts on May 3rd!
