By Alkaline

Greetings, my fellow TF2 enthusiasts! The weekend you’ve all been waiting for has almost arrived: top North American teams Froyotech, Street Hoops eSports, Mad Men, and eLevate TF2 will be competing in Dallas starting the morning of Saturday, April 18th, for over $16,000!

But if the promise of great teams playing for the biggest prize pot TF2 has to offer isn’t enough to get you excited, than I have something a little bit more: for the first time ever in the history of ESEA TF2 LAN coverage, I am here to present to you a brief look at this season’s stats!

Who’s overperforming, and who isn’t? Who should you be watching out for? These questions and more will be answered!

The format is simple and should be intuitive, with tables organized by class played. For those who are unfamiliar with the teams, the players are listed by seed, so the first player is always from Froyotech, the second is always Street Hoops, then Mad Men and eLevate.

In addition to the stats found here, I've calculated and added a few other numbers for our benefit. D/H means damage per health, and is a representation of how effective a player is being, given the healing they’re getting. F/H was used for scouts because a Scout’s performance relies on frags more than damage. The best way to view both these numbers is as a broad (and not always accurate—no stat is perfect) metric of efficiency in the context of the team… How well is a player meshing and making do with the support they’re getting? D/H or F/H should help us find the answer.

Now that you’ve hopefully had time peruse the stats a bit, let’s go section by section and see who stands out. In the Pocket section, lansky takes top honors without a doubt. He does the most damage with 2nd least heals. Ma3la took the least heals of any Pocket, but he played a dynamic Pocket / Roamer / Pyro role, so it’s difficult to compare him to the others. Grape did great damage but did take a lot of heals, but he did so much damage and killed so much stuff it’s clear that his performance was top notch.

When it comes to Demos, I think damage per healing stat is particularly relevant, since Demoman really is all about the damage more than any other class. I also included deaths per minute, since it signifies good positioning and survivability, which in a demo often translates to better and more consistent holds. Looking at the numbers, I think I can say with confidence that Bdonski really is the best Demo NA (although by a slim margin), because he took even fewer heals while still putting up huge damage. Duwatna played a solid regular season, and he fits in very well with his team. Deadbolt’s inexperience on the class also becomes a bit clearer; his damage rates just aren’t as impressive given his impressive Medic support. Meanwhile, I believe Pharaoh’s extremely low heal rate is actually too low. Although he does well with what he gets, I question whether, even post-nerf, it is possible to function effectively as a team when your Roamer is getting as many heals as your Demo (recent scrims confirm that Mad Men continues to play in this style).

As far as Roamers go, I have something a bit controversial to say: harbleu was good, but he wasn’t that good. He died a lot, his Medic picks were the lowest among the top 4, and he took lots of heals. Meanwhile Ash has once again proven himself to be a very effective Roamer, and I actually mean "Roamer" when I say it. Ash truly roams; he doesn’t take heals and he is constantly looking for the key picks. His topping the Medic pick rate per minute may be a crucial factor for 20b if they wish to really prove themselves the dominant challenger to 4G.

Finally, the Scouts. Before we begin, the F/H stat should not be taken too seriously in this case, as it gives significant preference to aggro Scouts on each team who look for frags on the flank and doesn’t take heals. However, looking at both Scouts together does give a solid impression of a Scout combo’s performance, and that’s where eLevate’s Scouts shine through. Considering that their Soldier combo was gobbling through so many heals, Shrugger and Decimate did an impressive job at holding their own and more against the rest of the league. Street Hoops’ and Mad Men’s Scouts did fine too, but in a season full of great Scouts, eLevate and Froyotech clearly had the best.

That concludes my statistical analysis, but I’ll be back soon with team previews and predictions. Have a wonderful Thursday, everyone!