RLCS Worlds 23 Predictions and Live Coverage Announcement
The RLCS World Championship is starting next week, and I am super excited to announce that you can follow the results live on this very website! And the reason that is so exciting, is because it features a bracket with live updating predictions from my AI. That means 1) it can update the prediction of ongoing matches based on the live series score (see below) and 2) it can predict the matchups of the next round in Swiss before they are 100% confirmed! Once a team is >75% likely to be in a specific match, they'll be displayed in the bracket, and if you hover over the match (press on phone), you'll see the most likely teams for each side.
All of this will be kept up to date with live scores. That means, if one team has gone up 1-0, their game differential is already adjusted. They can never be swept, and the odds of winning/losing are adjusted. The entire simulation of the bracket happens again from that point onwards.
Aside from the bracket, I will have the usual table of team odds (e.g. Top 8), the attending teams' power ranking, and the player performance ranking. The rating adjustments may have a few minutes delay, but the simulation will happen in real time. The Worlds coverage is accessible in the top menu of the website, and here (read the rest of the article before heading there).
On top of that, I have recently released a beta of a power rankings creator that you can use with simple drag and drop to quickly create and share team/player power rankings. Check it out here.
The rest of this article will serve as a pre-Worlds non-updating prediction. It will also have player ratings based on past performance, which the live page doesn't have.
Table of contents:
Power Rankings
Disagree? Create your own!If you need more information on what the numbers in this chart mean, check out the FAQ here. These numbers are somewhat different from the ones you will find on the overall rankings right now. It's because I'm using a different adjustment. It's actually closer to the one that the actual prediction uses, so I thought it would make it less confusing when comparing the ratings with the bracket predictions. There can still be differences because the full algorithm can't be simplified to a single number. I might switch the overall rankings to this adjustment in the future.
Let's go over some of the more controversial picks.
Major > minor regions
Every major region team is rated above every minor region team except for Rule One. This happens to be the exact same prediction from last year (although it's a little closer this time). Last year every major region team made it into main event and this year that's NOT expected to be the case. Wait what? This is already a preview into the tournament simulation part of the article, but let's cover it now. The best guess is that 48% of the time, all major region teams will make it through. It's slightly more likely that at least one team screws up and fails. Either way, I will stand by these rankings until the minor regions get positive win rates and not just one or two upsets. There is one minor region team that I think might be underrated: Team Falcons. They are unfortunately still missing data for their most recent LAN tournament win over Rule One, a result that would boost their rating noticeably.
G1 Top 10?
The team that people expect to screw up and fail seems to unanimously be G1. I get it, and I also do not. Yes, they did it at the Winter Major, and they didn't have the greatest split. However, their split has arguably been better than Oxygen (they've swept them in head-to-head). And they've had great minor tournament success, winning against everyone but Vitality. Moist made top 2 at the Fall Major with the mental in shambles. G1 really has nothing to lose and that can sometimes help.
I think most people wouldn't deny that G1 easily has the talent to make it out of Wildcard. It's just that people expect a greater than 50% chance that G1 won't play up to their potential. I think it's very naive to assign percentages that high for teams to not show up. I would give that a 25% chance at most, which is still much higher than what I would assign to a team like SSG, but it's not enough to rate any minor region team above them.
FaZe top of NA
Ironically, I've heard both a lot of criticism about FaZe's position after the Spring Major, but also seen everyone and their mother predicting FaZe to do as well as their place in these rankings. I think there is maybe a bit of a disconnect between what people think the rankings are and what they are not. They are not rankings on merit, where you have to earn your position by earning something like RLCS points with placements. They're merely an attempt to make the best predictions possible based on past results. That means if FaZe doesn't play and lose to all the EU teams at the major, then maybe they do indeed have the better chance at beating them than all the teams that failed already.
Player Rankings
Disagree? Create your own!I'm always very interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the player rankings. LAN buffs are not included.
Radosin Top 4
There are a couple of reasons why he is ranked there. First and foremost, it's because Vitality gaps all the other teams right now. Radosin is actually 150 points behind zen. If zen was in the spot Firstkiller is at, then Radosin would be around the Top 20 area. If you think he should be even further behind zen, it's probably because zen's intangible value seems to exceed his already incredible stats. Unfortunately, that's not something the AI can account for (for now). It's something that hurts all players with a history of being more valuable than their stats (Vatira, MaRc_By_8., Arsenal).
But also, why the heck would he not be top 4? This is not a talent ranking, but a player performance ranking with recency bias. You don't just get the perfect split with anyone on the team. He was phenomenal in the regionals, and when they needed him to step it up in the Spring Major lower bracket, he delivered. He plays the role he needs and delivers intangible hype.
Kiileerrz > Rw9
I don't think this is controversial anymore. I just wanted to point it out because it was one the things I wrote about before the Spring Major where most people agree that Kiileerrz was Rule One's MVP.
