Boards›Gameplay

Actual proof and analysis of snowball frequency

Meteor Driz·5/4/2019, 10:25:54 AM·16 votes·9,170 views

I thought I was nuts that it felt like every single game had one person that just took off from an early lead and became an unstoppable killing machine. Then I went back through my last 20 games and found out that I wasn't crazy at all.

**100% of my last 20 games have had someone snowball out of control. **

Hundred. Percent.

The game results are listed in order without any omissions or altercations at the bottom. They are nothing more than simply my last 20 games. For context I am silver 1, I won 12 out of these last 20, I play mostly mid, and I always ban master yi or zed.

Some interesting facts about the snowballers:

Snowballers won 17/20 games (85%) Snowballers lost 3/20 games (15%) (Eve, Kayn, Irelia[mid])

AD champions: 15/20 (75%) AP champions: 5/20 (25%)

Botlane: 8/20 (40%) (ADC: 7, AP Support(Fiddlesticks): 1) Jungle: 6/20 (30%) (AD Fighter: 4, AD Assassin: 1, AP Assassin: 1) Mid: 4/20 (20%) (AD Fighter: 2, AP Assassin: 2) Top: 2/20 (10%) (AD Fighter: 1, AP Fighter(Kayle): 1)

AD Fighter: 7 (35%) AD Carry: 7 (35%) AP Assassin: 3 (15%) AP Mage: 2 (10%) AD Assassin: 1 (5%)

Melee: 11 Ranged: 9

AD Melee: 8 AD Ranged: 7 AP Melee: 3 AP Ranged: 2

Mobile: 17 (85%) (dash, blink, or reliable speed boost) Immobile: 3 (20%)

Mobile including Jinx passive: 19 (95%) Immobile: 1 (5%) (Kog'Maw 14-7-11, using 4 tanks [Garen 9-1-8, Volibear 4-2-12, Aurelian Sol 2-5-11, Alister 0-4-20])

Comebacks occurred in 4 out of 20 games 5k difference comebacks: 2 6k difference comebacks: 1 8k difference comebacks: 1 9k+ difference comebacks: 0

Snowballers in my last 20 games:

19-2 15-3 14-3 18-8 22-10 17-6 11-3 19-3 12-3 13-4 19-4 16-4 17-7 7-1 14-7 15-7 11-4 15-4 21-11 14-8

26 Comments

Warpes5/4/2019, 2:33:40 PM11 votes

doesn't matter because riot is catering to kids who love snowballing.. and cheeselords who love big damages and asinine amounts of dashes.

those are the kinds of dipshits who buy the most skins so they can be super edgy with them while being obnoxious and spamming emotes they also bought when theyre "outplaying" you. so therefore thats what riot wants on top.

Rαy5/4/2019, 2:31:01 PM7 votes

It's nice to see a little analysis on this.

Games almost always feel like this nowadays, sadly. I blame the huge amount of damage creeping around.

BigFBear5/4/2019, 3:55:17 PM6 votes

Boards: "You can't carry games anymore! No matter how good you play, only the worst player decides outcome of the game! BOOH Riot! BOOOH!"

Also Boards: "There is always a snowball player in my games who destroys everyone!! BOOH Riot!"

[zombie-brand-clap]

ZT Xperimentor5/4/2019, 2:34:35 PM6 votes

Can't say I'm surprised it's mostly AD champions, though wasn't expecting an even split of melee and ranged.

ModCaptainMårvelous5/5/2019, 1:55:16 AM5 votes

Yeah, this...doesn't really prove or show anything other than personal experience.

20 games is an incredibly small sample size. 100+ or more is likely what the best experience would be for some low-tier-but-still-decent-proof.
Your rank is silver. Even if you had a thousand games, this tells us the snowballing in Silver (One of the lower ranks) is a problem but doesn't tell us anywhere else.
Same deal with server. NA only, tells us nothing about other regions.
This only tells us the end score, not the actual "story". How many of these went consecutive? How many of these were snowballs that happened later in the game? How long were these games?

Only showing us the end-game stats and score of 20 games doesn't really provide a conclusion of anything. That said, you should def coordinate with several others and work on creating a map that transcends rank and gameplay.

Ðroxx5/4/2019, 8:35:55 PM5 votes

from what I see I think a big part of it is people giving up.

ModAcademy Kayn5/4/2019, 8:48:54 PM5 votes

20 games is hardly a reliable group of games to pull from if we're trying to be an actual analysis, in terms of relativity. And aiming for this not to be rank shaming, but I do think it is nessecary to point out this is the Silver and Gold crowd you're pulling from, and playing with. A lot of the folk in these elos aren't coordinated, nor understand, how to properly play safe when behind, or how to handle a fed carry on the opposing team. And that's not even mentioning the potential factor from soft-inting/giving up.

HopeStartsWithU5/4/2019, 4:22:24 PM4 votes

Everyone here saying "good analysis" what not while I am cringing on that "proof."

I looked up some games on op.gg and the majority of your games are even. Which means that one guy "snowballing" is actually one person doing something on the map. Jarvan for example going 19/2 while his midlaner had 18 assists and you had 10 deaths as Ahri. On top of that, you guys had a Renekton going 15/6 while both bots played evenly.

In your second game your entire team inted while the entire enemy team was "snowballing." I don't have to add anything to it. You all had insane amounts of deaths. Heca with his 15 kills had more than his mates yet Urgot went 7/0, Fiddle 7/0 and Sivir 4/1.

The snowballing champs are usually easy to shutdown (Yasuo, Ezreal, Nocturne, Kaisa are obviously harder to catch). Then again when I look at the scores of the team losing to those snowballers you can clearly see that the team losing is always dying too much. Something that is pretty common in low elo.

Snowballing was/is/will always be present like that, especially in low elo. You won't see that happening in higher elos. The way it is is fine because If I am fed I want to carry the game. I don't want to be dependent on one person who ints while 4 others try their best.

Nyarlathοtep5/4/2019, 2:39:13 PM3 votes

Awesome analysis and post. +1

destroyer227195/4/2019, 5:23:14 PM2 votes

Surprised J4 got the hardest snowball. Sure he has strong setup but when he's fed he's not too dangerous. Unless you have an insane amount of AD and your ult can hit like a truck.

Disembark5/4/2019, 11:37:27 PM2 votes

I guess Rengar/Fiddle/Nocturne/Jhin/Jinx are considered mobile in your book cause of speed boosts. I guess anyone who buys Phage is mobile. Volibear and Udyr are mobile too I guess. So is Garen. God damn mobility is out of control!

Hardstück5/4/2019, 7:52:29 PM1 votes

And may i ask what's the point of this post? Does this somehow impacts me or my gameplay or my knowladge? Also your profile is actually funny as hell i mean glacial yasuo with trinity,phase rush ahri,deaths dance with kindlegim yasuo like sheesh you are trolling your team hard with your builds

420 grams5/4/2019, 3:42:37 PM

In your last 3 games you went 3/30, so of course someone snowballs when you give them 10 kills.