So you’re stuck in BGs? Try this…

I’ve been getting stuck every season right at the bottom of GC, and I’ve been looking for reasons why etc, this season has been a big testing season for me, I’ve been collating results and notes into a spreadsheet, and I wanted to share my key takeaways with you guys.

The Deck

This is the bedrock of battlegrounds success, and as such having the right champs ranked up as high as possible is going to win you more games eventually. Now I’m not here to debate this or the matchmaking system, it’s kinda just a fact and as soon as you accept that the sooner you can start making progress. Does it suck to get matched against a mega whale with 10+ 7* R3s yeah, but that’s just how the game works.

The experiment

What I want to focus on is looking at optimisations everyone can make within their deck, regardless of progress level or size of roster. The way I started this process was by playing 3 games in which my sole objective was to win, and then noting which champions I could draft, which I drafted and most importantly, which champions i was consistently leaving out.
Before each game note down which champions are banned (it’s important to have this information as usually the repeat offenders will be your strongest champions), then note which champions appeared in the draft and who you picked.

The results for me were quite stark.

Most picked:

Kate Bishop
Hulkling
Fant man
Onslaught
Photon
Bullseye

Least picked:

Baron Zemo
Elsa bloodstone
Guardian
Dr Doom
Both deathless KG and Guilly

I then went to analyse those results. Elsa Bloodstone and both Deathless champs are all R1 7*s, so they are naturally disadvantaged by this metric, the solution to this is simply to rank them up

Dr Doom and Zemo are both R5 and ascended, so it wasn’t that they were underpowered. Dr Doom had a bad run, he was banned in one game and then in the other two he was both countered by the opponents attackers and not required as an offensive counter of my own. Zemo came up in the draft between all 3 games 6 times, I only picked him once. This meta in VT isn’t the kindest to him, but his slow burn method of attack is definitely what’s letting him down, unless the next meta favours him more, he may be getting replaced.

Hulk and guardian are the most worrying though, as they’re my only 7* R3s. Hulk is let down by the fact that my science roster is already oversaturated, unduped he has very little defensive presence, and as a result he is never picked. Guardian is let down by the prevalence of shock immunity. Almost all the top defensive threats at the moment are shock immune or resistant, rendering his damage potential almost null. Now these suggest to me that I made poor decisions with my R3 choices, so I would recommend anyone wanting to push in battlegrounds doesn’t do this.

Either way this group existed as more of a control variable. I won each of these games and as such this worked as a good study for my next test.

For the second test I decided to measure champs based on whether or not they won rounds, specifically targeting my highest ranked champs.

To achieve this i would simply pick the highest ranked champions that appeared in my draft (if there were 3 maxed out champs i would pick whichever champ I hadn’t used until that point in order to test their viability)

I managed to win a couple games this way but lost the majority, with the real let downs coming from

Guardian (final round my opponent had 2 shock immune champs in shuri and Hulkling, placed shuri i lost)

Titania (shockingly she was too slow, although I was using her in sub optimal scenarios)

Dr Doom (again slow and no longer a huge defensive threat against champs like silk)

Zemo (shredded in this meta, way too slow on defense)

Now these results are pretty much in line with what I suspected (hence why I wasn’t drafting them) Titania was the only shock on this list but she had a tough run for a couple games. Hulk was also a surprise, he won each round i used him in even in non ideal matchups. Going for L2 rotation is much better for this meta though as the opponent always seems to shrug off the big L3 physical resistance (25% chance I guess)

What will I do now?

Unfortunately I don’t have an account big enough to simply swap Zemo out for another maxed out 6* right now, but my longer term strategy will be to start ranking up champions which perform well in BGs to replace him. I can find out who performs well by watching some YouTube videos etc, this isn’t exactly hidden info. In the short term my champion chasing focus will to be to get a Kindred and a Prowler (or failing that a shocker) all 3 champs i don’t have as either a 6 or 7 star. I’ve started to collate 6* shards for Prowler, and in addition putting together T6 and T5 class catalysts for both mystic and tech. For my next R3 I’ll be looking at the data for my highest performing battlegrounds attackers (currently have my eye on Chavez and Collosus) but that’s going to be a month or more from now when Spring of sorrow finishes up.

As for further tests I will have to start testing the viability of my lower ranked champions (the deathless lot, Elsa bloodstone, HT etc) but I’m currently trying to find a way to do that which doesn’t involve tanking a bunch of games and also gives a fair shot to the lower ranked champions (it’s not fair to measure them based on the same metrics as R3s for starters)

I would recommend this type of testing to just about anyone. Working out which champs you’re not using, analysing why and then testing your hypotheses has been a very useful process for me, and will mean that Hulk really comes back into my radar.

Further notes

Obviously battlegrounds is an evolving game mode built around champions and interactions. The next set of nodes for season 19 are yet to be announced so it would be unwise to rush into rank ups. I will still be ranking up champions for other areas of the game, I don’t think every decision should be made about battlegrounds alone (hence why I was so slow to rank up torch, which itself only really happened because of Spring of Sorrow iron fist)

It’s important to recognise that battlegrounds isn’t the be all end all of the game, and in that way I agree with Jax’s sentiment. But I do think that controversial post seemed to gloss over the fact that the best way of obtaining the highest levels or rewards in this game come from BGs (looking at T6CC, 6* Sig stones and 7*/Titan Shards), and as such pushing up at least through the victory track has become an almost must do for the majority of paragon/valiant players. This post is just to help, and I would like feedback on my methods, methods others have used, any potential statistics or data on which champions feature most on BG decks for example would be very much appreciated. At the end of the day as much as it’s a PvP mode collaboration will allow the maximum number of summoners to reach GC eventually (in theory everyone but one will make it every season remember)