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The ending to Sunday’s CPT Online North America West 2 was exciting enough that I moved my initial scheduled post for later in the week.
Nephew did the unthinkable and joined Punk in some rare territory. Let’s get some initial stats and notes out of the way.
For starters, Nephew already qualified for Capcom Cup back in May, so him winning on Sunday had no effect on his status. But because he made it to Grand Final via the winners bracket, that meant Losers Final was the match to get to the big show.
It ended up being Chris CCH taking the spot over Samurai. Chris CCH had a previous run-in against Samurai back in May, losing 3-1. That was notable because of the counterpick-fest that happened: Sakura vs. Akuma, Sakura vs. Ryu, Seth vs. Ryu.
Chris CCH got the upperhand on Sunday, going with Seth the whole way against Samurai’s Akuma. There isn’t too much CPT Top 8 data in regard to Seth vs. Akuma, but what little there is, Seth has gotten more wins.
With that, Chris CCH becomes the first player this year to qualify for Capcom Cup without winning an event. You can see who has qualified here.
There was still the opportunity to win the tournament, and he rolled against Nephew’s Ryu and Kolin in the first series, forcing a Reset Final.
Chris CCH got all the way up to 2-0 1-0 against Nephew … and Nephew rallied.
If it sounds familiar, it’s because it happened earlier this year.
Punk did the same thing against Idom on July 25 during CPT Online North America East 1. Facing tournament point defeat, Punk rallied back and stunned Idom to win the event and qualify.
Down 2-0 1-0 is what I call being in The Pit. That’s the furthest you can be from winning a match. It has the lowest match odds. All things equal, a player has a hair less than 5 percent chance of winning. The win expectancy, based on more than 5 years of CPT Top 8 data, is 3.9 percent.
Even by just winning 1 round to force a Game 3 Round 3, the win expectancy only jumps to 8.5 percent.
The percentages are so bad for a player, that’s why I call it The Pit.
Sunday was the fourth time Nephew had been in The Pit in a CPT Top 8 match. He lost each of the last three times he had been in that situation — what’s even more painful is he faced the situation twice at Summer Jam on Sept. 2, 2018 and lost them both.
Nephew is the fourth player this year to be sent to The Pit in Reset Final, joining the aformentioned Punk, Jah Lexe (vs. RonaldinhoBR on May 30) and Sakonoko (vs. Higuchi on Sept. 19).
Jah Lexe and Sakonoko both won Game 3 Round 2 but lost the next round to end the tournament.
A few years ago I did an analysis of where matches end when a player gets sent to The Pit. I’ll try to find some time to update this.
The history of players getting sent to The Pit during Reset Final of a CPT event is bad as expected, and I have the results here in the play index. Only two players before this year had even forced a Game 5.
I looked to see what similarities Punk and Nephew had in both of their Reset Final comebacks in the rounds before and when they were sent to The Pit vs. the rounds afterward:
Rounds played
Punk: 6 before (1-5), 6 after (6-0)
Nephew: 6 before (1-5), 7 after (6-1)
Average time
Punk: 50.5 before, 46.3 after
Nephew: 47.5 before, 53.3 after
When players started a round with more meter than their opponent
Punk: 1-1 before, 1-0 after
Nephew: 1-0 before, 3-0 after
When players started a round with less meter than their opponent
Punk: 0-0 before, 3-0 after
Nephew: 0-2 before, 1-1 after
Punk picked up the pace in his comeback while Nephew slowed it down in his. I guessed the average time was going to move, but I didn’t expect it to go opposite directions for both players. Punk had to deal with Idom making a character change as well. Given that Idom went to Laura, it’s almost understandable the pace going faster than earlier in the contest.
I’ve been talking about match value a lot over the last couple of weeks because it really seems like there’s something to the importance of every round in certain situations.
If we were to take all of Punk’s CPT Top 8 regular season matches, filter to only the ones where he gets sent to a 2-0 1-0 deficit and tally only the rounds on or after that moment … he’s 31-45 in those rounds played. His match value is -0.64 in those rounds collectively.
How to interpret this: despite having a losing record (and a lot of people are going to have a losing record), Punk in this scenario has a disadvantage but nothing too dramatic, the number should be heavily negative.
It gets even wilder. Let’s say Punk wins Game 3 Round 2. Now we take all of those rounds in all of those matches where he’s still playing from that point forward. He’s 23-19 with a match value of 0.48.
How to interpret this: all Punk needs is just one opportunity, one belief he is going to win and he will make the comeback. If he wins Game 3 Round 3, it’s the opening he needs.
Nephew doesn’t have the same insane numbers, but it is still notable. First scenario where we filter only to the four matches where he got sent to a 2-0 1-0 deficit and tally the rounds on or after that moment … he’s 11-15 in those rounds with a -0.10 match value. With his win on Sunday, he’s moved that value number to near even which is really impressive.
Second filter, Nephew wins Game 3 Round 2, now let’s take those rounds in all of those remaining matches where he’s still playing. He’s 9-7 with a 0.45 match value. Granted, a lot of those wins came on Sunday but it was worth checking.
One more wild note, and even I couldn’t believe this.
Here are all of the times Kolin has been used in the championship series of a CPT event, this is Grand Final and Reset Final combined. This includes Sunday.
Kolin has been used seven times at some point in the championship series, with the user eventually winning the series and the event. Stunning that Kolin users are 7-for-7 in the championship series.
In addition to Nephew, Momochi and Flash Metroid have reached first place in a CPT event using Kolin.