Missing the Forest for the Trees — Rating players based on Kills and Deaths

Missing the Forest for the Trees — Rating Players based on KDR

We’ve had a lot of discussion recently on statistics because every bloody tournament, we seem to have same sort of people screaming for -thisplayer +thatplayer based on kills and deaths.

This article hopes to educate at least some of you on why kills and deaths shouldn’t be the sole statistic on whether you bench or add someone to your roster. There is more tactical depth in CS2 then meets the eye.

There is a reason why it is often referred to a mental game rather than a mechanical game. Counter-Strike has been through so many major iterations with slight tweaks along its history. The mechanical aspect has been refined and polished to almost the best that it can be.

The best players aren’t the ones with the best mechanics anymore since most of the competition are at a high level mechanically. It is essentially become a mental game where every little movement, utility usage and habits are examined immensely.

The Analysis and Mental Side

I recall the email that Elige sent to Cojomo in 2022. Look at the detail of scrutiny that Elige puts in some of his analysis in particular, the default section being readable.

If your teamplay and utility follows a particular pattern then assume that the other team will pick on this. This also occurs on an individual level as well. If they know you always play pit on a certain angle, they’ll utilise their utility or pre-aim that position.

During my interview with Kras, we had discussed that Canon Event had to pick up on this extremely quickly. They realised that they were predictable and had to develop a lot of defaults in a small amount of time.

Eddie (Bowser0 / ViridianCity) highlighted this further stating that you need to know not only what but WHY, you are doing this. You need to be able to play the system on CS not on your team’s tactics sheet.

If you put the what and why together, everything just works and certain teams can beat a team that is supposedly better than them on paper. Having a system of defaults, being able to adapt those default and being able to switch it up on the fly is crucial.

This is why CS is compared to Chess because if you look at tactics and openings for Chess, you will realise the similarities extremely quickly. Chess has openings (basically defaults in CS) and they have variations of these openings (basically like CS). However, the one thing that is different is the additional FPS mechanics.

Just like in chess, there are certain pieces/players that are sacrificed to gain further map control, to gain a favourable trade, to gain further information for other players etc.

This is commonly seen in 3 v 2 situations where the lower hp player will play point man so he can gather where the remaining two are and give his teammates an extreme advantage. The lower hp player may add an additional death but he has significantly assisted his teammates in securing kills.

What stats should we look at more?

I am guilty of looking at Kills and Deaths in particular as a surface level analysis and sometimes, they are a pretty good indication. However, the other statistics should be assists, flash assists and utility damage.

If your utility damage and flash assists are high, it means that your utility placement and team cohesion is incredibly good. You can see a good team where they have an incredibly high amount of assists and flash assists.

For example, Jame and Alistair despite their passive awping style provides crucial flashes and assists for their rifling core. It doesn’t show on their kills or deaths at all but it enables their team to be in a superior position. We can just say that behind every good INS, there is an alistair.

Let’s look at a worked example between Tyloo and GR

This was a 2–0 to Tyloo with a 13–7 and 19–16 scoreline. Look how incredibly close it was in both the assists and flash assists column. However, you can see that Tyloo were winning the war in relation to mechanics due to their utility.

Tyloo had essentially 19 flash assists compared to GR’s 9 Flash Assists. GR were much better at trading at kills slightly with 68 assists compared to Tyloo’s 59 assists. This can be explained that Tyloo were winning duels without the need of being traded out. Flash assists can explain that somewhat.

GR had more assists mainly because they were losing more duels due to better utility usage from Tyloo. However, it was only very slightly due to closeness of the series. You can see that Tyloo had much more kills and less deaths than GR which seems to line up with that story.

So overall, you could say that Moseyuh played an incredbily well-rounded match not only in kills but by the assists he provided to his team.

However, the stats aren’t just enough. You need to look at the micro-mechanics itself in the game.

The Micro-Mechanics

The Micro-Mechanics in CS are a sub-set of mechanics of essentially gathering information. I put aiming and utility usage as a main mechanics while spotting shadows, hearing steps, weapon drops or damage (from Molly/HE or being hit by grenades) to be Micro-mechanics.

The micro-mechanics are barely represented in the stats page whether Player A sees/hears two sets of nades being thrown from a certain direction or Player B sees two sets of shadows before an execute. Counter-strafing and other movement is incredibly crucial as well.

These micro-mechanics can be pivotal in certain rounds where you have the knowledge and information of where players could be and which site that a team intends to hit.

It may allow the seconds required for the rotating player to hold the site.

It may allow for utility to be more precise and essentially weaken an execute onto a site.

It also may disrupt a hold in general where a player in a safe postion has been mollyed out into the open.

In conclusion, the mechanical aspects are incredibly important to master but at the top level of CS. The understanding and mastery of the tactics, the mental side and gathering information will set you apart from the rest.

Counter-Strike at a professional level is essentially a battle of inches, mental will, spirituality and information gathering.

It isn’t about the amount of Kills or Deaths that a player may have, it is about the opportunities that the player creates for their team or their teammate to put rounds on the board.