Hello, today i will try to answer the question: "does offseason matter?". This is Part 1 and will only focus on China, since it's the only region that has concluded their kickoff so far
For each team, I have looked at how many events has the team attended and how many matches has the team played (since some events are just 1 match and some are a full tournament). And then, I have looked if there is any connection with the team's eventual placement at kickoff.
DISCLAIMER: There is, admittedly, many other factors that aren't accounted for. Some teams have made changes after playing these games, the map pool changed, and a new agent was introduced. In addition, some of these matches were bo1, some bo3, some bo5. With all this in mind, i just wanted to quickly look at some basic numbers to see if there is an actual connection, or not
Now, China is an interesting region, because practically every team has participated in one of the three events (or all three): Superb Cup, FGC 24, and WALL-E Cup. So all teams have participated in at least 3 tournaments, except for FPX and DRG that only played in 2. So, even though most teams played in 3 events, that wasn't a huge advantage to them in relation to everybody else. Speaking of no. of matches, there seems to be no connection whatsoever: top 3 teams were wolves and nova (13 games) and xlg (17 games), however, they have placed 9-12, 7-8, and 5-6, respectively. At the same time, you have DRG that have played only 5 games (least in all of china), but they finished 4th, and BLG with 7 games (3rd least) and they finished 3rd
Even when we look at how each team improved/fell off in terms of their placements at the end of split 2, there is almost no change: edg, te, blg are at the top; tyloo, tec, ag are at the bottom.
My final verdict is that going to offseason events gave teams only one benefit - keeping up with the rest. Otherwise, there seems to be no connection
But don't get discouraged, my dear friends, since the situation in other regions is quite different. There, the no. of matches placed is much more dispersed, so, I will update you when the kickoffs are over
Discord