Using Warding Stats to Assess Vision Control

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Assessing Vision Control

Controlling map vision has become an increasingly important part of the game, especially at the highest competitive level. Controlling vision boils down to either gaining map vision by placing wards or denying enemy vision by killing wards. This article is a follow-up to the Full Warding Data Article and shows additional warding statistics in an effort to assess how well teams controlled vision relative to their opponents.

There are some shortcomings to using raw warding stats like wards bought per minute or wards placed per minute to assess how well a team controls vision though. Buying a ward does not necessarily mean that it was placed, and placing a ward does not necessarily mean that it was placed effectively. In a similar vein, a team that has a high wards killed per minute stat could be a result of its opponents placing a higher-than-average amount of wards per minute and does not necessarily mean that the team is actually good at denying vision.

Take an example: Team A and B both place 3 wards per minute, which is above average. Without factoring in opponent warding, most people would assume that both teams are relatively equal in terms of controlling vision. Yet, say that Team A’s opponents kill 2 wards per minute whereas Team B’s opponents kill only 1 ward per minute. In this case, concluding that Team B has more vision control throughout its games is reasonable as its wards are not being killed as frequently.

Now, measuring warding effectiveness is a difficult task, given that effectiveness is somewhat vague and depends on many factors. Instead, I created a simple Net Vision Control per Minute stat that compares each team’s basic warding stats to those of its opponents.

Net Vision Control per Minute = (Team Wards Placed per Minute Team Wards Killed per Minute) – (Opponent Wards Placed per Minute Opponent Wards Killed per Minute)

The table below shows the results. The two columns under the Team header show each team’s positive vision control stats for the purpose of this table, because they reflect either an increase in map vision or a reduction in map vision for the opponent. The two columns under the Opponent header are negative vision control stats for the purpose of this table, because they represent stats that show how often opponents were placing and killing wards. A positive Net Vision Control per Minute score means that a team tends to have more wards on the map for longer periods.

Comparing each team's warding stats to those of its opponents helps add an additional layer of context. For example, without factoring in opponent data, one might have concluded that OMG tended to have better vision control in its games due to placing an above-average number of wards per minute (3.07). Yet the above table shows that OMG and its opponents actually had similar amounts of vision throughout their games, because OMG's opponents also placed an above-average number of wards per minute (and both had similar killing frequencies).

Some key takeaways from the results:

• Seeing the 3 Korean teams in the top 5 in the /- list is not surprising given the region’s perceived vision control strength and the region’s combined 16-3 record in the group stages. The teams had more gold to spend on wards and placed more wards than average, while their opponents averaged low ward placement and ward killing numbers.

• The 3 Chinese teams are higher on the list than many would have guessed given the popular belief that China has shown lackluster vision control in the past. The results show that China has perhaps improved its vision control. OMG and SHR finished 7th and 8th on the list, yet EDG scored below average.

• Most NA and EU teams showed below average vision control throughout the group stages, yet TSM and FNC are in the top 5 in the /- list. TSM and FNC earned roughly the same score, yet did so in different ways. FNC’s opponents placed an average number of wards per minute, but FNC placed the 2nd most wards per minute - largely due to Yellowstar’s performance. TSM placed an average number of wards per minute, yet TSM’s opponents placed the fewest wards per minute.

• C9 had the lowest /- for any team that qualified for the quarterfinals. C9 effectively netted roughly 0.5 fewer wards per minute than its opponents, which could be cause for concern given that its upcoming opponent, SSB, had a positive score.

The method I used understandably has its own shortcomings, but hopefully this article offered a unique analytical angle and provided results to help better assess each team’s vision control.

Thanks to Cuzimafish and TinyShrimp for gathering data and to James 'PelkaSupaFresh' Pelkey and Jesse 'JALbert' Albert for editing the article.