Analysis on QG Swift’s Ganking Priority and Success

This analysis is focused on Swift, the jungler for QG. Swift is more known as a carry jungler who will take over games if given the chance. QG’s mid laner Doinb is a more supportive mid laner with his top 2 picks being Lulu and Morgana. Their top laner V is strong and their ADC TnT can carry games alongside Swift.  Going into this analysis the hypothesis is Swift will focus on TnT and V over Doinb. TcT, also known as Mor from LMQ, is the support who will not hesitate to get involved in engages. This will help Swift with ganks bot lane. So now that you have a small background on some of the players, let’s get started.

Side Note: I include all the games QG has played this split so far EXCEPT the snake series since the VODS are poor quality (big time skips).

Overall Gank Priority

ADC>Top>Mid>Jungle

Swift will prioritize his ADC first at 32%, next his top laner at 26.67%, then his mid laner at 24%, and finally the jungle at 17.33%. The physical location gank priority is set at bot lane for 30.67%, top lane for 28%, mid lane for 24%, and jungle for 17.33%. This goes along with our hypothesis on who Swift will prioritize. TnT will aggress hard and if you watch him he will make some crazy plays on his own. Another reason for an increase in duo lane priority is due to QG being in lane swap scenarios often. QG lane swaps 30.77% of the time, the opposition will lane swap 19.23% of the time against QG, and both teams will lane swap 15.38% of the time. If we add this all up QG is involved in lane swaps 65.38% of the time. Lane swaps allow for four man tower dives, supports roaming more, cheese ganks in the mid lane, and overall in lane swaps the action is typically focused in the side lanes. This would also explain why the bot and top lane physical location priority is higher. V and Doinb get relatively the same amount of priority, which may seem a bit surprising at first since Doinb will play primarily supportive champions, but I never said Doinb never plays carries or doesn’t carry on the support champions he plays. Doinb will be a lane bully with his Lulu and if he gets ganks he can increase the power of his shields and other buffs for TnT. Also, mid lane is left alone more often in lane swap scenarios till the duo swaps back to bot lane which makes sense on the lower mid lane priority. Finally, there is a set amount of priority for jungle ganks. If I were to compare this to SKT T1 QG has the same priority in jungle ganks, but is more balanced overall in their distribution in lane ganks. SKT T1 is primarily focused on mid and top with a very low percentage in ADC (5.26%), but QG has a whopping 30.67% for ADC. SKT T1 also only lane swapped 5 out of the 16 games I analyzed for them which means 31.25% of their games involved lane swaps versus QG’s 65.38%, another reason why QG prioritized ADC more often. CLG would be closer towards what gank priority QG has. However, the difference is Swift is a carry jungler along with QG having better micro and macro play which makes them a stronger team.

Specific Gank Priorities and Timings

1^st Gank: ADC > Top > Mid = Jungle

Average Timing: 6:02

For the first gank Swift will gank for TnT 33.33% of the time, for V 25% of the time, and in the jungle and for Doinb 20.83%. Swift’s typical first gank is a bit later in the game. It is not as early as Bengi’s first gank, but I also have 11 more games of data for Swift so his is more accurate. Swift will prioritize TnT first in the first gank. Then V is just a bit lower and finally Doinb is last. These percentages aren’t too far apart to give a clear idea on where Swift will gank. This means Swift is harder to predict where exactly he will go first on a statistical stand point. Even though the meta is more top focused QG won’t hesitate to get TnT ahead and sometimes pay for trying to focus on their ADC.

2^nd Gank: ADC = V > Mid > Jungle

Average Timing: 8:27

For the second gank Swift will gank for TnT and V 28.57% of the time, for Doinb 23.81% of the time, and in the jungle 19.05% of the time.  QG still has a mix of priority for their second gank. Swift will sometimes prioritize getting V ahead over dragon. Other times Swift will prioritize pressuring the enemy duo lane to back so QG can take dragon. These percentages still make it hard to guess exactly what Swift will do unlike Bengi who had a 57.14% chance of ganking mid for his second gank.

3^rd Gank: ADC > Mid > Top > Jungle

Average Timing: 10:13

For the third gank Swift will gank for TnT 40% of the time, for Doinb 33.33% of the time, for V 20% of the time, and in the jungle 6.67% of the time. More emphasis is put on the duo lane and mid lane now. 1^st dragon occurs around this time along with the duo lane rotating to the bot lane. This puts more emphasis to gank for the duo lane and mid lane in order to get a dragon or another tier 1 tower.

