IEM Rio Major in Metrics - Tournament Results

For two long weeks, we kept you informed about how effectively players fulfilled their roles and reported their positions in the overall rankings. It's time for an overview of the different categories, conclusions based on abnormal values, and plans for each metric. The Major in Rio de Janeiro was not only a crash test for the players but also for all the methods we used to mark the best. We summarized the statistical results of the tournament.

Let's get to the main part step by step and start from afar. Outsiders justified their championship completely in this regard: no matter how much the community discusses the controversial list of finalists this season, the "bears" have by no means become a team of one player. N0rb3r7 certainly raised a lot of important stats in the playoffs, but he didn't make it to the top 20 of the major. That didn't hurt the overall picture at all: FL1T and, unexpectedly, fame managed to take place in the top ten together with Jame. The latter even surpassed frozen and yuurih in the list of the top riflers. Note that the only opponent of the Outsiders who shares the list with them is cadiaN. He honorably closes the top twenty with a decent K/D, being fifth among ACMv2 snipers.

The anomalies of the metrics include Zyphon being in the top 5 (ADR and K/D were only counted from the beginning of the Legends stage, remaining at the level of 4 matches), as well as the duo from FaZe, who left the tournament without a win. As much as the formula tries to make a correlation to a tournament position, it appears the individual stats are stronger. Either this is a sign of weakness, or ropz and Twistzz were really the only bright spot in the performance of the former champions. It's hard to judge, FaZe really didn't play that long. In the future, the third version of ACMv2 may transform into a form similar to the HLTV ranking: the core will keep the same indicators, including statistics, but more reliance is expected on comparisons with other players in the role. In addition to the usual rifflers, supports and snipers, it is planned to consider the outstanding entry fraggers, who are also first-line defensive players on the CT-side.


The final result of the support ranking: Perfecto is the absolute leader, which was predictable even before the legendary stage. He took the second-best in CSA and the third-best in ACMv2 components. Only the results of the game undermined the overall impression. Ilya's contribution to the possible advancement to the finals will remain a mystery, but he certainly did 100% of his job during the fight for playoffs. As you know, we had to give up pure CSA rankings during the tournament: the metric sometimes rewarded passive players it completely ignored and sometimes even punished for fragging. With that, we were unlikely to see KSCERATO or NAF, so by next season, the "support efficiency metric" will also be reworked to include the shootouts. Note that there is a champion in the top 3 of the tournament: here n0rb3r7 made up for not being in the ACMv2 leaderboard by showing a noticeable increase in DPR and KAST% to a competitive level. Now, who's to say that David is a punishment? (Looking at you, s1mple!)

But the average formula for snipers proved to be effective, a sign that simplicity is the key to success. No vulnerabilities were found in the course of the tournament. Therefore Jame was the best sniper of the tournament on a par with sh1ro: no one could beat Dmitry Sokolov even by one hundredth (but Jame was ahead by one thousandth, it just wasn't shown on the formula). It's also nice to note that all of the top 3 snipers were players from the CIS. This trend was already observed towards the end of the Legends stage and wasn't broken during the playoff stage: to be fair, cadiaN and saffee were just too far away from the level of Jame, sh1ro and w0nderful. The tournament was a breakthrough for Jame in general. We hope that Igor won't stop at the IEM Rio Major.

And finally, the main nomination. The undisputed MVP was Ali Jame Dzhami, Russian Outsiders sniper, the most valuable player according to the major organizers and HLTV. There were no anomalies, no buts, and no excuses: Ali was the first among both snipers and ACMv2, regardless of his role. One hundred ninety-nine points on that metric aren't the highest score for an MVP (210+) this year, but the gap to sh1ro was still decent. If ADR were a little higher, his rating would also be over the 200-point mark, but you have to discount his passive style of play. Dozens of experts have already commented on how well Jame played in the most important tournament of his life, and we'd just like to add that it's particularly valuable to be the MVP when you're the captain. Do you remember the last player who earned that award from HLTV and called the shots simultaneously? That's right, and it was the same Jame at cs_summit seven a year and a half ago. Ali is a special player whose vibrant career we are lucky to witness here and now.

The longest-awaited major is over: this festival gave us many surprises. It broke millions of Pick'Ems and left an imprint until at least next spring. There are many ways to interpret its results. Much more answers will come from the annual BLAST Premier Series finale. Thank you for following the majors with us, and love CS!