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Why does winrate make champions overpowered?

Ferrinova·12/14/2018, 12:16:09 AM·2 votes·1,443 views

I see so many posts, especially today a recent one that describes champions with a percent % win rate that's higher than others to be overpowered? Even meta? No one i've seen that posts these things really posts the stats as well to back up that evidence with the exception of some people in the comment sections.

What if that champion just has a really good winning streak right now? Or maybe people like to play that champion more because it looks cool and they get wins with them? What about champions with a low play rate? They might be op, who knows what might happen when you pick one of those dusty champions up?

Show me stats and stuff that the champions use, not percentage. That's just lazy. Maybe if i was the only guy who played gnar and the pick rate was low for that guy(not that hes barley picked) that would mean gnar is really bad, yet i seem to get many kills and towers and win lots of games with him! (I dont actually, but this is just a fake scenario)

4 Comments

iiGazeii12/14/2018, 1:02:44 AM2 votes

If there were only a few dozen League players, than winrate being caused by luck would be valid, but there are THOUSANDS of people playing the game at any given time. Having everybody playing that one champion get lucky games at the same time is highly unlikely.

A high winrate doesn't make champions overpowered. Rather, being overpowered causes them to have high winrates.

It's basic statistics. Over the course of thousands of games, this champion has won significantly more than they have lost in an environment where players are of similar skill level. The most likely cause is that the champion in question is better than other champions.

intra12/14/2018, 12:23:32 AM1 votes

Usually the argument goes like this:

Low pick rate, high win rate: Most likely players playing their main. (ASol, Karthus pre-DH)

Low pick rate, low win rate: Champ has flaws in current meta (Kog, Rek'Sai, etc)

High pick rate, low win rate: Only instance I can come up with is a release of a new champ; players are playing them to learn said champ. Riot usually cannot determine how strong a champ is when released due to lack of information (Release of Neeko)

High pick rate, high win rate is when you really have a champ that is "overpowered" (Cass right now)

Baby Ghoul12/14/2018, 12:43:58 AM1 votes

People don't just use win rate. They also take into account the pick rate.

Champions with the highest pick rates and very high win rates often get discussed.

Examples:

https://champion.gg/champion/Lucian/ADC?league=platplus https://champion.gg/champion/Cassiopeia/Middle?league=platplus https://champion.gg/champion/Thresh/Support?league=platplus

People don't just take into account those stats though.

If you were new to League then you'd look at Yasuo and Pyke and think they're mediocre, but ban rates matter as well.

Examples:

https://champion.gg/champion/Yasuo/Middle?league=platplus https://champion.gg/champion/Pyke/Support?league=platplus https://champion.gg/champion/Akali/Middle?league=platplus https://champion.gg/champion/Irelia/Top?league=platplus

Ban rate is another important indicator people look at. These are champions that people hate playing against regardless of how well they're doing. The discussion then goes into why they hate playing against them.

These statistics don't stand on their own, but they're used as evidence in discussions. Otherwise we'd simply be saying, "X Champion isn't OP because I played against them and won," or "I lost against Gnar, nerf now!"

When we can see that most people aren't doing too hot with Gnar.

https://champion.gg/champion/Gnar/Top?league=platplus

People don't usually just throw out win rates, or if they do, they're instantly called out for ignoring pick rates.

Sucction12/14/2018, 8:47:14 AM1 votes

Because there's no such thing as "luck" when there's millions of players playing at this very second.

You sound like a skeptical homeless guy running around with foil over his head.

This is just how math works, I can't really find a way to explain how. If 55% of the games played on a certain champion, they are overpowered. The only exception is if they have an astronomically low pickrate, in which case it's simply their mains playing them and nobody else. Besides this one case, winrate = average strength almost directly.