I try to use the most possible objective facts to determine if some teams were unlucky in the SLTV3's swiss format. So I take the last HLTV's ranking before the tournament (April, 3rd) to class teams from 1(best) to 16(worst).

This blog is write before round 5.



1 Astralis (Fnatic, North, CLG, SK) => 9+5+13+3 => 30/4 => 7.5 Chance ratio

2 Virtus.pro (NiP, SK, fnatic, MVP) => 10+3+9+14 => 36/4 => 9 Chance ratio

3 SK (G2, Tyloo, VP, Astralis) => 12+15+2+1 => 30/4 => 7.5 Chance ratio

4 FaZe (Gambit, IMT, HR, North) => 8+7+11+5 => 31/4 => 7.75 Chance ratio

5 North (NaVi, Astralis, IMT, FaZe) => 6+1+7+4 => 18/4 => 4.5 Chance ratio

6 NaVi (North, fnatic, UYA) => 5+9+16 => 30/3 => 10 Chance ratio

7 Immortals (North, UYA, FaZe, MVP) => 5+16+4+14 => 39/4 => 9.75 Chance ratio

8 Gambit (Fnatic, FaZe, Tyloo, CLG) => 9+4+15+13 => 41/4 => 10.25 Chance ratio

9 fnatic (VP, Astralis, NaVi, Gambit) => 2+1+6+8 => 17/4 => 4.25 Chance ratio

10 NiP (HR, G2, VP, MVP) => 11+12+2+14 => 39/4 => 9.75 Chance ratio

11 HellRaisers (NiP, G2, CLG, FaZe) => 10+12+13+4 => 39/4 => 9.75 Chance ratio

12 G2 (HR, NiP, SK) => 11+10+3 => 24/3 => 8 Chance ratio

13 CLG (Astralis, Gambit, HR, UYA) => 1+8+11+16 => 36/4 => 9 Chance ratio

14 MVP (NiP, Tyloo, VP, IMT) => 10+15+2+7 => 34/4 => 8.5 Chance ratio

15 Tyloo (SK, MVP, Gambit) => 2+14+8 => 24/3 => 8 Chance ratio

16 UYA (IMT, CLG, NaVi) => 7+13+6 => 26/3 => 8.66 Chance ratio



The higher is the number the most lucky the team is.



There is few factors influencing the odds:



1.A. Tournament seeds : the pool 1 (Astralis,VP,SK,NaVi) started with bad opponent, increasing their chance ratio.

B. The pool 4 (Tyloo,UYA,MVP,CLG) started with good one, decreasing their chance ratio.



2.A. Teams with 2-0 (NaVi,G2,North,SK) faced another 2-0 who were supposed to be good teams, decreasing their chance ratio.

B. Teams with 0-2 (IMT,Tyloo,MVP,UYA) faced another 0-2 who were supposed to be bad teams, increasing their chance ratio.





As u can see, luckiest teams are :



1. Gambit (10.25)

2. NaVi (10) despite the n°2a odd factor they are on top of luckiest teams. The 1a odd factor helped them out. This is probably the luckiest team of this stage.

3-4. HR (9.75)

3-4. NiP (9.75)

5. Immortals (9.75) Despite the n°2b odd factor they are on par with NiP and HR. That is why I classed them 5 instead of 3.





And unluckiest teams are :



1. fnatic (4.25) Unluckiest by far, number speak for itself. I suspect some marabout paid by opponents.

2. North (4.5) the n°2a odd factor is hitting them but they have a bad draw aswell.

3. SK (7.5) despite the n°1a odd factor they have a bad draw, the n°2a was kicking in but their opponent was #12 so it increase their chance ratio actually.

4. Astralis (7.5) despite the n°1a odd factor they have a bad draw.

5. FaZe (7.75)







As u can see, not all is about seeds and ranking, and re-seeding teams mid group is a bad idea IMO.



To avoid randomness of multiple draws, org could use :

- round average (more accurate for the current form of a team (exemple here, facing G2 is concedered being lucky and IMT unlucky)

and/or

- tournament path to set matches after the day 1 (example for the 2-1 matches: teams coming from 2-0 vs teams coming from 1-1).







Tl,Dr: yes luck was involved in this group stage : fnatic&north were unlucky and NaVi&Gambit were lucky.



But don't talk about IMT and VP, their opponents were average during all the swiss format group.