Author: @jwhy_v

Published: 5/06/2022

Hey everyone, it’s jwhy the coach of Hyperspace Dark and this Notion will be an analysis/breakdown of an interesting strategy that has been seeing some use recently: saving on pistol round. In this article we will be addressing the economics of saving on pistol round, its merits and cons, and how we, as coaches/analysts, can effectively apply this data to improve our teams’ performance and give them more options on the pistol round.

The Basis of Saving on Pistol Round

The first thing we need to talk about when saving on pistol round is the EV (expected value) of our strategy, compared to the “default” pistol round we would normally run. An important thing to realize is that this strategy is only viable on T side, due to 300 additional credits available through planting the bomb. We will see exactly how important these surplus credits are in the upcoming discussion. For the purposes of this discussion, we will be assuming most default buys have 0-100 credits left, as is standard for most agents. It is important to note, that for the saving strategy, agents will be able to sit on 500-800 credits depending on their role, map, and what play is drawn up to execute. We will touch on this later in the article, where we analyze what maps and agents would benefit the most from this strategy.

Important notes for the data above include:

• There are clearly more buy variations available based on credits after the round; example given is just a “basic” option and can be flexed by agent choice
• On full save rounds (800 credits) players will always be able to realistically afford Rifle + Full armor, provided they win and have either bomb down or 1 kill
• Due to the nature of the game, most won rounds will include a bomb plant and/or roughly 1 kill per agent, meaning oftentimes you will end up with the last column’s values

By taking a quick look at the table above we can see that in the ideal situation where we win the first round with a bomb plant (as most rounds on T side will be won with the bomb down), we have access to a very strong 2nd round buy that we can also probably use to contest the opposing team’s 3rd round full buy. Most analysts and coaches have seen the rib.gg article showing the efficacy of having a couple “hero rifles” vs. a full buy, and understand the value of potentially having 2-3 rifles going into Round 3. However, let’s look at the data for when teams don’t win the first round.

Important notes for the data above include:

• Unlike the first chart, there are vital breakpoints for what you can buy in Round 2 based on whether or not you can get the bomb down
• In addition, winning teams will often guarantee a bomb plant, but losing the pistol round does not necessarily mean you will get the bomb down. This needs to be taken into account when designing pistol strategies for your team
• Comparing “default” strategies on pistol to our save strategy, the default pistols will only be able to purchase Spectre + Light armor at most, even with max additional sources of income, whereas the save strategy enables our team to purchase Spectre + Full armor + util (or other flex purchases such as Bulldog + Full Armor) given the right circumstances

It is clear that there is much more nuance in our losing situation buys compared to our winning situation buys. By looking at this data, we can determine that when running the save strategy it is absolutely critical that we get the bomb down, especially since the odds of winning the opening round with the saving strategy will naturally be at a disadvantage versus full buys. With our current takeaways, we can effectively break down the strengths and weaknesses of this strategy vs. the default pistol plan.

Saving on Pistol Round Pros & Cons