Some of you may already know this, but for MLG 2010, I was a referee for Brawl. The only event I didn't referee was Orlando because they hadn't hired anyone from Smashboards yet, and after Brawl's removal, I've continued to referee in Starcraft 2. It's a pretty sweet job. At the end of the final event of the 2010 circuit (MLG Dallas), AlphaZealot mentioned in a mini-community meeting that he still had every single matchslip from this circuit (again, barring the Orlando event), but did not have the spare time to organize it into a database. I accepted, not realizing just how many matchslips I was going to be dealing with. (A lot)
What exactly is a matchslip?
A matchslip is what MLG referees used to keep track of the specifics from each match we were officiating at the time. The characters you used, the stages you played on, the stages you banned, winners, ending stock, ending percent, even ledge grabs were occasionally kept track of (when applicable). And now that's all publicly available in an online-viewer, using Google Spreadsheets. Additionally, you can download the file, if you wish.
What secrets of our metagame did you uncover?
Well, I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not really well-versed in taking a spreadsheet and turning it into a beautiful graph for everyone to use to support their rage-fueled arguments over, but thankfully to a tip that was given to AlphaZealot by MK26, and afterward stolen by Dazwa, I'm at the very least able to provide you with a lot of the easy data. Here's what I uncovered.
Pie graph (large image)
I'm going to be perfectly honest: nothing shown above should come as a surprise to anyone. While I was a little heartbroken that the least commonly played character was Captain Falcon, everything here seems to be reasonable, barring that unusually high Lucas. While it's possible that characters may have "earned" additional games to their tally by simply entering game 3, the effect that has isn't nearly as influential as simply advancing in the bracket. The game 3 effect might sway the lower portion of the cast, but it's not a terribly major factor.
The most commonly played stages were Smashville, Battlefield, and Final Destination. Not really a surprise. What may be a shocker, however..
Final Destination is also the most commonly banned stage, leading the way for Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise. While it's commonly known that Final Destination can be polarizing for a lot of matchups (fighting against Falco, Ice Climbers, Diddy Kong, or playing as Meta Knight), its high status in both categories is definitely worth note. Also, no one seems to want to touch Pokemon Stadium 2. Barely any times played, barely any bans. A bunch of stagecists if you ask me.
Alternatively, here's a side-by-side comparison of stage bans vs times played:
Number of sets played (not separating continuation sets): 1544
Number of sets that went to game 3: 420
Game 4 (via continuation set, extended championship series set, etc) : 42
Game 5: 28
Game 6: 7
Game 7: 2
Game 8 and Game 9: 1 (Rich Brown vs ADHD at MLG DC)
Total individual games played: 3589
The most commonly used character is Meta Knight at 1298 uses. The least is Captain Falcon, at a whopping 3 uses.
The most commonly played stage, Smashville (833 games), is also the 2nd least commonly banned stage (35 bans)
The most commonly banned stage, Final Destination (584 bans) is also the third most commonly played stage (373 games)
The least commonly banned stage, Pokemon Stadium 2 (14 bans) is also the least commonly played stage (22 games)
Number of JV4 stocks (winning with 3 stock, 0 percent): 1
Number of times a player was late for a match, or a "No show": 330
Number of times a game went to the time limit: 28
With all of that out of the way, I implore anyone that can find interesting data with their actual spreadsheet skills, to do so. As far as I know, aside from a few spreadsheets done by Glenn over at getyourtournament for SFIV, this is the first time a fighting game has had expansive data from a tournament or series of tournaments to work with. Don't let my lack of spreadsheet knowledge squander it.
Online Spreadsheet Viewer
Since the large majority of the project is over (for me), here's a bunch of shoutouts to people that helped:
- AlphaZealot for both providing me and trusting me with the opportunity to mangle my fingers for glory
- MLG_JV for hiring me in the first place, leading me to my opportunity to mangle my fingers for glory
- Solid Jake, Pierce, Brendan, and Joel, my fellow Smash refs. It was a blast working with you all.
- Cheese, Atomsk, Anti, Chibo, Vex Kasrani: these 5 had incorrect matchslip data (a character or a stage were missing or misreported by the referee), but they're all elephants and didn't forget a single detail of the matches (seriously, some of them gave detailed analysis of each individual stock in the game, I was frightened)
- Anyone that showed their support for the community by attending. While it may have proven naught in the end due to other factors, you gave us a fighting chance and that's more than enough for my respect.
