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Quarterfinals line-up: intra-clan clashes

ECL EE : TheViper 1st, Fat_Dragon 2nd (Liereyy & Yo joint 3rd)

: TheViper 1st, Fat_Dragon 2nd (Liereyy & Yo joint 3rd) NAC : TheViper 1st, Liereyy 2nd, MbL 3rd (TaToH 4th)

: TheViper 1st, Liereyy 2nd, MbL 3rd (TaToH 4th) LotH2 : MbL 1st, Yo 2nd, Fat_Dragon 3rd (TheViper 4th)

: MbL 1st, Yo 2nd, Fat_Dragon 3rd (TheViper 4th) ECL ME: TaToH 2nd

Civilization statistics

Openings

The Tower Situation

Players statistics

Trivia statistics

Hello!As the first two rounds of King of the Desert 2 are now over and we are waiting for the games to resume after the EscapeTV launch event, let us take the time to look at the results of round 2 from a data point of view. As always, be sure to keep in mind that the subset of data we are dealing is extremelyso all conclusions or interpretations that can be made must be done with parsimony.If for any reasons you haven’t already watched the games, be warned thatAfter the first two rounds of the tournament, we are down to 8 players alive in the draw. These eight players are:TheViper [1] vsTaToH [9]Yo [5] vsLyx [20]Liereyy [2] vsMbL [7]Fat_Dragon [3] vsyinghua [27]Three of the top 4 seeds made it to the quarterfinals of a draw that, eventually, provided less upsets than last year, despite having a “no civilizations repeat” rule favoring the underdogs, at least in the very first round (but we will discuss that point later). The 4th seedTheMax is the only one not making it to this stage after being upset by Lyx in a rematch of their first-round clash of last year.Interestingly, all but one matches oppose clanmates from the same ECL team: Secret players, SY players, and aM players. Fat_Dragon and yinghua’s Voobly accounts are both members of the ARES team, but Fat_Dragon is playing ECL for Frantic and yinghua for SY.Comparing the line-up with last year, only last year’s winner (TheViper) and runner-up (Liereyy) made the quarterfinals both times. In the first edition of the tournament, TaToH and MbL’s runs ended in the second round, Yo, Lyx and Fat_Dragon had all been upset in the first round, and yinghua had not taken part in the tournament. Last year’s quarterfinalistsACCM,slam andTheMax this time lost in round 2,DauT lost in round 1 andHearttt andVinchester did not take part to the event.Apart from Lyx and yinghua, who pulled two upsets to qualify to the quarterfinals, all quarterfinalists have been consistent at the highest 1v1 level all year round: they all reached the top spot on the 1v1 ladder and a rating of 2600 (TheViper, Fat_Dragon and MbL even pushing to 2700) and shared the podium places of most 1v1 events:Aztecs and Mayans remained the two most popular civilizations of round 2 with 8 and 7 games. Slavs remained a popular pick, with 4 games, but Chinese were not (only 1 game).Civilizations gaining in popularity were the Malians (6 games in round 2, only 4 in round 1) and the Indians (4-2), with Franks (5-5) and Japanese (4-5) remaining popular options as well. Mirror match-ups were rare in round 2 (only 2 games) and always featured Aztecs.The only civilization improving significantly on their winrate are the Franks, winning 80% of their games (4 out of 5) as opposed to a mere 40% in the first round. However, in 10 games featuring the Franks, the higher seed won 9 times: the only “upset” in that regard wasyinghua beating the higher seededLaaaaaN with the Franks in their second-round match up.Considering only non-mirror matches and civilizations with at least 5 games played, the Vikings overcome the Chinese as the “strongest” civilization with 4 wins in 5 games (80%). Chinese are still going strong (12-4, 75%) and Incas take the third place with a 5-2 record (71%).Byzantines remain the most unsuccessful civilization with 3 losses in 3 games – despite being played by the higher seed twice – with Huns (1-3, 25%) and Aztecs (5-11, 31%) completing the bottom 3.Britons, Goths, Italians, Koreans, Persians, Portuguese, Teutons and Vietnamese are yet to be played once.In specific civ match-ups, the numbers are even smaller, but we have the Franks enjoying success against the Indians (2-0), the Vikings against the Slavs (2-0), the Celts and the Malay against the Mayans (2-0) and the Berbers against the Franks (2-0).Last round to be played with the “no civilization repeat” rule, the quarterfinals of the tournament will most likely oppose players with a extended pool of remaining civilizations (such asTheViper andLiereyy, who have yet to use either of Aztecs, Mayans, Chinese and Slavs) to players who had to resort to “stronger” civilizations to edge their opponents. The rule, favoring underdogs in the first round, seems to now be favoring players who were confident enough to go head-to-head with their opponents using only “lower tier” civilizations.Round 2 saw one new opening that (surprisingly?) had not been attempted at all during round 1: “naked” or “pure” trush, without men at arms support. It proved efficient forFat_Dragon againstRiuT but failedYo againstslam. Other than that, “niche” strategies such as straight archers, naked FC and classic forward continued to be marginal openings with one attempt each.Drush FC completely disappeared from the popular openings in round 2, leaving men at arms and scouts the overwhelming favorite opening strategies of our remaining players. Men at arms is, more than ever, the most popular opening. In the 31 games of round 2, 13 featured men at arms openings from both players (42%). Men at arms made up a total of 37 out of a possible 62 openings (59.7%, +13% from round 1) while players opened with scouts 20 times (32%, -3% from round 1).This popularity of men at arms is also matched