Double Duelist vs Single Duelist

I have taken some time to organise the stats of the top 4 from each respective region to see whether the current meta is more oriented towards double duelist or single duelist, and here are my conclusions.

Stats for the Top 4 of each region:

Before we start, you may notice the absence of the Pacific region. This was done because double duelist usage in the Pacific region was basically meta and everyone was using it, with the usage rate at 80-90% for the top 8 or so teams.

If we take a closer look, most teams that qualified for Masters Santiago, meaning the top three teams from each region, demonstrate a strong preference for double duelist compositions. Another noticeable pattern is that teams which have undergone significant roster changes also tend to favour double duelist setups. One possible explanation is that double duelist compositions reduce structural reliance on deep synergy, allowing teams to stabilise performance while integrating new players. Duelists can generate more independent value, which may ease adjustment periods following roster volatility.

Among the teams analysed, those that did not experience substantial roster changes, defined here as more than one core roster move, include FNC, XLG, EDG, BLG, G2, NRG, and technically BBL. Interestingly, nearly every team that did not strongly favour double duelist compositions, with MIBR as the notable exception, falls into this roster stable category. This suggests a potential relationship. Teams with stable cores have synergy, chemistry and set plays from last year which can be reused to some degree. Fnatic and BLG notably love to send their duelist into the site to take the first fight, with lots of utility and smokes, all with textbook-perfect coordination. TL notably just sends Miniboo and Kamo in and runs the opponent down with sheer pressure. One requires practice, coordination and timing, whilst the latter requires less of the factors stated above and works if you have the right players for the job.

Some roster stable teams still ran double duelist, though often with contextual justification. XLG’s use of double duelist appears influenced by Noman, who was originally signed as a stand-in last year after their original player ran into a scandal. Noman was forced into the initiator role despite being a duelist player. You would think XLG should've just signed an initiator player, but Noman was actually signed in a hurry as the only somewhat top-tier free agent who could speak English, as little did anyone know, XLG comms in English as a CN team. Coming back from the tangent, with double duelist being more meta than ever, it's not hard to see why XLG would want Noman, who didn't do too bad last year playing off-role, to go back to his original role. EDG’s double duelist usage aligns with their signing of CB, a duelist specialist known for one-tricking Yoru. It's kinda counterintuitive for you to sign a Yoru one-trick to put him on anything but duelist. G2’s utilisation of double duelist compositions can similarly be linked to Babybay’s duelist background.

After accounting for player role influences, three teams stand out. FNC, BLG, and NRG. These teams maintain core roster stability, strong identity continuity, and enough cohesion and experience to operate comfortably with single duelist compositions. Despite Alfa being a nasty duelist, he's spent enough time on sentinel to actually excel at that role so it wasn't a surprise for FNC to look for comfort. All the other teams that have gone through big roster changes seem to prefer double duelist comps, whether it's due to not having enough chemistry to pull off more coordination-heavy comps or just having the right players for 2 duelists. AG actually throws their IGL on Raze for some maps, which is crazy work considering we haven't seen an IGL duelist be actually successful since Shazam on the original SEN roster.

That leaves one big elephant in the room: a team with a new roster, 2 elite duelists, and they only play it on 50% of the maps??? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this was all done for me to dunk on MIBR. Did they get screwed by the format? Probably a little bit, but it's not an excuse to not change your Abyss and Haven comp after not being competitive at all on it against competent teams. MIBR was 1/5 on the 2 maps, with the one win being over ENVY, before going 0/2 on these maps against NRG in the losers' finals. You had Yoru Neon, Waylay Yoru, Waylay Chamber, Yoru Chamber, Neon Jett all available to play, and you insist Zekken on Omen is the best solution.

Don't even bother just look at FK and FD

If we analyse Aspas's stats they also differ vastly when Zekken is on Omen vs when Zekeen is on Yoru. If we exclude the game against Envy, which, if we include, somewhat skews the data because they were not very competitive, Aspas has exactly 8 games as a single duelist and 8 games paired with Zekken. Just take a look below:

I did all this within 1 hour with ChatGPT and feeding it with VLR stats, MIBR, wtf are your analysts doing? No way did they not have someone look at basic stats and realise maybe we should have Zekken on some type of duelist, as first of all, Zekken himself plays better, and second of all, Aspas also plays better. Honestly, MIBR, if you're looking for some type of analyst or something, I'm very unemployed, and you can change this very quickly. You know what, just to back my point, here are the stats with the ENVY stomp included.