Clairvoyance Blog

Article by Cactopus & Karamja Rum & NANCYMON

It's a question older than time itself. The sages say that in the age of the gods, when the world was still full of magic, great battles were fought to determine which key is best for Flash: D or F?

In this post, we'll settle the ancient debate for good. We've gathered some quick stats that tell us which spell slot players around the world prefer for Flash, whether it matters to your winrate, and how your skill level might impact your preference. Some of the data we've pulled raises questions that we need your help to answer, so be sure to read through to the end!

---

D or F?

On a global level, we see a small preference for Flash on the F key, with 51 percent of players binding Flash to F, and 45 percent binding it to D.

We can start out by looking at the overall popularity of each key. On a global level, we see a small preference for Flash on the F key, with 51 percent of players binding Flash to F, and 45 percent binding it to D. The third category on this chart, "No Flash," indicates the percentage of the time that players choose some combination of spells which doesn't include Flash.

That doesn't actually happen super often—y'all are taking flash 96 percent of the time. Most of the remaining four percent can be explained by the handful of champions who intentionally take some other spell aside from Flash. The five champs least likely to take Flash are Shaco (who plays without Flash in 72% of games), Singed (59%), Hecarim (57%), Olaf (33%), and Tryndamere (23%).

So, in general, F is more popular than D for Flash. But wait—what happens when we separate out the data by region?

---

A World in Mild Disagreement

Despite the global trend favoring F for Flash, most regions (EUW, EUNE, BR, RU, TR, LAN, and LAS) display a small preference for Flash on D. Turkish players are the least likely to bind Flash to F, with 61 percent of them binding it to D.

Korea stands out from the rest with its heavy preference for Flash on F. A whopping 73 percent of Korean players keep it on F, compared to only 24 percent who bind it to D. Koreans are also far less likely than other regions' players to enter a game without Flash; they take Flash nearly 98 percent of the time (the highest of any region).

Compare this to the Russian community, where players only take Flash 91 percent of the time. This likely has a significant impact on the Russian meta, since in that country there's a solid chance that one player in any given game won't have taken Flash.

But now for the real question, the one you came here for. Does using D or F for Flash affect your chances of winning? And the answer...

---

Does It Matter?

NOPE. We see effectively zero impact on win-rate whether players bind Flash to D or F. No matter what region of the world we look at, the difference in win-rate between the two types of players is less than 0.2 percent.

When we separate out players by rank, however, we do start to find some interesting data.

Just to pick one region as an example, when we look at NA we notice that, at the very highest levels of play, players gravitate more towards Flash on D. About 51 percent put Flash on D, compared to 47 percent of players using F.

Although we already know that Flash's placement on D or F has no meaningful impact on winrate, the implication from this data is that players at the highest level of play are more likely to put Flash on D—perhaps because they think it's the superior choice.

---

We've answered a few questions here, but we've also raised new ones:

1. Why do Korean players so heavily favor the F key for Flash?
2. Why do Turkish players prefer to use D?
3. Why do the highest-ranked players in NA prefer D for Flash?

To answer these questions, we have to turn this over the folks in our comments section. Tell us if you think you know the answers to these questions, and feel free to ask our analysts any questions of your own!