▲ Source : lolesports.com flickr

The first week of the League of Legends World Championship 2017 is now over. Below is an analysis on the first week of Worlds, based on three categories.

[1] KILL: only ADCs can do it

▲ Kill ranks in League of Legends Worlds 2017, Week 1

Except for Jensen, everyone else in the top ranking is an ADC. Although not shown in the image above, there are more ADCs below Jensen’s name. Even Faker, who is considered the best League player in the world, is not on this kill rating list, even though he is a mid laner who usually gets many kills.



Was it like this in the past also? Apparently not. Below is the Kill statistics from last year’s League of Legends Worlds.

▲ Kill ranks in League of Legends Worlds 2016, Group Stages.

In 2016, players in different positions (Mid, ADC, and Jungle) were on the top list. In 2015, Top and ADC players were the roles that had most kills.



Statistics can change according to meta game, but the kill rating never looked like this before. This year’s statistics are so broken, and it’s likely because of Ardent Censer.

[2] DEATH: is it possible to have 0 deaths in the Group Stages?

▲ Death ranks in 2017 Group Stages

Will someone break the iron wall called “0 Deaths” in the Group Stages? Apparently, Bdd in Longzhu Gaming and Ming in RNG are aiming for the record of 0 Deaths.



No one has achieved 0 Deaths since 2014 when the Group Stages were first introduced to Worlds. It seemed like Bang in SKT could have had 0 Deaths in 2015, but sadly, he got killed once in the third match of the Group Stages.



Fans are anxious to find out if Bdd, also known as the god of zero-death, can achieve 0 Deaths. Also, Ming in RNG has a high chance of getting no deaths in the Group Stages. Although League is a game in which destroying enemy towers means more than getting Kills/Deaths, writing a new record is a meaningful thing in all kinds of sports.

[3] Game Length: Censer? No differences with last year. EDG and TSM have lengthy games and S.Korea has short game durations.

▲ Worlds 2017, Group Stages Week 1 Match Lengths

In this year’s Group Stages, the team that had the longest match time was EDG, with TSM and FW following after. The three teams that won in their regional championship have made it to this list. LZ, a Korean team, was the team that had the lowest total match time. Korean teams had shorter matches in general.

▲ Worlds 2016, Group Stages Match Lengths

It was a bit surprising that SSG was actually one of the teams that have short matches, when the team is known to play defensive and have slow-paced games. In both 2017 and 2016, SSG did not have lengthy games. We can’t judge if SSG is playing defensive, but can surely tell that SSG is not a slow-paced team.



EDG’s case is also interesting. Although the team underwent some changes in both players and coaches, EDG was a slow-paced team last year and this year. Only the first half of the Group Stages are done at the moment, but chances are high that EDG will still be ranked as one of the teams that had longest match time.

▲ Average Match Time in Worlds 2016 & 2017

Some people argue that the matches have become longer and boring since Ardent Censer came out. However, there are no real changes in match duration. In fact, the matches have become shorter.



Week 2 hasn’t started yet so there it’s still possible that the statistics will drastically change. However, it is very unlikely that this year’s Worlds will be significantly different from last year’s.