MMR is not created equally. In RD2L, it is accepted that high mmr cores are worth more than high mmr supports. What if we drafted with a strategy that maximizes the mmrs of our cores? With rd2l’s new mmr floor, worrying about having to pick a 100-mmr player is a thing of the past.
Here’s what the current PST-Sun player pool looks like, not including captains:
Surprisingly, even with the mmr floor, the lower end of the pool still ‘falls off’ instead of continuing linearly. (I did assign the 3 non-calibrated players to the lowest mmr in the pool.)
Let’s say our captains are core players, and decide to maximize the value of their first two picks. Let’s assume all the higher mmr players are core players. Let’s say captains follow a strategy of taking the highest mmr available. Here’s what the initial captain list looks like, from lowest to highest. Between the lowest (toth) and highest (ultragunner), there is a difference of “23 badges.”
After 1 pick, you really cannot stop the highest mmrs from having the best “top-two.”
After two rounds, it’s clear that you cannot stop the high mmr captains from having the best “top 3.” There isn’t much any captain could unilaterally do differently to significantly improve his position after two rounds. There is now a difference of “9 badges” between the highest and lowest.
Having maximized our first two picks, let’s continue with the “pick highest available” strategy.
After three rounds using the “pick highest available” strategy, the teams are starting to become more even. Other than the highest captains, everyone is within 1-2 badges. Highest and lowest have a difference of 4.7. Look what happens in the fourth round:
After 3 picks, the teams were more or less even, but the remaining player pool is not equivalently even. After the last pick, the difference between the highest and lowest grows to 6.3, and the team rankings reverse.
We made an unrealistic assumption and didn’t include high mmr supports. Let’s say we put them back in.
If everyone still drafts core players first (because we believe core players are more important and “worth their mmr”), then in the 3rd round, the lower teams (which are mostly lower captains still) will get the first pickings of high mmr supports.
Let’s say the highest mmr captains break ranks, and pick the high mmr supports that others left behind. Since they get to take a pick every round, even if they go last, they could build up an mmr lead that will remain through to the end. This is especially true since we have no 100 mmr players now.
If you found this interesting or helpful, then I’d like to take payment. I’d like to know your Hogwarts house. You can do the sorting hat test at https://my.wizardingworld.com/sorting-hat after logging in. It takes about 5 minutes.
Feel free to join my discord too https://discord.gg/M8wVpJh and I’ll tag your house.
Good luck everyone.
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