I've noticed a few discussions hinting at this in the Clan League discord, and thought I'd open it up to the forums!

The last couple clan leagues we seem to have seen some of the old elite clans fading. Clans that previously would have had a wealth of elite talent to fill CL rosters are struggling to find enough active players. People retiring is a natural part of the game, however, retirees are usually replaced by new generations of talent.
However, this doesn't really seem to be the case to me. In the past, the skill gap between Div A and the top of Div B seemed to be much smaller. For example, the %PC ranges (difference between top and bottom clans) in Div A over the last 5 seasons:
CL13: 21.7%
CL14: 25%
CL15: 44.2%
CL16: 53.2%
CL17: 56.8% (not yet final)
As you can see, the gap between the top of A and the bottom of A (more or less approximately the top of B) has consistently increased over the last 5 seasons. This seems to me to indicate that the fading elite clans are not being replaced by new clans of similar skills.
This is obviously analysing at the clan level - do you agree with my conclusion, and if so, do you think it is symptomatic of retiring elite players not being adequately replaced by new ones?

Shouldn't big PC mean that top A steamrolls top B, hence elites are super duper unbeatable?

Question is also is top talent getting more concentrated in top clan?

exactly what stefano said

I'm not sure I agree with your methodology.

When comparing outliers to outliers, you are guaranteed to get weird results. Bottom clans in A are quite often half dead. It would be reasonable to think that bottom A has similar skill to top B, but it's not true. Current Blitz would get demolished in B. Just like FCC (bottom A clan in CL15) was demolished in B the season after.

^ I agree - all the A clans are just surviving off past glory.

I think even the top clans in A would get demolished in B. They're just lucky to have Div A clans that are worse than them to save them that embarrassment.

the A clans are just surviving off past glory

If that is the case, then maybe it is worth to consider some changes to the format. I am probably not the best advisor, but it always boggled me, that an imaginary new top clan would have to play for 4 years to reach top-1 of CL.

Tacky, please give FiveSmith his account back!

I do not know how well this numbers are linked to the claim.

It is probably a bit uncertain to say the numbers show that not enough new skilled clans are coming to replace the retired ones.

Just by the numbers, it would shows that retireing clans are caring less probably or crashing harder on A-level. Or the winner is winning by a higher margin eventually.

But I would not conclude that the worst A level clans are equal with the best B level clans. As this, I would not say that there are not enough other skilled clans coming up. So, I do not see the connection of the PC% gap and the claim new clans are all less skilled.

However I have only my personal experience promoting to A with Hawks, surviving 2 seasons and then going back down.

I do not believe that we as clan got weaker over the past seasons. Instead I had the impression that the A level niveau of last year was really very high in the mid-lower segment. The 2 seasons before we had more fortune that always enough other clans performed less SNinja and GG season 14. FCC and WG and season 15. But in season 16 its been only 101st ^^. ... but that my personal impression.

Long story short
Nevertheless I conclude, that you cant make an indication of the influx of talented skilled clans by looking on how bad retiring clans did in Clan League A

Edited 6/13/2024 14:30:41

:/

we'll do great in division D in clan league 19!

The 101st lineup of season 15 was essentially a Python lineup of people that promoted right thereafter, you can't compare it to season 16 (leave alone 17)

I’m by no means a div A player but definitely div B. A players are so much better. They already know how the game works and have much better predictions.

It’s not impossible for B to defeat A but it should be unusual especially if it’s a template A players are familiar with.

Some players might have got worse through inactivity but there’s definitely more resources available to help players get better.

There’s also a chance of players overestimating or underestimating themselves so are in the wrong div because of that.

ONE! is a prime example. But also too early to tell, these old elite clans can be in a slumpt and plan to return or just had a single bad season.

I was a Div C player but what division you play in means little. You can be a talented player and not even be playing clan league :D

Back when players got adequate training at 101st we got players like gak falstaff will Mori lepanto etc. super elite group

Top clans change because clans die and players change clans, top players change because people retire and new players get better. These are somewhat unrelated. It takes very long for a new clan to get to the top by just training their players to be better, also I haven't seen many examples of players who first suck and then trough practice become very strong.

The top clans will always be in dying state unless they can constantly recruit good players, and will eventually be overthrown by clans like Harmony that has lot of players with potential to becoming great.

Every player who is strong once sucked

To those of you critiquing my statistics - you are 100% correct, it is terrible analysis that is not at all robust. The only reason I included it was I want to start this discussion, and wanted to throw some kind of evidence out there to get people talking, even if it was to critique my clickbait stats 🤣 (I also don't have access to a PC atm, so I can't really do any more robust analysis).

To more appropriately answer my question, I think it would be awesome if somebody analysed the number of Div A CL players that retire each season (perhaps can be measured by whether they have stopped playing Clan Leagues or not), and compared it to the number of new players coming into Div A, or something along those lines. You could also try analysing account age as well (although being careful of alts).

To those who say that talent is becoming more concentrated in the top clans - this is a huge part of what I'm wondering too. My answer would be, it absolutely is. The last bunch of clan leagues have seen multiple mergers among top elite clans, seemingly with the main goal of being able to continue fielding full rosters to Div A after many players retire. Off the top of my head: Apprentice>Masters, Outlaws+Lynx>Python, SNinja>ONE!, MythBusters+FC>USB, miscellaneous>Optimum.
There have also been other previously elite clans that have disappeared from Div A almost entirely, either through mergers with lower clans, retirements or collapses, e.g. FCC (a few remnants in Blitz remain), WG, MHunters.

The overall pattern seems to me to indicate that the elite old guard who have been playing the game for 5-10+ years are retiring, and the remaining elites are merging and concentrating in the top clans. New generations of elites, such as the 101st (now Python) generation Tacky mentioned and the TSFH>Disco>Blitz crew (Ursus, Legolas, UsualSuspect & co.), also seem to suffer the same retirement issues.

Might not be any hard data to show it, but it seems to me like the current generation of elites is retiring, and the newer generation of top players aren't quite on the same level, nor are they coming up at the same rate as the old guard are dying.