4^th Gank: Top = ADC > Mid = Jungle

Average Timing: 11:18

For the fourth gank Swift will gank for TnT and V 30% of the time and for Doinb and in the jungle 20% of the time. 1^st dragon is usually already done by now and the team is waiting for 2^nd dragon, which makes ganking for V a higher priority again. Jungle ganks also increase since more deep wards will be present, which allows more information to set up these types of ganks.

Overall Success Rates

The success rate for securing a kill it is 54.67%, for just forcing a summoner it is 14.67%, for just applying pressure it is 25.33%, for doing nothing it is 5.33%, and the chance a QG member dies is 21.33%. Having a kill percentage above 50% is good. QG will typically apply pressure over forcing a summoner with a fifth of the ganks leading to deaths. These numbers aren’t the worst since blowing summoners can be difficult on lanes that have disengage spells and it’s always easy to apply pressure from ganks. If you compare this towards Bengi’s success rates these numbers are extremely close for each category. Swift has essentially the same success rate as Bengi. However, it’s important to note how QG doesn’t have a Faker and QG is involved in far more lane swaps compared towards SKT T1.

Overall Specific Success Rates

Mid

The success rate for securing a kill it is 50%, for just forcing a summoner it is 33.33%, for just applying pressure it is 5.56%, for doing nothing it is 11.11%, and the chance a QG member dies is 33.33%. The success rate is pretty good in mid lane if we include forcing a summoner, which results in 83.33% of a kill or summoner blown. The kill percentage is only 50% mainly due to Doinb playing mid laners that don’t follow up on ganks as well and Doinb will sometimes over aggress in lane. The problem is the high chance of a QG member dying. Having a third of your mid ganks leading to deaths can cause gold deficits early on. One cause from this can be the increased traffic in mid lane due to supports roaming and top lane teleports. More people involved usually means there is a higher chance for someone to die, even if QG gets a 2 for 1 they still lose someone.

Top

The success rate for securing a kill it is 45%, for just forcing a summoner it is 25%, for just applying pressure it is 20%, for doing nothing it is 10%, and the chance a QG member dies is 10%. The success rate for V is average. Having under 50% chance to get a kill isn’t very good. Instead, more pressure is applied and there is even a chance for nothing to happen. One reason can be the large amount of lane swaps force the top laner to be more difficult to gank for in 2v1 situations. This would make the pressure sense more understandable along with the chance for nothing to happen since the number advantage may be in the opponent’s hands.

ADC

The success rate for securing a kill it is 75%, for just forcing a summoner it is 12.50%, for just applying pressure it is 12.50%, for doing nothing it is 0%, and the chance a QG member dies is 16.67%. Just looking at these success rates shows why ganking for TnT is a good choice. Most of these ganks lead to a kill. None of them result in nothing being done and is the second lowest death percentage out of the 4 gank possibilities. What makes ganking for TnT so successful is TcT, the support player. TcT is great at engaging and can set up ganks for Swift. Don’t forget with the high number of lane swaps this means V may join in ganking for the duo lane which creates bigger number advantages.

Jungle

The success rate for securing a kill it is 46.15%, for just forcing a summoner it is 38.46%, for just applying pressure it is 15.38%, for doing nothing it is 0%, and the chance a QG member dies is 23.08%. These numbers are actually good in the sense that if we combine the kill and summoner blown percentage it yields to 84.61%. There is no chance for nothing to be done with a reasonable death percentage. I say reasonable since these are jungle ganks where sometimes they don’t know fully where everyone is. These fights can end up into team fights which result in a player or two dying.

Average Ganks, Gold earned, Jungle Choices, and Champion Pool

Gold Deficit at 15 minutes

QG overall doesn’t have the best early game with Doinb going far too aggressive at times and Swift being too passive early on. These early game problems have led to QG having an average gold deficit of     -84.6154 at 15 minutes. Now, 84 gold isn’t a massive amount to be behind, but if you are going into the mid game behind or even then it makes team fights harder. Fewer mistakes can be made or else the enemy will snowball even harder. I would also like to add that some people may question how QG can have a negative gold deficit when they are at the top of the standings in LPL. QG plays the mid game well and snowballs their mid game to finish their opponent. There are several occurrences where QG is behind at 15 minutes and then just only 6 minutes later they have secured three or four kills.

