Insane Widowmaker play from Carpe inspires official OWL hype rating

Olivia Richman Published 08/04/2019

The Overwatch League has officially announced a “hype rating” system to identify the past two season’s most exciting team fights.

Created by stats producer Ben Trautman, the system uses the team fight’s total final blows, its duration, amount of ultimates, and if it was in overtime, all as measurements to define the moment’s overall hype factor.

The idea came to Trautman while he watched Philadelphia Fusion’s Jae-Hyeok “Carpe” Lee on Widowmaker during a team fight with Boson Uprising. Carpe took out the enemy Zenyatta, then a Pharah who was in the middle of using her ultimate. He then quickly eliminated Boston Uprising’s Mercy. It was enough to impressively the point for the Fusion.

This moment from Stage 1 got a final hype rating of 19.40, thanks to the team fight resulting in a win, not only for that point, but for the whole map. Then there were the four final blows, three of which were executed in overtime. And then there was Carpe’s ultimate use and its 30-second duration.

But these hype rating factors led to Trautman realizing that this was still not Carpe’s most exciting team fight win.

That moment goes all the way back to the inaugural season playoffs versus New York Excelsior, when the Fusion defeated their long-time rivals on the final overtime team fight on Dorado.

“This is an unusual fight. No teamfight model short of manually noting timestamps can be perfect, and arguments could be made that this was maybe two teamfights smushed together. However, my model determined that there was enough back-and-forth poke throughout the entire 3:30 to call it one blog of teamfight-y goodness,” Trautman noted.

Trautman said Carpe had a huge impact.

While using Tracer, Carpe is able to use three Pulse Bombs, securing a final blow with two of them. This resulted in a hype rating of 22.40 thanks to the five final blows, two of which happened during overtime, and the three ultimates used by Carpe.

Trautman also noted that the hype rating system can be used for very specific questions, like “What was the most hype team fight in Stage 1 of the 2019 season?” According to his statistics and analysis, that would be Shanghai Dragons and Dallas Fuel facing off in week four, which had an insane hype rating of 101.79. This rating was the result of 19 ultimates, 18 overtime final blows, and the fact that the battle decided which team won the map.

But sometimes you don’t need fancy statistics to determine which team fights get you the most hype.

“I distinctly remember needing to walk outside of the broadcast control room after this team fight because we were so exhausted by the end of it. I can’t remember a team fight where it felt so clear which team would win, and then it didn’t, and then it did – repeated 10 times,” Trautman recalled.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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