LCS 2021: Champion Pools and How to Look At Player Damage

We look at how champion picks can impact the damage a player does and see which LCS player does the most damage regardless of champion picks.

Enter, then, the Estimated Damage Differential (“EDD”). In simple terms, we take a player’s DPM for each game and compare it to the average DPM for the champion they played in that game. The champion’s average DPM is per gol.gg and takes all major professional leagues into account (not just the “big four”). These DPM numbers are also segregated by role (meaning we’re distinguishing between the average DPM of mid Zilean versus support Zilean).

Averaging that differential across the season, for each game (thanks to Oracle’s Elixir for providing the game logs), we can see how well a player tends to do in terms of damage compared to the average player with the same champion pool, worldwide. This gives us a decent (though not perfect) measure of how well a player is doing beyond simple raw DPM numbers.

For instance, a player can have very low raw damage per minute, but a good EDD. This would indicate that they are playing low-damage champions, like tanks or utility mages, but are playing them effectively. By contrast, a player with high DPM but poor EDD is one who plays “carry” champions less effectively than others.

Using EDD and DPM together, we can get a better look at which LCS players are doing less damage because they’re playing less damage-oriented champions or if it’s because they’re not as effective at playing the champion.

One thing to note before we dive into the LCS players by their EDD/DPM in 2020. Because we are using worldwide data to calculate the average DPM for each champion, you will see that most LCS players actually have an EDD below 0. This means that, on average, LCS players are doing less damage on a champion compared to the average player worldwide, but not compared to their region. While the numbers will be based on the worldwide data, we will be comparing each player to the average DPM and EDD of LCS players, delineated by the red axes.