Weekly Overwatch League Stat Breakdown + Ranking The Top Genjis (Week 9)

Introduction

As Blizzard does not yet allow public access to the entirety of stats for the Overwatch League, I have been collecting all of the broadcasted stats by hand in an effort to organize them and get the most out of what is accessible. I have created a spreadsheet that contains all of the available data from the first nine weeks of games, averaged them, extrapolated them based on time, and plan on sharing a weekly summary of those statistics.

I will do so in two forms: first, a general update of the current averages on a per-hero basis. This will be an ‘at a glance’ view of the different heroes, to see how their usage and effectiveness stack up against one another. In addition, I will spotlight a different hero each week, that I will explore with more in-depth stats, draw comparisons, and ultimately rank the best players currently at the top of the game. This week’s focus is on Genji, down below the break.

Here are the general hero statistics through nine weeks of play:

Hero Averages

This Week’s Focus: Genji

Methodology

After having collected all of the available data, I separated it all on a per-player basis. To ensure that the data is reasonably accurate, I am only including players for which I have at least one hour of playtime stats available. (due to Genji having a more niche role than my previous breakdowns, only eight players have sufficient data to compare against).

I then averaged out their statistics in each of the following categories: Hero Damage Done, Weapon Accuracy, Dragonblade Kills, and Eliminations from Overwatch League broadcasts; in addition to Time To Charge Ultimate, Final Blows, Total Deaths, First Kills, and First Deaths from Winston’s Lab.

All data is extrapolated on a ‘per 10 minute’ basis, both to provide a point of reference for comparison, and to align with the standard that Blizzard has set.

As an offensive hero, your primary role is dealing damage. Fleta leads in this category, with Profit and Agilities not far behind.

Shadowburn is at the bottom here, but also keep in mind that he has the most playtime on Genji, and with larger sample sizes we often see less impressive averages.

There is not much disparity when it comes to weapon accuracy - just a 10% difference separates the top from the bottom.

With that said, thus far Profit has managed to keep just above the rest of the pack.

It looks like that increased accuracy pays off, as Profit earns more eliminations than the competition - but then again, perhaps it is largely unrelated, as Agilities, who had the lowest weapon accuracy, is neck-and-neck with him here.

Whenever I think of Agilities, I think of that ridiculous play in Season 1 of Contenders: North America, so it is only fitting to see him top this list. While that performance is not considered here, it is just too hype to not at least take a moment to relive it.

Getting back on topic, you may have noticed that Philadelphia’s Eqo and Shadowburn have had relatively similar stats in the previous few categories, but this is where they have now separated themselves. As always, keep in mind the differences in playtime, but Eqo, so far, has gotten much more value out of his Dragonblades, which is probably a big part in why we are seeing more and more of him this stage.

In this case, lower - and thus, faster - is better. It should come as no surprise to see some correlation between Genji players who get their ultimates faster, getting more Dragonblade kills.

Agilities, Dreamkazper, and Eqo, who are top-3 in this category, were among the top-4 in the previous. The one notable exception is Profit, who may take a bit longer than most to charge his blade, but makes the most out of it when he uses it (and also tends to hold onto his ultimate less than most).

Looking at both final blows and total deaths, you might expect to see players with more kills also having more deaths - implying a more aggressive playstyle.

Eqo, however, throws that out the window, as he not only has the most kills, he also has the least deaths. Simply absurd. Hydration, meanwhile, is the opposite, as he has both the least kills, and the most deaths.

As Genji is primarily utilized in dive compositions, I thought it would be interesting to also see how many of those kills and deaths are the first in any given teamfight.

This is perhaps where a Genji’s aggression level shows the most- as it is often the case here that a player with high percentage of first-kills also has a high percentage of first-deaths. Agilities has the unfortunate distinction of being the only player who averages more first-deaths than first-kills.

Since the broadcasted statistics do not account for every player from every game, I take a weighted average of the playtime of each player versus the strength of each team they faced. I then adjust the statistics based on these numbers, with the basic assumption that performing well against lower-tier teams (aka padding your stats against Shanghai) is not as valuable as performing well against top-tier teams.

Summary: The Overall Rankings

The top row shows how each player ranked, versus the average, when comparing just the raw statistics. The bottom row shows the same players ranked by their statistics after they have been weighted based on the level of their opponents. The center row shows a combined average of the two, and is my top-8 list for Genji players through nine weeks of play!

Thoughts:

1. Profit is so good. After leading in my top-Tracer rankings, he does the same as Genji. It certainly helps that he plays on such a good team, and has the luxury of having a player the caliber of Birdring at his side, but regardless of those factors, his individual skill is clearly among the top in the league.
2. Agilities, who has seen less playtime recently due to Kariv largely taking over the secondary DPS spot, shows that, if nothing else, he is absolutely worthwhile to have around as a Genji specialist.
3. Relative-newcomer Eqo has supplanted the veteran Shadowburn, both on the Fusion’s starting roster as well as in these rankings. While he has certainly had a strong showing this stage, it remains to be seen if he can keep it up long-term. That said, Shadowburn is still one of the very best Genji players in the world, and Philadelphia is lucky to have him.
4. The ever-flexible Fleta makes his debut in my rankings in a very respectable fourth place. A feat even more impressive when you consider that Genji is arguably not even his best hero.
5. Prior to the season beginning, many people felt that Dreamkazper did not even belong in this league, and that he would simply find himself outclassed by the superior talent - those people could not have been more wrong.
6. While Libero and Hydration are at the bottom of this list, please keep in mind that they are still among the top players in the world.
7. There are, unfortunately, a ton of other skilled Genji players in the league that either did not have sufficient data or just have not seen enough playtime to accurate judge them. I look forward to being able to revisit these rankings one day, when full stats become available.

That’s all for today, thank you so much for reading and I’ll talk to you again soon!

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