By Trunkers
The 2011 Pro Circuit stop in Columbus was host to one of the most dominant Halo performances in recent memory. The recipe was simple enough: take a dynamic duo that first hit the scene in the Halo 2 era, an MLG figurehead, and a talented fourth member. Add a splash of teamwork, and the result? A crushing performance against the Columbus field, a nearly effortless victory over Dallas Champions Status Quo, and the resurgence of a franchise. Welcome back, Str8 Rippin!
Almost.
Most of the facts line up, at least. After a brief franchise hiatus, Tsquared resurrected the Str8 Rippin name and lead his team of Legit, Naded, and Areallygoodnoob to a 24-3 game record against all opponents. Against everyone but Instinct, Str8 Rippin appeared untouchable, in a league of their own. Had there been only 31 teams in the Columbus Championship Bracket, Str8 Rippin would currently be headlining all the Halo discussion. Unfortunately, as good as they were, they were completely outclassed in the final bout. Somehow, Instinct managed a 6-0 game record against the team that demolished the rest of the field.
All in all, Instinct put together a 21-1 game record in Columbus. Tsquared may have brought his franchise back from the dead, but Ogre 2 showed that leaving a franchise behind can be even more effective. Instinct are now undoubtedly the team to beat, and any future title challengers will surely have to pass through them. Below, we take a statistical look at Instinct's dominance in Columbus.
Revised Leaderboard
Historically, raw statistics leaderboards such as this one have been a good yet somewhat limited way to look at a weekend's top performers. While the numbers are by no means incorrect, it can be difficult to compare apples to apples. The nature of a bracket tournament means that the better your team performs, the tougher your opponents will be. Inevitably, there's always a slayer from a low-seeded team who puts up chart-topping leaderboard numbers while slugging it out in the first couple of rounds of the Losers Bracket. It is often difficult for any member of a top team to post incredible statistics, simply because they play so many games against tough opponents.
It all the more impressive, then, that in the above linked table, Instinct players claim the top two K/D ratios. Of course, the leaderboard also presents some curious results. Ogre 2 slides into about 22nd in the list, and Lunchbox? Drag your mouse over to page 2 of the stats, as he doesn't even crack Top 25. Meanwhile, Krunchy of 28th-ranked Paowa sits 3rd in the table with a massive 1.29 K/D ratio. Fair comparison?
To better filter this data, we look only at the statistics from games played against teams who finished in the Top 4 at Columbus. Furthermore, to make sure we're not just looking at a sample size of three games, we've only included stats from players who played two matches against Top 4 squads (of note: the Top 4 teams came from only two Pools, so each team from those Pools played at least two matches against top finishers). Lastly, we give all games equal weighting. After compiling the data, we find the following revised leaderboard.
Of little surprise is the fact that Roy and Pistola once again poke their way to the. Interestingly, Roy's stats are even <i>more<\i> dominant when you only look at his performances against top teams.
With this filtering, we see all four Instinct members near the top of the charts. Notably, Tsquared posted outrageous numbers despite having to play two matches against Instinct. The table also shows some solid individual showings by BestMan and Enable (neither of whom had the misfortune of facing off against Instinct in Columbus).
Instinct vs. Str8 Rippin
Next we look at the six games played between Instinct and runners-up Str8 Rippin. The graph shows the K/D ratio for each player in each game (Red Letters: L – Lunchbox, R – Roy, O – Ogre 2, P – Pistola. Blue Letters: L – Legit, N – Naded, T – Tsquared, A – Areallygoodnoob). At the top of each column are the game score, Instinct's team K/D ratio, and Instinct's K-D differential.
(Please note: In Game 2 of TS Countdown, Roy posted a 4.67 K/D ratio with a record of 14-3. For the sake of convenience, this is displayed on the graph as "> 2.")
When looking at the graph, one of the first notable features is how well rounded Instinct's slaying performances were. Across the six games, each of Instinct's four members had the game leading K/D ratio at least once. Secondly, Instinct completely neutralized Str8 Rippin, holding each of its members to K/D ratios below 1 for almost the entirety of the match.
Looking at how convincingly Instinct won the Championship Match, it's clear that any challengers for Anaheim will need to dramatically improve their level of play.
Instinct by Game Type and Map
Lastly, we take a look at Instinct's statistic by Game Type and Map.
In the tables, we see that Instinct as a team all posted large K/D ratios in Capture the Flag. Instinct were undefeated in CTF, and held their opponents to 1 or fewer flag caps in 7 of their 9 CTF games.
Next up, we see that Roy's generally impressive numbers skyrocket in the pure slaying context of TS games. Nearly averaging a 2-to-1 ratio, Roy showed the ability to single-handedly take over Team Slayer games. Looking by map, Roy actually does crack the 2.0 barrier on Countdown. Lastly, Ogre 2 demonstrates that practice pays off, with a team leading 1.53 K/D ratio on a map he's been playing for nearly a decade.
