In a world where amazing Widowmaker headshots are immediately negated by Mercy’s Resurrect, professional Overwatch teams surprisingly have still found a way to transition the first kill of a team fight to a total and overall win, on average.

If we look at some of the historical data from APEX Season 4, which was before the Mercy change, compare that to APAC and Overwatch League where the Mercy change has dominated the metagame, we can see a small, but understandable decline of the correlation between the first kill and teamfight wins.

During APEX Season 4, if you scored the first kill in a team fight you won 78.26% of your fights, on average. During APAC Premier 2017, if you scored the first kill in a team fight you won 75.92% of your fights, on average. And in the Overwatch League, if you scored the first kill in a team fight you will win 74.29% of your fights, on average.

Overall, since the end of APEX Season 4, there has been roughly a 4% drop in conversion of first kills into teamfight wins. One of the major source of this is easily Mercy and the way teams are forced to play around her in this day and age. Revisiting the introduction, having a Widowmaker’s hard work erased or having a Genji’s Dragon Blade deleted, teams have had to learn to work around Mercy’s Resurrection and her ultimate ability; Valkyrie.

According to Winston’s Lab, teams like the London Spitfire and the Seoul Dynasty find their way through the Resurrection swamp with little resistance. To set the tone and reiterate again, the average percentage of fights that a team scores the first kill, across the whole over Overwatch League Weeks 1 and 2, is 50%. The average team fight win percentage once you do score the first blood, across the Overwatch League Weeks 1 and 2, is 74.29%.

The motto for the British Special Air Service (SAS) seems to slot nicely within the regal nature that the London Spitfire have established for themselves. In 58% of their teamfight within weeks 1 and 2, London managed to score first blood. They also managed to convert 89.12% of those first kills into teamfight wins. Crisp decision making from their London’s star DPS players, Ji-hyuk "birdring" Kim, Dong-jun "Rascal" Kim, and Joon-yeong "Profit" Park could be the culprit to how effective they are in converting first kills to team fight wins. London has some of the highest conversion rates in the Overwatch League so far (pulled from the data spanning from Week 1 and 2).

What’s interesting when you look at some of Winston’s Lab’s statistics is not only do the DPS chime in with a large amount of first kills under their belt, but their support player Seung-tae "Bdosin" Choi clocks in with an impressive 12.4% of his teams first kills on Zenyatta. To put that in perspective, the average first kills for a Zenyatta during Overwatch League is 5.9%. Bdosin crushes the mold set by his support brethren and is +110% above the average.

As for the team many pundits consider the best team in the league, the Seoul Dynasty clock in behind London with a respective conversion ratio. In 54.31% of Seoul’s fights, they score the first kill. They take that “first blood” lead and transition it into a team fight win rate of 80.69%. Again, we see a team that is scoring a good majority of first kills and transitioning that lead into a dominating teamfight win rate. The core of the Seoul team comes from the legendary South Korean team, Lunatic-Hai, who were the first and only team to win back-to-back OGN Overwatch APEX titles in season 2 and 3. Their pre-established teamwork married with some of the best talent, in and off the server, are where I believe the Seoul can find the source for such amazing statistics.

An interesting team that has actually scored the highest percentage of first kills is surprisingly the Houston Outlaws. In 60.65% of Houston’s team fights, they score the first kill and that converts into a shocking low 78.63% team fight win rate off of the first kill. This could be from their early experimentation with their roster and finding the identity of their Tracer player. Now that they seemingly have settled in on Finnish DPS player, Jiri "LiNkzr" Masalin.

These “first blood” statistics help to paint a picture and by no mean do they paint the entire picture. They help to illustrate how important things like first kills are and they help to explain their context to better server the Overwatch community at large because, let’s face it, the game is getting easier and easier to understand, but Overwatch still faces some adversity when it comes to the viewing experience. Overwatch is a very information dense game and providing metrics like “first blood” helps viewers in judging the game.

Understanding what it means to score the first kill and how that may or may not transition into the preceding team fight can help fans and viewers alike in boiling down the game which could help with a better understanding of the preverbal “world around them.”

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLG’s of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment and @tempusrob

Statistics provided by Winston’s Lab.