This is issue #1 of thegametwok newsletter, where I share Street Fighter V stats and findings.
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It was probably one of the most exciting rounds played in the Capcom Pro Tour this year. Momi faced Escudo in the Losers Semifinal of the EU West 1 tourney down 1-2 0-1. One more round lost and he was out of the tournament.
Combine the action with the stakes and the commentary, and it’s everything I hope for as a fan and follower of the pro tour.
Momi ended up winning the round with no health remaining, staying alive for one more round, forcing a Game 5 and winning to advance. He eventually finished second.
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I make a big deal about The Pit, when a player falls behind 0-2 0-1. I’ll talk about that scenario in a future post (if you want to see who has been in The Pit, it’s in the database).
Momi wasn’t in that position. Given what he pulled off was right up there with anyone who overcomes the deepest deficit possible. So I started diving into the database.
That was the seventh time he’s been in the situation of down 1-2 0-1 in a CPT Top 8 match. The eventual match win against Escudo was just his second in that situation.
The match win expectancy of being down 1-2 0-1 in a CPT Top 8 match is 10 percent. This is based on scenarios coming from more than 3,000 matches in the database. Winning the round only bumps the match win expectancy to 21.3 percent.
Even winning the round the way Momi did, the odds of winning the match are still distant. The divide is only getting wider with every Top 8 being played.
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Momi survived 14 seconds of having no health in that improbable round and won. Meanwhile, Escudo had more than half health remaining.
I stopped tracking health progression in 2021, but still make note of health markers at end of rounds (0-1, <25, <50, >50, 100).
Looking at the health progression stats from 2017-21, when a player sends their opponent to 50 percent health first and then 25 percent health first, the win expectancy is 87 percent. Flip that, Momi had a 13 percent of winning the round given the deficit he was in.
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This is a rough estimate from what I saw in the database, when a player has 0 or 1 health remaining, the expected round win rate, regardless of the score, is 3.4 percent.
Now turn it into every round where the player is facing a match point defeat. The expected round win rate drops to 2.5 percent.
Now turn it into the specific scenario Momi faced: 1-2 0-1 in the losers semifinal with 0 or approximately 1 percent health remaining. 51 players had faced that scenario before Momi. The only other player to win that specific round was Machabo against Haitani at Combo Breaker 2019. Machabo went on to win the match.
Props to Momi, he really pulled off something incredible.