The Strategy of Losing in GAC
March 11, 2022 1:05AM
edited March 2022
I often read that falling down the ladder to win more afterwards is a valid strategy in GAC. Let’s crunch some (rough) numbers. I only take into account crystals and not gear/zetas/slicing because I don’t care THAT much to put the extra effort into it.
To keep it simple, let’s compare 2 players over the course of 2 GACs.
Player A plays “normally”. She is at the highest div she could and 50/50 her way around gac. In 4 events she 0-3, 1-2, 2-1 and 3-0. Considering end of event rewards, that’s 100+250+500+750 = 1600 crystals for each gac, so 3200 crystals. Let’s say 3100 if she’s only able to win one event out of 8 and only do 1-2 and 2-1 the second gac.
Player B lose on purpose during first GAC to fall down the ladder, in order to be able to get 1st place in every event next GAC. 1st GAC: 4 last place so 100x4 = 400 crystals, second GAC: 4 first place so 750x4=3000 crystals, for a total of 3400 crystals. They both 50-50, so crystals received for winning/losing are the same.
Well played player B, you got an extra 300 Crystals.
However,
It changes if you need to go down a division to be able to pull it off. Depending on where you are, you can lose 5, 10 or 20 crystals daily if you go down a division. As Player B will stay 35 days every 2 gac in a lower division, she will lose 35x5= 175 or 35x10=350 or 35x20= 700 crystals during the course of 2 GAC.
So can this strategy works? On paper, yes. A few things though:
1) It will work all the time if you're able to pull it off in “your” division (barring what is described in 5) ), because you won’t lose daily rewards You’ll gain 300 crystals every 2 GAC.
2) If you need to go lower than 1 division, it will never work.
3) If you need to go down 1 division, it won’t work in Kyber nor in Aurodium. You gain 300 crystals but you’ll lose at minimum 350 crystals from daily rewards.
4) If you need to go down 1 division and are below Aurodium, you’ll gain 300-175= 125 crystals every 2 GAC.
5) It won’t work if other players use this strategy and you meet them during your “going up” campaign, preventing you to get those 1st places. It should be especially true with the 'stay within your division' strategy because of players following this strat packing at the bottom of divisions.
6) You need to lose crystals before you'll gain crystals. Counting the crystals for defeats, that's a lot of crystals that are delayed to the second GAC. It means you'll be late in the "improve your roster" race, which could hurt you in gac.
Conclusion: There is a case for this strategy to work in 2 situations: I) if you have a little wiggle room in your division. You know you can’t go higher, because you tried. The risk is not being able to go back up because the players below you are better than you thought, and eventually going down a division. II) below Aurodium. It’s risky because it won’t work if you meet other players who do it and you’ll only gain about 125 crystals every 2 gacs, so about 63 crystals per 5 weeeks. Not sure the gain outweighs the risk.
TL;DR: there is a risk involved so I don’t think it’s worth it, but under specific circumstances, the Strategy of Losing could work for a gain of about 60 crystals to 150 crystals a month.
To keep it simple, let’s compare 2 players over the course of 2 GACs.
Player A plays “normally”. She is at the highest div she could and 50/50 her way around gac. In 4 events she 0-3, 1-2, 2-1 and 3-0. Considering end of event rewards, that’s 100+250+500+750 = 1600 crystals for each gac, so 3200 crystals. Let’s say 3100 if she’s only able to win one event out of 8 and only do 1-2 and 2-1 the second gac.
Player B lose on purpose during first GAC to fall down the ladder, in order to be able to get 1st place in every event next GAC. 1st GAC: 4 last place so 100x4 = 400 crystals, second GAC: 4 first place so 750x4=3000 crystals, for a total of 3400 crystals. They both 50-50, so crystals received for winning/losing are the same.
Well played player B, you got an extra 300 Crystals.
However,
It changes if you need to go down a division to be able to pull it off. Depending on where you are, you can lose 5, 10 or 20 crystals daily if you go down a division. As Player B will stay 35 days every 2 gac in a lower division, she will lose 35x5= 175 or 35x10=350 or 35x20= 700 crystals during the course of 2 GAC.
So can this strategy works? On paper, yes. A few things though:
1) It will work all the time if you're able to pull it off in “your” division (barring what is described in 5) ), because you won’t lose daily rewards You’ll gain 300 crystals every 2 GAC.
2) If you need to go lower than 1 division, it will never work.
3) If you need to go down 1 division, it won’t work in Kyber nor in Aurodium. You gain 300 crystals but you’ll lose at minimum 350 crystals from daily rewards.
4) If you need to go down 1 division and are below Aurodium, you’ll gain 300-175= 125 crystals every 2 GAC.
5) It won’t work if other players use this strategy and you meet them during your “going up” campaign, preventing you to get those 1st places. It should be especially true with the 'stay within your division' strategy because of players following this strat packing at the bottom of divisions.
6) You need to lose crystals before you'll gain crystals. Counting the crystals for defeats, that's a lot of crystals that are delayed to the second GAC. It means you'll be late in the "improve your roster" race, which could hurt you in gac.
Conclusion: There is a case for this strategy to work in 2 situations: I) if you have a little wiggle room in your division. You know you can’t go higher, because you tried. The risk is not being able to go back up because the players below you are better than you thought, and eventually going down a division. II) below Aurodium. It’s risky because it won’t work if you meet other players who do it and you’ll only gain about 125 crystals every 2 gacs, so about 63 crystals per 5 weeeks. Not sure the gain outweighs the risk.