with their increasing success, with a 64% success rate in round 2 (7-4, an impressive increase from their 11-16 record of round 1). Scouts won only 40% of their games in round 2 (4-6, dropping from round 1 where they had won 15 games to 9).Head to head, however, scouts still slightly edge the men at arms with 15 wins to 12 but post a negative ratio this round (3-5).The tower question is a burning topic in the community. The strategy has developed into a very common tactic, used to wreak havoc in the opponent’s base while the “trusher” comfortably develops their economy back at home. There as been concerns that towers were too strong ever since Koreans was the most banned civilization during Battle of Africa, leading to towers eventually being (arguably) nerfed in the latest patch. In round 1, although frequent, the strategy had enjoyed mixed success. In round 2, the dynamic seems to have changed.31 games were played in the 8 matches of the second round. 15 of these featured tower aggression from at least one side, representing 48.4% of the game. Although still high, this ratio is actually decreasing from round 1 (-13%). However, excluding games where both sides trushed (2 games), the winrate of tower aggression is staggering: 12 wins and only 1 loss (92% winrate, +54% from round 1).The only game where the only player trushing lost was game 1 of the match betweenTheViper andACCM, where Viper successfully fended off ACCM’s tower aggression.Out of 31 round 2 games, 12 were won by the lower seed. Out of these 12 victories, the lower seed used tower aggression in 6 games (50%). This is a significant increase from round 1 where the lower seeds used trush 14 times, with a 4-10 (29%) success rate and victorious trush making up 21% of their total victories.– Famous words byVivi aka Fat_Dragon, 2018Despite this claim, the Fat Dragon is, of the 8 remaining players, the one who used towers the most during his games. Vivi built aggressive towers in 5 of his 8 games (63%) of the time, losing once (80% winrate).Yo used towers in 4 out of 8 games (50%), but with less success than his countryman (2 wins, 2 losses, 50%).The only undefeated players so far,TheViper andLiereyy are also the ones using the least towers, with Viper never building aggressive towers and Liereyy only doing it once in 6 games (17%). Sometimes, perhaps in an old-fashioned way, towers are built as defensive structures.Lyx is the player resorting to towers as a defense mechanism the most, building them in 6 games out of 8.A statistic probably helped by the fact Lyx playedBacT in the first round, with BacT being the only player of the tournament trushing in every single game he played.Not trushing at all is a rarity: in addition to Viper, five eliminated players also never based their strategy on aggressive towers. They are:Hera,Villese,saymyname,GKT_Cloud andTia_Harribel.CL andRiuT might get bitter memories of towers: they are the players in the tournament who lost to tower aggression, while not trushing themselves, the most, with 3 losses each.Due to their choice of civilizations, or perhaps their playstyle, players sometimes seem to like opening games with one strategy more than with another. TheViper, for instance, opened with scouts 4 times to only 2 times with men at arms. His quarterfinal opponent, his teammateTaToH, lies at the other end of the spectrum with only 2 scouts openings to 6 men at arms openings. Other teammates, Liereyy andMbL, have not shown a preference yet (2-3 Liereyy, 3-4 MbL).Only one player in the tournament has never opened with men at arms:BlackMamba aka StrayDog. He is also the only one never to open with scouts. Playing four games, he opened twice with a spearmen and skirmishers forward, and twice with a drush followed by feudal age aggression.Four other players never opened with scouts:BacT,F1Re,CL andmiguel. Ahead of TheViper, players who particularly seemed to enjoy scouts openings wereDaniel (3 out of 4 games) and Hera (5 out of 7 games).Nicov is the only player in the draw who opened with a drush FC more than once, and CL the only player to attempt a naked FC more than once. The only other player to attempt such a strategy wasTheMax in his second round against Lyx.Round 2 spanned 31 games that lasted a total combined amount of 21 hours, 15 minutes and 30 seconds. The average game time was 43:05, slightly longer than round 1 games which lasted a average time of 40:32.With a total game time of 7:20:26 and 9 games,TaToH is the player who played for the longest amount of time.yinghua follows with 7:16:38 andLaaaaaN at 6:55:50 total playing time comes third. With only 1:18:51 time played,F1Re is the player who played the least during this edition of King of the Desert.The longest game of round 2 – and of the tournament so far – was the first game of the second round epic between LaaaaaN and yinghua, finished at 1:44:44 clock time… longer than the whole series ofTheViper andACCM which needed 1:41:59 for three games. LaaaaaN and yinghua’s game also broke the record of most units killed (2761) and worst final K-D for the winner (-230 for LaaaaaN). LaaaaaN’s other win in that set was also an epic game lasting 1:13:30, which he took with the exact opposite K-D of +230.Of the remaining players,Liereyy is the ones playing the shortest games on average, finishing them with an average time of 28:43.Lyx plays the longest at 49:15.Fat_Dragon is the one with the shortest wins on average (28:14) and yinghua the one with the longest losses (1:10:39).Liereyy is also the player left in the draw with the shortest play time, at 2:52:21, a total of 4 hours, 28 minutes and 5 seconds less than TaToH.Thanks for reading, and see you in a while for the stats of the quarterfinals!