Wildcard Player Rankings
Disagree? Create your own!AtomiK the stats GOAT
You could call him the EU Firstkiller. Consistently does something for the team. Is he inflated? Probably a little, but his impact on the field is undeniable. If he can figure out how to also help his teammates play better with his playstyle, I fully believe he can start winning tournaments.
Where is SAM?
They're all pretty close, and they're pretty much all in the 26-30 area. Sorry, no exceptions just for this region. Also, keep in mind that NiP is not on here because they're not in the Wildcard.
AI Simulated Major
| Name | Top 1 | Top 2 | Top 4 | Top 8 | Top 12 | Top 16 | Top 19 | Top 22 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Karmine Corp |
12.4% | 29.3% | 54.1% | 83.5% | 95.5% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 Gen.G Esports |
2.2% | 7.6% | 23.9% | 60.0% | 85.1% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 Team Vitality |
52.6% | 65.9% | 81.8% | 96.5% | 99.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 Team Liquid |
4.6% | 14.7% | 36.1% | 72.8% | 93.8% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 FaZe Clan |
3.1% | 12.2% | 28.2% | 55.6% | 87.2% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 Ninjas in Pyjamas |
0.0% | 0.3% | 2.6% | 16.0% | 51.8% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 Team BDS |
15.6% | 33.3% | 56.4% | 85.8% | 96.3% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 Rule One |
3.9% | 11.6% | 31.7% | 66.8% | 88.9% | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
 Complexity Gaming |
1.0% | 4.4% | 14.4% | 40.9% | 69.6% | 92.7% | 99.0% | 100.0% |
 G2 Esports |
1.0% | 4.2% | 13.8% | 39.6% | 68.0% | 91.3% | 98.5% | 100.0% |
 Moist Esports |
0.9% | 4.2% | 13.7% | 39.5% | 67.7% | 90.8% | 98.2% | 100.0% |
 Pioneers |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.4% | 3.0% | 15.2% | 51.7% | 94.5% |
 KRÜ Esports |
0.0% | 0.3% | 1.8% | 9.4% | 26.5% | 56.2% | 83.9% | 98.7% |
 Spacestation Gaming |
0.4% | 2.2% | 8.5% | 28.8% | 56.2% | 83.5% | 96.5% | 99.9% |
 PWR |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 1.7% | 7.8% | 27.0% | 62.5% | 95.3% |
 Elevate |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.9% | 4.6% | 19.3% | 53.8% | 93.2% |
 Team Falcons |
0.2% | 1.3% | 5.6% | 21.4% | 46.8% | 76.5% | 94.2% | 99.8% |
 Oxygen Esports |
0.5% | 2.7% | 9.9% | 31.3% | 58.6% | 84.4% | 96.6% | 99.9% |
 Team Secret |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 1.7% | 7.5% | 26.0% | 60.7% | 94.6% |
 Twisted Minds |
0.0% | 0.1% | 0.6% | 4.4% | 16.2% | 43.1% | 79.5% | 99.0% |
 G1 |
1.4% | 5.5% | 16.4% | 43.1% | 69.3% | 90.0% | 97.7% | 99.9% |
 Limitless |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.8% | 7.6% | 44.7% |
 Gaimin Gladiators |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 3.2% | 19.1% | 69.9% |
 Valiant |
0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.5% | 10.7% |
This table is the result of 1,000,000 tournaments simulated, each with 60 series. That makes a total of 60 million series sampled from the AI probabilities.
Vitality still take more than half the simulations, but the odds are slightly lower than in the Spring Major as there will be no lower bracket to save them this time. I don't doubt, that as long as they show up at their best, no team has figured out how to beat them yet.
Who can take down the French team? More french teams. In total, Vitality, BDS, and Karmine win 80% of simulations. And the lack of NA teams means that the tournament is 88% in EU's favor.
The Wildcard is a bit more positive for NA. Each team individually is expected to make it through. The same is true for EU, although the combination of the major regions only has a 48% of getting all teams through to main event. Falcons and KRÜ are the other two teams expected to make it through, but Twisted Minds have fine odds as well. PWR, Secret, Elevate, and Pioneers will be there to snipe any underperforming teams. For Gaimin Gladiators, Limitless, and Valiant it will probably only be a learning opportunity.
SSA's odds overall don't look too rosy, though it is hard to know how accurate their ratings are based on the small sample size. Valiant never made top 8 in a million simulations and also has effectively no chance of top 16. Even Limitless making it would be one of the biggest upsets we've seen.
The odds of winning the tournament by region are:
EU - 88.0%, NA - 7.7%, MENA - 4.1%, SAM - 1 in 1k, OCE - 1 in 70k, APAC - 1 in 200k, SSA - literally never.