TL;DR: there is a risk involved so I don’t think it’s worth it, but under specific circumstances, the Strategy of Losing could work for a gain of about 60 crystals to 150 crystals a month.
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Replies
Interesting to see some numbers, thanks.
Yep, said that already. How is that working for you ? Do you manage to 3-0 every time you want it ? Are you in k1 without a higher division to reach, sitting in the center of the division ?
you can always lose when you want to. Not true on the flip side.
The other bit of arrogance is assuming you can not put in any effort 50% of the time while maintaining a high enough skill level to go 3-0 on demand. The game is constantly evolving. Even the hopeless match up gives an opportunity to improve tactics, try out new counters, and hone defense set ups. In a way, it’s the perfect time to take risks since the outcome is likely an “L” either way.
Putting such a large portion of crystal income into a concentrated PvP mode like this was a bad move. It's even worse for players who enjoy the PvE and collaboration modes more. I'm not saying moving crystals out of arena was a bad move. I think it was a good move even if most shard groups were inclusive. I think they should have spread crystal income throughout the game and should've punished players less for a loss. Now players have far less opportunity to gain those crystals. They could easily grab a top spot in arena every day with less time sink. They've got 12 opportunities per GAC season now.
We all should just call this what it is. It's a desperate attempt to turn out more whales and money spenders.
Nothing you said was true.
I have been successfully getting 1 3-0 and 1 0-3 in each season so far. Not able to and didn’t want to get another 3-0 once I got some extra win. I usually try to go 3-0, 3-0 and then it is easy to lose next 6. I don’t want to lose 6 first and not being able to get 6-0 in the next:) But usually I only get 3-0 and 2-1, then I will try to win 1-2 in third and lose all in the final bracket.
I am safely in the upper half of K1, so it makes a lot of sense to do this.
I also offer to lose if my opponents are in an ally guild and they want to win. Lol
You don’t lose any crystals if average win rate is 50% in the long run. But achieving 50% win rate with more 0-3 and 3-0 will have higher income that a bunch of 2-1 and 1-2. The lower bound of crystals income for 50% when doing 2-1 and 1-2 only is 1500, and upper bound is 1700 for 2x 3-0 and 0-3. It is not a lot of crystals, whales certainly don’t care. But for me f2p, it can add up slowly
I do max sim, and I also intentionally not play the best once I hit 6 wins in a season. I keep GL in the bench and test soft counter etc:)
Cool. I collect pokemon.
That doesn't mean that you're not leaving crystals on the table. You're driving 40 in a 45 zone and calling it speeding.
Everything you said is true. I wanted to pick up on 1 or 2 points but..........meh just not worth it.
Probably some do. Or at least you could, but the governing body might notice. You have to play a certain amount of events per year to maintain your FIDE rating, and the amount your rating goes up or down per match is modified by a “development” coefficient related to the number of matches you play and the rating difference between you and your op.
The chess analogy breaks down quickly for GAC tho (as pointed out by APGAINS in a recent vid). The mismatches low level GA folks see are not “me against Gary Kasparov”, they are “me against the guy next door, but he has 10 rooks, 20, knights, and 5 queens and I have a normal set”.
Did you try to play 'normally' first ? You may lose crystals from extra wins you could get by going higher in the ladder...
...but once you reached your ceiling, if you consider 6 losses per gac on average, the more 0-3 events the more crystals you'll get at the end. Not a lot and i'd rather do the best I can tbh, but the fact that you could gain something by losing on purpose is there, even if it might be anecdotal considering what's needed.
Yeah. I play normally to hit 6 wins first, and then start to play casually. In the last few season, I usually get to 6 win with 1 loss. I end up getting 8-4 and 7-5 in those seasons with a 0-3 in the last one.
Unless I can keep winning record without moving up rank, sooner or later I will get to my equilibrium rating range. So I don’t lose any extra crystals by climbing the ladder, I just delay it. The caveat is that if I can climb into top 50 and stay there with a winning record, then, I might want to play harder. But for a 100% pure f2p, I thought that’s mission impossible. Maybe I will just gradually climb up to see what is possible.
So you started really good, then less and less good to even things out. seems like the system worked fine.
I have a hard time believing this is by your design, and not the ladder system.
It is kinda by design as I know I intentionally lose some matches to whoever in my ally guilds, and I test soft counter and putting my GLs in bench not even using it in the second half of a season so it will help my matchmaking next season so I can go 3-0 to start again:)
I lost all mine on purpose too.
But I play GAC for winning and not for maximizing crystals (although i'm F2P and could definitely use some of the extra ones).
But hey, this is a game and not the stock market where you try to maximize your profit by going short or long.
I seem to manage just fine throwing away matches I should win without a strategy!
I’m amused the chess analogy breaks down because … of a chess analogy.
So I want to be in the highest division - this is my goal - I do not want to draw a plan and lose on purpose - too much thinking for a mobile-game and too much anger if I lose a fight that I have to win "for the plan".
But I hope I get opponents who want to lose ... easy money
How can you guarantee that you will go 3-0 at the start of the next season though? You can't know who you will face next season, let alone if you'd win.