‘Chiu on This’ is a short and regular opinion blast

This is a follow up article to explaining how to argue against a rankings list. In this one I examine who had a better 2018 between KRIMZ and GuardiaN. Here is the criteria I’m using:

Consistency

Consistent Peak

Amount of Peak Games

Role within team

Supporting Cast

So let’s start with consistency. The most common way that people analyze this is by using the HLTV Rating. If you look at the past 6 months on LAN, KRIMZ is at 1.18 and Guardian is at 1.13. Not much difference when you consider that GuardiaN has played 26 more LAN games. Personally, I have my own system which cuts down the sample size to games played on LAN against S/A/Top B class teams. In total I have KRIMZ playing 50 of those types of games and GuardiaN playing 78. I then break it down into a points system of Godlike = S, Excellent = A, and great/good get you one point. Average/below avg get you nothing. Once I break down the raw numbers into percentages, KRIMZ is at a 62% rating while GuardiaN is at a 66.67% rating. This looks even better when you consider that not only has GuardiaN played more LAN games than KRIMZ, but has also attended more tournaments than him as well. So in terms of raw consistency GuardiaN has the edge.

Consistent Peak is a different kind of metric. It measures for how long a player was a dominant force within the scene. For instance GuardiaN was an absolute beast from Boston Major to IEM Sydney. Since then he has cooled down and while still among the world’s best players, he isn’t as godlike as I thought he was at those events. KRIMZ has been at a consistent level peak all year from the Major to ELeague Premier, though there was a dip at ECS Season 5 and ESL Cologne, though Fnatic lost to better teams at both events (Liquid and Na`Vi respectively). In this category I favor KRIMZ slightly.

Amount of peak games is just the raw number of S/A or godlike/excellent performances I saw from both individuals. I have a total count of 12 and 13 for KRIMZ and GuardiaN respectively, so that’s a draw as 1 game isn’t enough for me to decide one way or another.

The role within the team tells me the level of consistency and impact that the team demands of the player and what they expect out of them. In both cases KRIMZ and GuardiaN are star players on their teams. KRIMZ is a star rifler who has an all around game. They expect him to find opening kills and to clutch out end round scenarios. GuardiaN is the AWPer of FaZe and is expected to find picks and anchor sites. In my role system, KRIMZ would be the 1 of Fnatic (as in the player with the most resources given) and GuardiaN would be a 2. It’s still arguable as to which has the harder role as I think the AWPer specialist role is among the hardest in the game and GuardiaN’s speciality is the AWP vs AWP battle. So I’d either call this a draw or edge it to GuardiaN.

Finally we come to the supporting cast of the players. I find it more impressive when a player excels despite having a weaker team around him. While others might point out that it’s easier to look better in a weaker team, with my system I don’t count the mid B class and below teams, so the teams they are playing against are of equivalent value to a certain extent (FaZe are after all more likely to get further and play better teams).

So we get to the actual comparison. KRIMZ is on a weaker team with JW, Flusha, Xizt, and draken (formerly Golden and lekr0). GuardiaN has NiKo, karrigan, and rain. However his team has also had stand-in issues as they’ve had to use Xizt and cromen. This makes the evaluation harder to do as Fnatic are a worse team with worse players relative to FaZe. FaZe have had to deal with a stand-in issue. In the end I favored KRIMZ as I think he has a harder “load” as it were to carry.

So looking at the criteria: GuardiaN won consistency, KRIMZ won consistent peak. Amount of peak games is a draw. Roles is a draw or slightly favors GuardiaN depending on how you view the role of the AWPer. Supporting cast favors KRIMZ. Overall I’d say KRIMZ has had a better 2018 so far than GuardiaN.

So the actual point of this exercise wasn’t to figure out which of them had a better year, it’s to understand how to argue against my logic. Either look to the criteria and figure out if there is some particular thing I didn’t cover (for instance if it was me vs. me, I’d point out how I didn’t write down the records of every single match played against all of the relevant teams and how each was graded by my system). Or you can point out how I don’t use results in the criteria, though I think results give a better idea of who the best team was rather than who the best player was.

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