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Blue Side Advantage

hotarse·5/1/2017, 4:36:37 AM·30 votes·13,565 views

Why does Blue win more often? There are articles and threads about it, but nothing more than stats are being provided. No one has really told us why blue wins more.

MSI is taking place and after three days Blue side has won 14 times while red side has won 4 times. The two biggest upsets happened when the upsetting team was playing on blue side.

The statistics don't lie. Blue side does win more than Red. Riot has confirmed this and have even stated that red side teams are given higher rated players to make up for the advantage.

I looked online to see if anyone had any idea why this is happening. All I saw were statistics regarding macro play. Red side seems to get first dragon more often while blue gets tower more often. Well, obviously the dragon pit faces the red side giving them a slight advantage for taking dragon. But why does blue get an advantage in taking towers?

No article online could posit a decent reason why blue side wins more across all rankings. There was a claim that the camera angle gives blue side players a better view of the map and I started thinking about this.

We know that champions' hitboxes are places at the base of the champions. That is, if you want to hit a champion, you should aim at their feet. Sometimes a skill shot seems to hit, but misses because it went just where the head is. With that said, players playing from bot to top have an advantage in that the closest part of the enemy's body to them is their feet. Playing from up to down means that red side sees their opponents heads first and will therefore aim more often towards their heads, meaning they will miss skillshots more often.

I wish I could provide hard evidence that red side misses skill shots more often, but I don't have the time for that.

TLDR: Playing blue side means enemy hitboxes are closer to you. Red side they are further from you. Blue side has an advantage when trying to make skillshots.

Post Mortem Discussion: I'm not buying "camera angle" as a reason. Nor do I buy the HUD being positioned at the bottom. The mount of space viewable on both sides is still the same. Having the HUD on the bottom or top makes no difference to amount of space viewable on either side.

Some are saying it is simply to do with first pick for blue being a big advantage. Once again, this is disproved when you consider that this phenomenon carries over into ALL game modes, not just ranked.

Thus, one should come to the conclusion that there has to be another explanation. I am without a doubt that having HP bar/HEADs be closer to you is a disavantage and having the base of a champion closer to you is an advantage when attempting skillshots.

Some people say, "Well it just makes things interesting/fun to talk about."

It affects the integrity of the game at the competitive level, and yes, that includes ranked play. It creates an additional variable when matchmaking has to put teams together, and this added complexity adds stress to a system which is arguably having a very hard time matching evenly skilled teams. By solving the problem of blue side advantage, not only will your ranked games feel more even more often, League of Legends will no longer be a game that gives a side an advantage.

And as an aside, I think picks should be done like this for ranked and professional play. Both teams open up with 3 blind bans done at concurrently (same time). If there are repeat bans, so be it. Picks are also done concurrently for player 1 and then 2. 2 more bans also concurrently. Players 3, then 4 and then 5 then also pick and concurrently as well. Doing picks concurrently not only saves times, but also removes any "advantage" to a single side. I think it would be way more interesting as well considering it would allow for mirror matches.

47 Comments

Rewt5/1/2017, 5:02:43 AM9 votes

Pro play has different reasons. Blue Side gets First pick. and in pro play that is MASSIVE. Now in soloq yes the hitbox then is occasional but really ive never had this problem. Given... certain champs I prefer different Sides. When Im Ivern I prefer Blue. But when Im Hecarim I prefer Red.

I dont think the statistic really means as much as it shows because tbh correlation is no equal to causation. Its just an intersting stat that can spark an occasionally interesting conversation

EvanThomas5/1/2017, 2:40:20 PM6 votes

Maybe the camera should be rotated 180 degrees for red side players.

2Behold5/1/2017, 4:19:49 PM5 votes

I always feel like Blue side feels better. like Red side feels like im fighting in the wrong direction.

Xavanic5/1/2017, 6:14:45 AM5 votes

Reminds me back when rumble actually did less damage when he was on the red side, lol

The Deckowner5/1/2017, 6:05:55 PM4 votes

you literally see less of your screen in red side, especially during laning phase, due to hud and minimap blocking your vision.

Baron of Bread5/1/2017, 4:27:45 PM4 votes

The HUD is also on the bottom of the screen, so it is likely covering some of what you want to see from red side but not what blue side wants to see.

ºˉ GeMıNı5/1/2017, 4:41:29 AM3 votes

i've come to this exact conclusion with myself in the past. it's strange, though i believe it to be true.

UnboundHades5/1/2017, 4:43:24 AM3 votes

u make a good point

SpongebobIsLife5/1/2017, 4:38:26 PM3 votes

I'm pretty sure it's because of the camera/hud placement.

inplane5/2/2017, 12:09:30 AM2 votes

The camera is pretty atrocious when playing on Red Side. I thought this would be obvious on why Blue Side would win more. Even with unlocked camera, the HUD would still be in the way for some time.

PhDs Nuts5/1/2017, 6:20:47 AM2 votes

You notice it big time with Darius' E.

Spacesuit Spiff5/1/2017, 8:06:50 AM2 votes

Reasonable hypothesis. Hard to say though because pick order. If pick order was undetermined by side it'd be easier to say. Or if we had the stats from low elo soloq, where pick order doesnt matter at all.

That said, id think pros would know about the hitboxes. With how much they analyze their own play, if that was as significant as you claim then theyd probably learn to account for it.

Flawless Fetus5/2/2017, 2:14:55 AM2 votes

I forget exactly why, but somehow or another it boils down to camera angle. If both teams spawned "blue side" and the map was mirrored for one team, this problem would fix... if that makes sense.

Marshbouy5/1/2017, 9:43:33 PM2 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X31K6jammH0 This might help a bit.

AmazoX5/2/2017, 12:58:51 AM1 votes

Meanwhile my options are on default so I have no clue which side is what color.

Meep Man5/2/2017, 1:05:18 AM1 votes

Due to the HUD layout and the camera PLUS how objectives are positioned around the map.

Sp33d Zer05/1/2017, 4:08:25 PM1 votes

There is the slight advantage with skill shots, but I think it has more to do with how Dragon is botside along with more the higher gold income camps for the jungler. This alone makes bot jungle more valuable for the Blue side jungler than the Red side jungler, while also giving a safer route to roam down bot if you are the blue team mid laner as you can go through tri bush to gank.

Cannøn5/1/2017, 3:39:50 PM1 votes

I would equate this to home field advantage or the coin toss in other sports. Does it give a slight advantage? Maybe. However, it evens out. Just like other sports switch between venues and directions, league swaps sides.

Divewing5/1/2017, 7:34:06 AM1 votes

I imagine it'll be because the counterpoint to first pick is that you can counterpick, however the coaches don't necessarily have as much information as they do for their respective regional leauges, so the point is made kinda redundant when they are "counterpicking" the wrong player.

On the other hand you don't have to be an LCS coach to first pick the OPs

Athenes Lulu5/2/2017, 5:24:43 AM1 votes

That stuff has been addressed almost 7 years ago when the game was just out.

7 years later, all we get was summoner's rift pulled to a different angle.

Tinsei5/1/2017, 4:59:33 PM1 votes

What if you could change your camera angle(horizontally) and rotate the minimap. Then you could change your view to look the same as if you were playing on blue side even though your on red.

Unvictus5/1/2017, 8:41:07 PM1 votes

I've always felt more comfortable with being on blue side. If only there was a way that the team on red side could have their camera inverted to appear as if they were on blue side, without being a total coding disaster.