NO CUSTA NO WIN?

Before we get some “NO CUSTA NO WIN” spam, I do feel like it’s worth doing a bit of a comparison between both players. Custa does in fact lead Kuki on both healing and damage per 10 minutes (with over an hour played, so we’re not drawing from a ridiculously small sample size), with 5852 healing/10 minutes (relatively comparable), and significantly more damage (4927/10 mins). Perhaps more notable is that Custa only holds ult on average for 26.17 seconds (far below league average, and only about 1.6 teamfights). Speaking to the timing of his barriers, Valiant wins fights with Custa 46.6% of the time (and 47.62% of the fights where Custa uses his ult). Custa’s percentage of fight wins when he uses ult is 1% higher than fight wins without ult. This suggests his ult usage is significantly more appropriate, and might actually help win fights they would have otherwise lost. (Of course, Custa isn’t some Lucio ult prodigy or anything, some Lucios like Neptuno or Masaa boast a 13% higher win rate when their ults are used), but 1% seems to be an upgrade over -9%.

My personal hypothesis for this phenomenon is communication. Sound barrier is useful when you want to keep fighting, but you don’t have the health pool to do so. Or if the enemy is about to burst your team down and you need to react defensively. This is all information your teammates can provide you as a Lucio, and informing your team when you want to drop the beat so they can respond in the appropriate way will ensure your barrier is put to good use. Kuki’s ineffectiveness with his sound barriers compared to Custa suggest Custa may be better and receiving and giving the information that is essential to a perfect beat.

Custa’s stats don’t tell us of a perfect Lucio, and truth be told, putting Custa in isn’t going to magically fix all of Valiant’s problems. But these numbers suggest to me that Custa might be an upgrade in terms of ultimate usage and communication, which are crucial in a meta like GOATS. So maybe not a “NO CUSTA NO WIN” spam, but more of a “NO CUSTA and it’s significantly harder to clutch out a win due to their inability to use sound barrier in an appropriate manner to swing fights, causing an increased likelihood of NO WIN”.

Though I’ll admit that’s less catchy.

KR player, NA grav?

This is where I get a little more wary in my assertions, because Zarya play is difficult to quantify, especially with the very limited statistics I have access to. Given that I don’t have stats like bubble use frequency, amount of energy gained per bubble, or even average number of people caught per grav (the official OWL site stats do leave much to be desired, and these stats are understandably also not available on Winston’s Lab), crucial parts of Zarya’s kit are left unaccounted for.

But without those statistics, Kariv looks like an above average Zarya. He’s in the upper half of Zarya damage per 10 minutes, lower half of first deaths in a team fight, and given his apparent ult ineffectiveness, you might expect something like what we saw with Kuki (low fight win rates in fights where Kariv uses ult), but he’s flat out average in that stat as well. By all accounts, these stats do not make it look like he’s the Zarya player of the only winless team. But how do we explain the fact that he is?

The reason why I brought up bubble usage earlier, has to do with GOATS. Main tanks are the center of the composition, and you want to use appropriate cooldowns to keep your Reinhardt up, a big one of these cooldowns being Zarya’s bubble. Kariv’s high damage but low win rate (i.e. 0–7) may suggest over-aggression that isn’t being punished by him dying, but by his Reinhardt dying. Using bubbles for charge so you can do more damage rather than using them defensively to keep key players up could explain high damage and losing fights. And we’ll see how that problem is compounded a little later on as well…

GG No Heals

You have to imagine Fate might be thinking this. He was rated one of the top main tanks coming into Season 2, and was picked to represent South Korea (and won) at the World Cup last year. And here he is, on the 0–7 Valiant. A team with a top rated Main Tank and possibly the best Western Off Tank shouldn’t be struggling in a tank-heavy meta… right?

What’s changed since last season?

Thinking about it, I thought about this brief statement Ark made at the World Cup Group Stage a few months back. He mentions why South Korea chose to run Fate on Wrecking Ball over Winston.

Also important from this video, Ark saying “I can’t carry everyone”. Can you carry Valiant? Please?

Paraphrasing, the answer is basically that Fate is used to having tons of support on Valiant, whereas NYXL (the core of the South Korean roster) did not typically support their main tank as much. This suggests Valiant used to build their team around keeping their main tank up, and he had all the resources that allowed him to get aggressive and be the impressive tank player we know today. But from last season, the following has changed:

Their main support is now someone playing off-role, who hasn’t quite gotten the hang of using Sound Barrier in a clutch way

Their Brigitte player (the only consistent source of Burst heal in this composition) is putting out tons of damage (and I suspect his healing stats are coming from Inspire rather than good use of armor pack)

(and I suspect his healing stats are coming from Inspire rather than good use of armor pack) Their Zarya player is putting out ridiculous damage numbers as well, which may suggest he’s using his bubbles to gain charge rather than to protect Fate at the right time (though this is slightly trickier to prove unless I watch Kariv’s POV and nothing else)

(though this is slightly trickier to prove unless I watch Kariv’s POV and nothing else) Their Zen player, though looking pretty good, is new to the stage. I didn’t mention Izayaki much earlier, but remember Kuki’s ult use causing fight win rate to fall 9%? Izayaki’s ult usage results in a 7% lower fight win rate too, suggesting Transcendence isn’t being used appropriately either.

This all suggests that Fate is no longer receiving the same amount of support he is used to, and his aggression can no longer be sustained. Fate’s Reinhardt dies first about 19% of the fights he’s in, and his Winston dies first about 23% of the fights. While par for the course in GOATS (the main tank is the primary target to burst down first in the composition), Fate has one of the highest of these numbers for both Rein and Winston, dying first more than any average main tank. This suggests the team is not protecting the key target you ought to be protecting in GOATS — your main tank.

However, what is alarming is that if Valiant loses a player first, they only win the fight 7.2% of the time (This is a dismal number, only beaten by the Justice and Defiant). I’d argue that we can’t just credit this to Fate dying first, since Justice and Defiant actually have pretty low Rein first death percentages, but are still losing out, and while Fate’s first death numbers are high, they’re not the highest, or significantly higher than the next main tank. Rather, it seems like if any one person dies, there is no longer enough sustain to keep the team up in a 5v6.

Fate’s high first death rate seem to be symptomatic of a deeper issue with aggression and protecting key players in the composition, and when one person goes down (regardless of who it is, since 60% of the time it isn’t Fate), there just isn’t enough support to sustain their aggression and they crumble most of the time. This has turned the Valiant into a team that once excelled in overtime, to one of the least clutch teams who can’t turn a 5v6 in their favor.

A Valiant Attempt

A team is more than a sum of its parts, especially in GOATS. Teamwork can make or break a team, regardless of how mechanically skilled individual players are. We can go on all day about how each player isn’t playing up to their potential, but at the end of the day it comes down to how the team works together.

Keeping the main tank up is not just Fate’s job, but it’s the job of Space’s Defense Matrix, Kariv’s bubbles, Agilities’ Armor Pack, and the supports’ defensive ults. Getting team-wiping bombs isn’t just Space’s job, it’s the job of Kariv’s grav, Fate charging the Rein away or Agilities stunning him, a perfect Lucio boop from Kuki, or the right discord from Izayaki. Capitalizing on defensive ults isn’t just on the supports either, it’s on the whole team to understand when to be aggressive and when to retreat.

Overall, what’s wrong with the Valiant can’t just be pinned down to one player, or even one coach. There are a couple of identifiable (and fixable) issues, and a couple more complicated ones, but understanding and quantifying them might be the first steps to going 1–7.