- New England Brawl and Melee, BECAUSE THIS IS MY THREAD I CAN DO WHAT I WANT
What exactly is a matchslip?
A matchslip is what MLG referees used to keep track of the specifics from each match we were officiating at the time. The characters you used, the stages you played on, the stages you banned, winners, ending stock, ending percent, even ledge grabs were occasionally kept track of (when applicable). And now that's all publicly available in an online-viewer, using Google Spreadsheets. Additionally, you can download the file, if you wish.
What secrets of our metagame did you uncover?
Well, I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not really well-versed in taking a spreadsheet and turning it into a beautiful graph for everyone to use to support their rage-fueled arguments over, but thankfully to a tip that was given to AlphaZealot by MK26, and afterward stolen by Dazwa, I'm at the very least able to provide you with a lot of the easy data. Here's what I uncovered.
CHARACTERS
Pie graph (large image)
I'm going to be perfectly honest: nothing shown above should come as a surprise to anyone. While I was a little heartbroken that the least commonly played character was Captain Falcon, everything here seems to be reasonable, barring that unusually high Lucas. While it's possible that characters may have "earned" additional games to their tally by simply entering game 3, the effect that has isn't nearly as influential as simply advancing in the bracket. The game 3 effect might sway the lower portion of the cast, but it's not a terribly major factor.
STAGES
The most commonly played stages were Smashville, Battlefield, and Final Destination. Not really a surprise. What may be a shocker, however..
Final Destination is also the most commonly banned stage, leading the way for Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise. While it's commonly known that Final Destination can be polarizing for a lot of matchups (fighting against Falco, Ice Climbers, Diddy Kong, or playing as Meta Knight), its high status in both categories is definitely worth note. Also, no one seems to want to touch Pokemon Stadium 2. Barely any times played, barely any bans. A bunch of stagecists if you ask me.
Alternatively, here's a side-by-side comparison of stage bans vs times played:
MISCELLANEOUS
Number of sets played (not separating continuation sets): 1544
Number of sets that went to game 3: 420
Game 4 (via continuation set, extended championship series set, etc) : 42
Game 5: 28
Game 6: 7
Game 7: 2
Game 8 and Game 9: 1 (Rich Brown vs ADHD at MLG DC)
Total individual games played: 3589
The most commonly used character is Meta Knight at 1298 uses. The least is Captain Falcon, at a whopping 3 uses.
The most commonly played stage, Smashville (833 games), is also the 2nd least commonly banned stage (35 bans)
The most commonly banned stage, Final Destination (584 bans) is also the third most commonly played stage (373 games)
The least commonly banned stage, Pokemon Stadium 2 (14 bans) is also the least commonly played stage (22 games)
Number of JV4 stocks (winning with 3 stock, 0 percent): 1
Number of times a player was late for a match, or a "No show": 330
Number of times a game went to the time limit: 28
With all of that out of the way, I implore anyone that can find interesting data with their actual spreadsheet skills, to do so. As far as I know, aside from a few spreadsheets done by Glenn over at getyourtournament for SFIV, this is the first time a fighting game has had expansive data from a tournament or series of tournaments to work with. Don't let my lack of spreadsheet knowledge squander it.
Online Spreadsheet Viewer
Since the large majority of the project is over (for me), here's a bunch of shoutouts to people that helped:
- AlphaZealot for both providing me and trusting me with the opportunity to mangle my fingers for glory
- MLG_JV for hiring me in the first place, leading me to my opportunity to mangle my fingers for glory
- Solid Jake, Pierce, Brendan, and Joel, my fellow Smash refs. It was a blast working with you all.
- Cheese, Atomsk, Anti, Chibo, Vex Kasrani: these 5 had incorrect matchslip data (a character or a stage were missing or misreported by the referee), but they're all elephants and didn't forget a single detail of the matches (seriously, some of them gave detailed analysis of each individual stock in the game, I was frightened)
- Anyone that showed their support for the community by attending. While it may have proven naught in the end due to other factors, you gave us a fighting chance and that's more than enough for my respect.
- New England Brawl and Melee, BECAUSE THIS IS MY THREAD I CAN DO WHAT I WANT
