Dota 2 BTS Pro Series 9 - Southeast Asia - Group Stage Simulation

Parallel to their Americas tournament, in the wake of The International 10, BTS has invited nine teams from Southeast Asia to face off for a $60,000 prize pool. I simulated the group stage of this tournament to see how each team stacks up.

Here are the overall win-loss expectations, but keep reading for the full analysis:

Group stage rules

In the group stage, each team plays each other team in a best-of-two match (aka a double round robin). Placement is determined by overall record. The top four teams advance to the upper bracket of the playoffs, the next four teams advance to the lower bracket, and the ninth place team is eliminated.

In the case of tiebreakers, the following rules are applied in order, until ties are broken:

• Head-to-head result of tied teams is used
• Nuestadtl score - score of teams that you've beaten 2-0 plus half the score of teams you've tied 1-1
• Comparative results against each team in rank order
• Tiebreaker games as determined by administration

The teams

Here are the nine teams at this tournament, all directly invited:

• Nigma Galaxy SEA
• Yangon Galacticos
• Execration
• Motivate.Trust Gaming
• Polaris Esports
• BOOM Esports
• Army Geniuses
• OB Esports x Neon
• Omega Esports

Simulations

Matchups

First, I needed to simulate each head-to-head matchup, to see how teams perform against each other:

BOOM Esports look absolutely dominant, with highly favorable matchups against every other team (and as high as 92% against the weakest team in the group). Omega literally don't have a single matchup that puts them at above 30% to win, which is going to be quite the struggle.

Expected records

I simulated the double round robin 50000 times, assuming each team played as both Radiant and Dire in each matchup. After 16 games played by each team, here was each team's average win-loss record:

BOOM are expected to win 12 of their 16 games, with a pretty wide margin to any other team. Omega, outclassed by every single other team, still have a chance for a scattering of upsets.

From these simulations, I can also generate distributions of possible records for each team:

Which leads to the most likely record for each team (though not necessarily the most likely total outcome, as these are just individual most likely outcomes and may be mutually exclusive):

Expected placement

In each simulation, applying tiebreaker rules as necessary, I can get each team's final placement in the group stage, which is what ultimately determines their fate. What really matters is how likely each team is to be in the top four (to go to the upper bracket) or top eight (to not get eliminated).

Top 4:

BOOM have a 96% chance of placing in the top four, which is probably the highest probability of such a finish that we've seen yet in any simulation. Motivate.Trust Gaming and Polaris Esports both have quite high chances as well, and no other team comes close. OB Esports x Neon, Nigma Galaxy SEA, and Execration will most likely be fighting for the last upper bracket spot.

Top 8:

Across 50000 simulations, BOOM did not get eliminated from groups a single time. Omega, meanwhile, have a 74% chance to get eliminated, so things are really not looking great for them. There's some small chance that Army Geniuses or Yangon Galacticos mess up more than Omega do, but odds are looking pretty slim.

And of course, distributions for placements as well:

Final thoughts

This group has one of the widest spreads in team quality that I've seen in various tournament predictions so far. BOOM are almost certain to take first place, with a 55% chance to do so, while Omega are almost certain to take last.

Some of the middle spots are up for grabs, and starting in the upper bracket is a huge boon, but ultimately any team would still eventually have to face BOOM in the playoffs anyway, so it may not make much of a difference in the final outcome. However, a deep run still grants prestige and some money (second place takes home $13,800).

Motivate.Trust and Polaris are the two next best teams, but fourth place will be hotly contested.

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