Average Ganks

Another stat to go over is Swift on average ganks 2.885 per a game or close to 3 ganks a game. This number is a bit lower than Bengi and there are games where Swift ganked zero times for the first 15 minutes. The one thing to note though is in the grand scheme of the game Swift plays a more important role versus Bengi. Bengi can be seen as a jungler whose job is to help his team out and not die. He isn’t the player on SKT T1 to make the big plays. Swift can make those big plays though. Also, we have to take note that sometimes Swift wouldn’t gank at all due to applying pressure to the map while his team takes tower after tower in lane swap scenarios. Example of this would be QG vs IG game 2.  

Jungle Camp Gold

The next stats to go over are the average invades and camps done. The average number of invades and enemy camps taken are 1.769 per a game. Swift won’t invade and steal camps as much as Bengi will in games. As I mentioned, QG doesn’t have the best or consistent early game in order for Swift to take camps more liberally as Bengi. The average number of camps Swift will take before his first recall is 5.15385 which net him 402 gold. After he comes back with his improved jungle item he averages 11.1538 camps which net him 1037 gold. The average number of scuttles Swift takes is 1.07692 which nets him 78.0767 gold. Finally, the average number of blue buffs gifted is 1.46154 which nets him 58 gold. Just as a note, I factor in machete gold for the first recall, improved jungle item for the camps after the first back, and 40 gold per a blue buff gifted. Add all these values up and Swift gains 1551 gold on average from jungle camps and scuttle crabs by the 15 minute mark. I didn’t include the gold taken away from top laners when they double jungle though since this value is harder to calculate. We could probably take away around 25 gold from Swift’s average gold gain to represent what he earns. This is roughly an average amount of gold earned. A heavy farming jungler would have more upwards to 2000 gold. The cost of heavy farming is pressure and possibly losing control of the game before your jungler is done farming. If you noticed, the blue buffs gifted aren’t exactly 2. This is due to blue buffs being gifted later in the game where the second gifted blue buff happens after 15 minutes. Another cause is the enemy stealing QG’s blue buff.

Ganking Choices

Swift on average will double jungle with V 50% of the time and the other 50% he won’t. As I mentioned before, QG lane swaps 30.77% of the time, their opposition will lane swap 19.23%, and both teams will lane swap 15.38%. The most important ones to look at for double jungling are the individual lane swaps. If we add up 30.77% and 19.23% it equates to 50%, which matches the 50% for double jungling. So if QG gets standard lanes with 2v2 then Swift is jungling on his own before his first back.  

Swift will start on his weak side for jungling 57.69% of the time and on his strong side 42.31% of the time. For those who are wondering what weak and strong side are strong side is where you start on the jungle side where your duo lane will be and weak side is where your top laner would be. Starting on his weak side means he is prone towards early invades, but when he moves onto his strong side it will be safer. Junglers will also almost always start on their weak side when involved in a lane swap. This allows for the jungle to rotate towards the 2v1 lane and either push the lane, dive a player under the turret, or push off the enemy opposition to deny creeps. Another reason to start on weak side is if you want to avoid running into the enemy jungler early on because the match-up is in their favor.

Champion Pool

Last thing I want to go over is Swift’s champion pool. Out of the 26 games I analyzed Swift played Rek’sai 26.92% of the games, Sejuani 11.54% of the games, Gragas and Ekko for 23.08% each of the games, and Nidalee and Nocturne 7.69% each of the games. Swift and QG show a clear favorite towards Gragas and Rek’sai which are top tier picks and Ekko jungle as the most recent pick up. Sejuani is still a strong engage jungler along with the occasional Nidalee and pocket pick Nocturne. Banning out Swift won’t work really.   

Conclusion

Looking at these stats I would say Swift isn’t the most dominant early game jungler. With so many lane swaps it can be hard at times to gauge his full potential based off stats. Sometimes the team can completely lose the early game just off the lane swap and makes the opportunity for ganks less. However, when the team needs clutch engages or plays Swift can be counted on. QG also makes strong pushes in the mid and late game, which allows them to make up for their early game at times. We will have to wait to see over the next couple weeks if QG can improve their early game and if not by then if they can fix it during play offs. 

Credits towards lolesports for VODS and the picture.