Finding NRG Palafox's genius in his Korean Solo Queue data
Hi there, it’s been a while!
Over 4 months, actually. Remember when I promised to do these weekly? Wild.
There feels like there’s a lot to say, but frankly - I just want to get on with writing the article, so here is the briefest of catch-ups.
At the end of September we launched iTero V2. It’s what has taken all my time and prevented me from writing these articles. It’s profoundly better than the first version and now includes the single most comprehensive statistical analysis available for League of Legends. I say that with confidence. Check out Cap’s KR account as an example: Cap’s KR Account.
During the development of V2 we kinda ignored V1, so it kinda suffered. Our userbase shrunk since we made no efforts to attract new users, and weren’t making feature changes for our old ones. We’re now focusing on making up for that and getting our growth curve back in the right direction.
The first thing we did to help was relaunch the website iTero.GG. It looks better, feels better and also includes all the data from Korean Bootcamp accounts - because who doesn’t love the World Championship.
On a personal note, I moved to the south of France last week for a few months to avoid the English weather. It’s beautiful here, although my French could do with some work.
Now, on with the article.
How we can spot NRG Palafox’s genius in his Korean Solo Queue data
Tomorrow (19th October 2023) the LCS Champions, NRG, face the LPL 4th seed, Weibo Gaming, in the first round of the League of Legends World Championship.
It’s far too easy to be an NA doomist, I mean, given their record and all. However, sometimes, all you need is a little hope. Today that hope has come in the form of an off-hand comment by XiaoHu, the Wiebo mid-laner, who described Palafox, his opposite number in NRG, as “powerful, and seems like a genius”.
Yes, this was later more accurately translated to be closer to “talented with potential”, but, as I say: today is all about spreading the hopium.
Now, I won’t be jumping immediately to “and so NRG will probably win Worlds”. Instead, I’m simply going to try and fuel the fire. My fuel, in this case, is a s##t tonne of Korean Solo Queue data, alongside a desire to answer a very simple question; what makes Palafox a genius?
Before we get into the detail, here’s a quick explanation of the data.
Data Preliminaries
All data comes from Korean Solo Queue.
A special thank you to TrackingThePros who provided the solo queue account names.
I am writing this on the 18th October, the data on the site below refreshes regularly and so will therefore not match exactly.
Statistics are calculated from the players last 50 games, to be best reflective of their current elo.
All statistics are adjusted by the players Champion pool. They are therefore reflective of the player and how they perform above or below the average for their Champions.
When quoting percentiles, they are being compared to all Master+ accounts, not just other professional players.
Kills/Deaths in the last 10 seconds of a game (fountain dives, mostly) are removed, as to not punish regular for-fun fountain diving. Therefore, some games will not match exactly what is quoted in a player’s match history.
You can see all data here: iTero Korean Solo Queue Statistics
Now, on with the question. What makes Palafox a genius?
I have over 500 statistics to deal with, but to start let us keep it simple. He currently sits at a respectable 766LP, from an impressive 441 games. This puts him ahead of his lane opponent, but admittedly he’s had a few more games to get there.
His Champion Pool is also, by most comparisons, fairly normal. No sign of his genius just yet.
Having spent the last hour studying his Solo Queue data in an almost stalkerish level of detail, there was one theme that stood out among all others.
Palafox is the KDA King.
(Remember, all stats are adjusted by the Champion Pool. His “raw” average is lower, but he constantly over-performs on KDA when compared to other high ranked players who play similar Champions!)
There were several components that make-up his overall KDA that stood-out to me:
KDA against his Lane Opponent
KDA in the Jungle/River (and the impact on objective control)
KD in Solo Bolos
KDA against his Lane Opponent
Let’s start with his Kills + Assists against mid-laners. Although he’s in the bottom third of the elo (since solo queue mavericks tend to play riskier than pros), he remains competitive with more comparable opponents like G2 Caps and XiaoHu - Faker being an outlier for his passiveness in lane.
His genius, however, may best be seen when you use the above in conjunction with his Deaths to mid-laners.
XiaoHu is killing mid-laners at a rate of 3.3 a game, but dying to them at the exact same rate, whilst Caps is even dying more than he kills them! Palafox manages to get 3.4 kills or assists a game on his fellow mid-laners, whilst only dying to them 2.3 times. A master class in controlled aggression.
KDA in the Jungle & River
The second component is his KDA specifically whilst inside the jungle and river. Usually these happen during team fights and skirmishes around key objectives like Heralds and Dragons.
For this one, I use a slightly different statistic than normal. Rather than looking at a KDA Ratio, I instead add up all his Kills + Assists in the Jungle, and take away his Deaths.
The conclusion is really self-explanatory; Palafox seems to just be better than XiaoHu at team fights in the jungle. I really can’t be budged on this conclusion, sorry.
You may also be wondering; given his absolute dominance in jungle team fighting, do his teams tend to secure more Dragons and Heralds:
Again, I use a slightly different metric here. Rather than looking at the raw amount of Monsters killed, I look at the net value. If your team takes it, you get +1, if the enemy takes it you get -1, and if no one took it you get 0.
Data Note: I include Dragons/Heralds that the player did not directly assist with, since there are plenty of ways of helping your team secure an objective without needing to be directly involved.
With Palafox’s exceptional jungle team fighting he is able to help his team secure Dragons and Heralds far above the average, and certainly above XiaoHu!
Solo-Bolo KD Differential
As our final statistic, let us now look at how many Solo-Bolos he averages per game, and how that compares to his Solo-Bolo deaths.
If you look closely at the table, you can quite quickly see that NRG are going to beat Weibo tomorrow. At this point, it’s a mathematical fact. XiaoHu is only managing 1.39 Solo Kills a game but is getting Solo Killed 1.27 times? Our boy Palafox not only manages to get MORE Solo Kills (1.48), he’s also doing it whilst being Solo Killed considerably less (0.81)!
To Conclude
Through my research and writing of this brief Solo Queue analysis I have become increasingly confident that NRG will be beating Weibo tomorrow. This will come almost exclusively through an absolute monstrous mid-gap. Which will unfold a little like this:
XiaoHu, in a desperate attempt to show his prowess will make a number of failed plays against Palafox, who will happily take the free Kill (or Assist), whilst safely farming his lane.
Around the 8-10 minute mark, both teams will collapse around Herald where NRG will emerge victorious after an almost flawless team fight from their mid-laner.
*huffs the last tin of copium*
Although NRG are ahead at this point, it’s not until a monstrous Solo Bolo from Palafox onto XiaoHu and the subsequent Baron does the game become a complete one-sided stomp, followed by a 27-minute final push.
All statistics in this article are true and factual as of 18th October, the additional commentary may contain traces of /s.
All data from Korean Solo Queue can be found here: iTero Korean Solo Queue Statistics