The 2019 Overwatch League season has finished it’s first stage in style. The absolute war between the Vancouver Titans and the San Fransisco Shock was one for the ages, but when we look at the stage as a whole, what kinds of patterns have arisen? With the help of Winston’s Lab, here are five interesting stats that could guide our hands heading into the second quarter of the league’s second season.

Let There Be Fight

The number of team fights a team takes depends on their style of play. An aggressive team that wants to push the pace of the game can have more team fights on average, whereas a more calculated, reaction-based could have a low number of fights taken because they do not have the onus of starting the fight.

This theory is slightly proven when we take a look at the top three teams that had the most fights and the least amount of fights through stage one.

When it comes to the least amount of fights the Seoul Dynasty and the Paris Eternal clock in at 439 and 436 fights respectively. The Seoul nod does surprise me as much as the inclusion of Paris. Before the season began, I pegged them as being a fairly aggressive team that wanted to abuse their experience and control the rhythm of the game. This was sadly not the case upon further investigation and the low amount of fights taken can be a side-effect from that passivity. Ranking in as the team to take the least amount of fights during stage one, to no one's surprise, is the New York Excelsior with 374 fights taken. Their counter-punch style worked like charm all the way up until the playoffs where their more reactive gameplay fell apart at the hands of Seoul’s expert Sombra play.

Playing foil, the Chengdu Hunters, the Boston Uprising and the Toronto Defiant are your top three teams in terms of total fights fought. The Hunter clocked in a staggering 517 team fights, Boston collected 509, and Toronto rounded out the pack with 507. Seeing Chengdu at the top of the list should not surprise you. Their skirmish based style lends itself to fighting often and relentlessly applying pressure with their ace DPS carries.

Overwatch’s Most Wanted

The GOATS metagame has left the community polarized and no matter where you fall on the issue the stage two’s changes are exciting, to say the least. What has been interesting to follow in this meta has been the sub-roles for some heroes. This led me to the semi-surprising research into who the most target hero has been in the Overwatch League thus far and which hero has been doing the most targeting.

An easy nominee for the most targeted hero could easily be Reinhardt, and you wouldn’t be too far off. As for the most active hero when it comes to kills, D.Va also has a good shot at taking the crown. Her freedom in the GOATS metagame allows her to play the flanks very well and could result in her finding more kills on average. However, according to Winston’s Lab,

Winston was the hero that, on average, was the most targeted by teams

whereas Zarya was the hero that, on average, got the highest percentage of their teams kills across the league.

Ultimate Economy

29% was the average number of fights in stage one where one team used more ultimates then their opponents.

Eight teams fell under that average. This list includes the London Spitfire, the Los Angeles Valiant, The Philadelphia Fusion, the Washington Justice, the Hangzhou Spark, the Boston Uprising, the Paris Eternal, and the Toronto Defiant. From those eight teams, only four of managed to score above average the average win rate of 74.52% in fights that they used more ultimates then their opponents; London with 75.78%, Philly with 75.00%, Paris with 74.76%, and Toronto with 76.72%.

To help explain, a team during Overwatch League’s second season should be expected to win ~74% of the team fights where they use more ultimates then their opponents. The Valiant, the Justice, the Spark, and the Uprising all took fewer fights where this was the case and lost more fights when that was the case. London, Philly, Paris and Toronto join the other four teams in taking fewer fights where they used more ultimates but they managed to win more of those fights on average.

This can provide clarity on how economically sound a team is when they choose to invest their ultimates in a team fight.

First Blood

As we know, scoring the first kill will result in a massive advantage for your team in a number of ways. Statistically speaking it has been one of the biggest indicators in the result of any one given team fight.

For instance, the league average rate of scoring the first blood was 50% and from that first kill 84.84% of the team fights are won.

Proving they are cut from a different cloth, the NYXL hold the peak of this statistic and manage to score the first kill in 60.96% of their team fights. The valley is held by the Washington Justice who acquire the first kill in only 40.87% of their team fights.

As for converting those first kills into team fight wins, the Vancouver Titans narrowly edge out the NYXL with 89.11% of the team fights wins post first kill. The lowest surprisingly enough is the European hopefuls, the Paris Eternal, with only a 77.45% conversion rate on their first kills.

Top Performers

Last but not least, we have the league’s top performers at each individual hero. This is graded by WinstonsLab.com’s rating system and will be listed as such. One thing to remember is that the rating system is based on an algorithm and the weights are not currently known but rest assured the system has been tested and can be a fairly accurate gauge of how a player has done in any one particular match. Any rating above 1150 is considered good, whereas I personally think anything above 1500 is very noticeable, star level performance.

Narrowing the pool to specifically some of the most popular heroes in the metagame, it shouldn’t be too much of a shock to see that

Super from the San Fransisco Shock has the best performance on Reinhardt

with a 1515 rating. And what is more impressive is that he not only holds the highest rating this stage, but he also has the second highest rating this stage on Reinhardt.

In Vancouver’s stage final against the San Fransisco Shock

Haksal showed us what it meant to play Brigitte well.

Come to find out, he actually has the highest rating this stage on the hero, clocking in with a 1257 rating in the Titans’ match against the Guangzhou Charge.

Seoul Dynasty’s Michelle

came into the league with some question marks around him. Only really finding success in Overwatch Contenders China, this flex tank proved to be one of the more exciting rookies this stage with his massive hero pool and proficiency on Sombra. He holds the highest rating for D.Va with a 1729 rating in Seoul’s match against the London Spitfire.

NYXL’s Nenne

had an impressive freshman debut this stage and made a massive impact when it comes to player ratings. He holds the highest rating on Zarya, this stage, with a massive 1823 rating which is impressive on its own merit but is actually 174 rating above the next person.

Known for being a statistical outlier, Boink

of the Houston Outlaws continues to put up impressive stat lines. Scoring a rating of 1561 in their match against the Los Angeles Valiant, Boink holds the top spot for the highest rated Lucio in stage one.

Accompanying Boink in this list of top performers from stage one,

Danteh from the Houston Outlaws holds the top seed for Sombra ratings.

1349 is what Danteh scored to seal the top spot in their match against the Atlanta Reing.

Now, this may be a shock to some, but the

Zenyatta spot is not held by Jjonak of the NYXL, it’s actually held by Sleepy

who managed to score an impressive rating of 1844 in the Shocks match against the Dallas Fuel.

Surprising no one, Sado of the Philidelphia Fusion, holds the highest marks when it comes to

Winston

. In the Fusion’s match against the Atlanta Reign, Sado scored a rating of 1239.

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLGs of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel .

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.