Dota 2 BTS Pro Series 9 - Americas - Group Stage Simulation
In the first big tournament since The International 10, BTS has invited nine teams from North and South America to face off for a $40,000 prize pool. I simulated the group stage of this tournament to see how each team stacks up.
Here are the overall win-loss expectations, but keep reading for the full analysis:
Group stage rules
In the group stage, each team plays each other team in a best-of-two match (aka a double round robin). Placement is determined by overall record. The top four teams advance to the upper bracket of the playoffs, the next four teams advance to the lower bracket, and the ninth place team is eliminated.
In the case of tiebreakers, the following rules are applied in order, until ties are broken:
- Head-to-head result of tied teams is used
- Nuestadtl score - score of teams that you've beaten 2-0 plus half the score of teams you've tied 1-1
- Comparative results against each team in rank order
- Tiebreaker games as determined by administration
The teams
Here are the nine teams at this tournament, all directly invited:
- xXxXx
- 4 Zoomers
- Infamous
- Black N Yellow
- D2 Hustlers
- Hokori
- simply TOOBASED
- Thunder Predator
- Arkosh Gaming
Simulations
Matchups
First, I needed to simulate each head-to-head matchup, to see how teams perform against each other:
4 Zoomers stand out as the strongest team in this tournament, with favorable matchups against every team. Arkosh, on the other hand, will have to fight hard in every single matchup.
Expected records
I simulated the double round robin 50000 times, assuming each team played as both Radiant and Dire in each matchup. After 16 games played by each team, here was each team's average win-loss record:
| Team Name | Wins | Losses |
|---|---|---|
| 4 Zoomers | 10.5822 | 5.4178 |
| Infamous | 10.44548 | 5.55452 |
| Thunder Predator | 9.7104 | 6.2896 |
| xXxXx | 8.56288 | 7.43712 |
| Hokori | 7.74468 | 8.25532 |
| D2 Hustlers | 7.18594 | 8.81406 |
| simply TOOBASED | 6.57862 | 9.42138 |
| Black N Yellow | 5.81966 | 10.18034 |
| Arkosh Gaming | 5.37014 | 10.62986 |
In spite of being unfavored in each matchup, Arkosh still has 24-47% chances to win against the other teams, and should be able to pull off around five upsets on average.
From these simulations, I can also generate distributions of possible records for each team:
Which leads to the most likely record for each team (though not necessarily the most likely total outcome, as these are just individual most likely outcomes and may be mutually exclusive):
| team_name | record |
|---|---|
| 4 Zoomers | 11-5 |
| Infamous | 11-5 |
| Thunder Predator | 10-6 |
| xXxXx | 9-7 |
| Hokori | 8-8 |
| D2 Hustlers | 7-9 |
| Black N Yellow | 6-10 |
| simply TOOBASED | 6-10 |
| Arkosh Gaming | 5-11 |
Expected placement
In each simulation, applying tiebreaker rules as necessary, I can get each team's final placement in the group stage, which is what ultimately determines their fate. What really matters is how likely each team is to be in the top four (to go to the upper bracket) or top eight (to not get eliminated).
Top 4:
| Team Name | % Top 4 |
|---|---|
| 4 Zoomers | 86.74% |
| Infamous | 85.11% |
| Thunder Predator | 75.02% |
| xXxXx | 53.95% |
| Hokori | 37.03% |
| D2 Hustlers | 27.07% |
| simply TOOBASED | 18.23% |
| Black N Yellow | 10.07% |
| Arkosh Gaming | 6.78% |
4Z and INF both have >85% chances to finish in the top four and find themselves in the upper bracket, while Thunder Predator's completely revamped post-TI roster find themselves not too far behind. xXxXx are the most likely to round out the top four, with probabilities dropping off precipitously from there.
Top 8:
| Team Name | % Top 8 |
|---|---|
| 4 Zoomers | 99.74% |
| Infamous | 99.68% |
| Thunder Predator | 99.14% |
| xXxXx | 97.04% |
| Hokori | 93.61% |
| D2 Hustlers | 89.98% |
| simply TOOBASED | 84.17% |
| Black N Yellow | 72.88% |
| Arkosh Gaming | 63.76% |
The top three teams have above a 99% chance to not get eliminated, which intuitively sounds right but is still a pretty high number to see in a statistical context. Realistically, BNY and ARK are the two teams most likely to take ninth place, though either one of them still has a better chance than not to avoid elimination.
And of course, distributions for placements as well:
Final thoughts
4 Zoomers and Infamous are looking like the obvious top teams, with Thunder Predator (with a brand new roster after their TI troubles) looking reasonably strong as well. Those three teams will almost certainly be in the top four.
Black N Yellow and Arkosh Gaming are the runts of the litter, and most likely one of them will be heading home (metaphorically) without seeing the playoffs. Arkosh have a 35% chance to take dead last, which is still less likely than their chance to move on but a much higher chance for a single team than we've seen in the past for similar tournaments.
All of the other teams are somewhere in the middle, so the fight for that last upper bracket starting spot will be fierce.
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