Hard truth: One-tricks boost your win rate

General Discussion
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The topic of one-tricks is often a hot controversial subject, with everyone usually hating on that one guy who refuses to switch because all he ever does is play Torbjörn/Symmetra.

But did you know that bad players actually increase your win rate?

When you calculate your actual win rate, you don’t just take a few games as example—you take all your games into account. The hundreds of games you’ve played.

In all your games, do you know what the biggest variable is? It’s you! :facepunch:

You’re always the main difference in all of your games. You’re always the one who makes the biggest impact on your win rate.

Here’s how it works:

In all your games, there are 11 slots the “bad one-trick” can take up. 5 on your team, and 6 on the enemy. Which means, one-tricks are more likely to be your enemy than your ally. You only notice them when they’re on your team, but you actually play against them more often than you realize!

You might be saying, “But that doesn’t excuse one-tricking.” To which there’s another important lesson.

Learning how to play with bad allies is a part of playing well.

The fact is, you’re gonna get them no matter what. It’s just how random matchmaking work. There’s no system in gaming history that has ever been able to consistently put together equally leveled players.

So even if you removed one-tricks from the equation, it’d just be someone else that would throw your game. And chances are, they already do that.

How do you deal with it? How do you deal with allies who throw the game? :weary:

You accept that not every game can be won. That might sound… depressing, but hear me out!

Instead of focusing on winning, focus on what you could be improving on! Don’t join games with the assumption you’re gonna win, join them with the intend of learning and improving.

This will improve the main variable in your games—your own skill.

Remember that even amazing players still only sit around 60% overall win rate on the larger scope of things. But if you want to get there, you have to get better at doing the things that can make you play better—like headshotting that annoying Pharah faster.

The TL;DR :+1:

  • Because one-tricks appear more often as your enemy, they make you win more often than they make you lose.

  • Playing with bad players is part of playing a team game.

  • Instead of focusing on bad allies, focus on how you can get better at the game and you’ll improve much faster.

55 Likes
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I mean the problem isn’t a long-term one. People don’t look at their hundreds of comp games and go “yeah, the enemy having easy to counter OTP’s boosted my overall win-rate by a few %”. They go, “well, we lost this game because we had a Torbjorn/Doomfist/Hanzo/Symmetra who were utterly and ridiculously countered and refused to swap”.

In the long term, for me at least, disconnects or ragequits aren’t a huge problem. I think I’ve maybe lost a handful of games because of it, and won just as many when it happens to the enemy. But at the same time, it still feels REALLY bad to have it happen to you.

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Couldn’t agree more

:clap::clap::clap:

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You WILL fail. But those that think critically on how to perform better next time instead of looking for another to blame is going to rise above the rest. And it extends far beyond a game of overwatch.

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But what if you have two one-tricks team up? (Here’s looking at you PSN Torb/Sym Smurfs)

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a stack of two has 3 slots on the enemy team and 2 on yours, a stack of 3 has 2 slots on the enemy team and 1 on yours, a stack of 4 is the majority of the team so at that point who cares.

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I love this post so much, its a proof by contradiction that one tricks aren’t the reason people can’t climb. but those same people are probably about to flame me now so LUL

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Yea boiii I’m about to roast you! One Tricks are a huge defining reason of why people can’t climb, if you run into them quite often.

in a team based game all it takes is that one pick you’ve taken from getting countered by the whole team to lose EVERY team fight.

Prime example was from a comp game I had yesterday. The team already knew the two stack from the other team and we ran Dive for the Torb/Sym smurf. The stage was watchpoint and I dove their Torb so hard and won 5/6 1v1’s on attack just because of how easy I could melt him. That left Sym to try and back line flank our healers which I was able to fly back to the payload and wreck sym or uppercut her off our healers. They got countered hard, and the only reason why we won is just how easy it was for me and to Pick them while Winston took care of turrets and harassed their only healer. They eventually switched on attack with a minute left and did SOOOO much better it was like we were playing a different team. It forced me off Doomfist on defense and I went Reaper.

So yes, if you are running into 1 tricks, especially bad ones, in your games it can be the defining reason why you can’t climb.

1 Like
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d-did you not read the original post? it explained mathematically why this isn’t true. not with some anecdote with a sample size of one.

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I did i thought i edited sorry.

What i meant to say if the one tricks are consistently on your team then they will be the reason you dont climb.

I lost my GM and slowly but surly fell deeper into elo hell due to one tricks and smurfs. I got a one trick torb smurf twice on my team then a one trick sym smurf, all three games we ended up losing. So from my experiences yes they will hinder you.

I almost never play against the one tricks.

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most onetricks I know win more than they lose, so it seems unlucky that everytime you get on their tea you lose :thinking:

you probably just don’t notice.

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Well to climb a one trick smurf you have to, but not everyone is willing to build around the one tricks.

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This is assuming that people can play enough games, and maintain the same level of performance throughout. Tilt and fatigue easily destroy any statistical gains from having more onetricks on the other team.

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at that point it’s not the onetrick’s fault you aren’t climbing, that’s what we call scapegoating

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Never complained about climbing; personally I don’t bother to play comp without a stack. You’re right in that it is 100% scapegoating but the end result is that having more onetricks on the other team does not result in more wins or people would be climbing instead of complaining.

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That is the exact thing that people need to stop telling themselves. Everyone will think that it is never their fault that they can’t climb. But the truth is, if you actually spend the time to reflect and improve rather than blaming everything else, you will become better, even as a person.
You can’t prevent people from trolling your games. It is the mindset that sets people on the path of doom.
In my region, there are only a handful of grandmasters. When you do reach GM, what matchmaking does is to ensure that you will have 5 plats/diamonds in your team vs a full team of masters. And yes, this is what it takes to be a solo queue GM in my region. But instead of complaining about the system, we overcome it by actually becoming so good that we can carry a team of plats/diamonds against the odds.
The same logic applies to everything in life.

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Great job creating this post. It’s nicely stylized and well formatted to be concise and readable.

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Thats not a mindset that’s a fact.

The difference between a carry with GM/Plat and a GM/GM is that on that level everyone knows their job pretty well. One weak link will crumble a whole team and a solo carry is extremely difficult unless you build hard around that carry, but the smurf one tricks are the ones you have to build around and majority of the time they arent the carry.

You can be as hopeful as you like (Trust me im one of the most optomistic people out) but when everyone is playing on or around the same level one character being heavily countered makes a huge impact. Ive had an easier time carrying Diamonds at GM (as long as they dont autolock dps) vs masters than trying to carry a high master/GM smurf vs GMs

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Well, starting from tomorrow they’ll be boosting each other’s winrates as they’ll be avoided as teammates by everyone

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or just do what i do and stop trying so damn hard and play for fun, after all, it is just a video game