The Greatest Prime in
VCT History Isn’t a Debate

Despite this article’s title, I don’t want to seem like I’m dismissing the legacies that exist within this conversation. Leo showcased some of the most perfect macro/micro at LOCK//IN and Masters Tokyo. Demon1 had a mechanical peak (and storyline) at Champions LA that has been rivaled by few. Trent’s mastery of Tejo at Master Bangkok is, in my opinion, an unmatched level of dominance over one individual agent. Even just recently, Marteen set the record for VLR rating at an event with his 1.41 average at Masters Santiago.

This website, though, focuses on analytics. If you add the word “by analytics” to the title, then it’s clearer: The greatest prime in VCT History isn’t a debate by analytics. Aspas at Champions Paris was, by analytics, the greatest prime in VCT history. The more you break down the numbers, the more ludicrous his performance was.

In this article I’ll do exactly that. This will be a shorter read, as I’ll just go over some numbers and their context.

Quick Notes on Methodology

1. While other variations are valid, I only considered international performances. Players and rosters fluctuate too much over an entire year. Domestic splits involve lesser and uneven competition, further clouded by discussions of regional power levels. Internationals are consistent, with high-level teams from all regions and high-stakes matches.

   I consider internationals to be a true reflection of player form against the best teams in the world and, importantly, comparable from one to another.

2. I use a filter of minimum rounds: 150+ when looking at contenders/statistics. This omits players whose statistics are anomalies based on variance + low sample size. It also eliminates players whose teams did extremely poorly, which is fine, as no player whose team couldn’t win a match at an international is a true candidate for having “the greatest prime in VCT history”. Even players whose teams were mediocre, like Marteen at Santiago (where Gentle Mates went 2-2, not beating a single team who made Playoffs), are still in contention with this filter. Here are some examples of players who were omitted based on this filter:

   • qRaxs at LOCK//IN has the 3rd-highest FIWR (first interaction win-rate) in VCT history at 83.3%. He only took 6 first interactions the entire event (winning 5 and losing 1).
   • Life at Masters London has the highest Headshot % in VCT history at 45%, but his team went out 0-2.

   I could go on, but you get the point. No meaningful contributions to leaderboards or contenders for this debate are omitted.

   The number of entries goes from 663 to 437.

3. Not all stats share the same pool. Masters Shanghai published no VLR ratings or KAST%, so those two draw from 397 entries, while K/D, KPR, and the first-interaction stats use the full 437.

The Numbers

Aspas (Champions 2025) has the second-highest VLR rating in VCT tournament history (min 150+ rounds)

This is a simple statistics to gloss over, but it’s probably the most important. Out of 397 candidates, he is one of only 5 players (including Leo twice) to have a 1.3+ rating over an event, which is ridiculously impressive.

What’s more impressive is that, of these 6 entries with a 1.3+ rating, half of them ended up winning their tournament (Leo twice and Alfajer). Of the 3 non-winners, 2 of them played only 4 matches at the international (Shao at LOCK//IN and Marteen at Masters Santiago). Aspas is the only player to notch a 1.3+ rating while:

• Having a sample size greater than 4 matches
• Not winning the international

Aspas (Champions 2025) has the highest K/D in VCT tournament history (min 150+ rounds)

Here it is in context:

Not only does he exist within that top cluster, he is above them all.

Aspas (Champions 2025) has the highest KPR in VCT tournament history (min 150+ rounds)

He was 0.03 away from averaging a kill a round, the closest anyone has ever come given these conditions.

Aspas (Champions 2025) has the 11th-highest KAST% in VCT tournament history (min 150+ rounds)

While 11th is not as groundbreaking as previous statistics, consider how biased KAST% is towards non-Duelists:

That makes his 11th-place more impressive. In fact, there’s not another duelist in that top-15 list. What if we just looked at duelists?

Aaaaand we’re back to breaking records. At Champions 2025, Aspas notched the highest KAST% ever by a duelist at an international (min 150+ rounds) by a good margin.

What About Baiting?

In the words of Bren from Platchat:

[Aspas] is a great player, but I think he’s found out the formula for the VLR rating, knows that if you die less, you get fucking rated higher

How true was that at Champions 2025? Unsurprisingly, he certainly died less frequently than most:

Out of the 437 international performances with 150+ rounds, Aspas ranks 428th for DPR (Deaths per Round). In essence, dying less is considered a good thing, but if you’re dying too infrequently it can be a symptom of playing for your life instead of the team. Especially if you’re a duelist player. So, was he truly selfish? Is Bren right?

Let’s look at first interactions:

Aspas’ 0.27 FIPR (First Interactions per Round) puts him in the 79th percentile given the filter. However, it’s unfair to forget that he’s a duelist. If I used his role to contextualize KAST% in a positive light, it’s only fair to factor in his role as a duelist into FIPR (even if it’s in a negative light):

Now, he’s in the 33rd percentile for duelists. It’s lower than average, but not crazy low.

Let’s look further into this. How often was he winning those first duels?

Holy shit. Not only is his 74.44% FIWR (First Interaction Win Rate) the 4th-best in international VCT history (min 150+ rounds), he’s doing so as a duelist. Look again at the top-10 list; not a single other member of the top 10 plays duelist. In fact, the second-highest FIWR by a duelist at an international (150+ rounds) is garnetS at LOCK//IN, with a FIWR of 63.83% at 23rd. This is followed by Aspas at Champions LA, with a FIWR of 63.16% at 29th. Aspas’ FIWR at Champions Paris is, when compared to other duelists, >10% higher than the next highest FIWR.

Here’s how abnormal Aspas’ FIWR at Champions Paris was when compared to other duelists:

I cannot understate how impressive that is.

Duelists are expected to constantly take first contact, while other roles typically hold peaks, lurk, or play off of/with their duelist’s entries. While this may sound like pure narrative, look at the numbers:

The impact that this has on FIWR is, with higher first interaction frequency, it’s difficult to have extremely high (or low) win-rate numbers. Let’s look again at the top-10 list for FIWR at international events, but this time include total first interactions.

Again, it’s just incredible what he was doing. No one above Aspas in FIWR has 1/4th of the first interactions he had at Champions Paris.

As a final illustration of this point, here’s a scatterplot of the relationship between number of first interactions and first interaction win rate at internationals (150+ rounds played) without Aspas at Champions Paris.

Now, let’s include him:

He’s hard to miss.

Aspas’ consistency with which he won first interactions at Champions Paris should not be possible. Not for a duelist with 90 first interactions.

Aspas did play safer than other duelists, that’s true. He would also save frequently.

However, his borderline impossible level of FIWR proves that he wasn’t just staying alive because he avoided first interactions, he was staying alive because he kept winning them. Considering the high volume with which he took them, it’s fair to say that Aspas at Champions Paris was the deadliest player in VCT history to face in a first interaction.

Furthermore, to claim that Aspas was just avoiding interactions/baiting at Champions Paris when he recorded the highest KPR in international VCT history (150+ rounds) is inane.

The Macro Argument behind the Micro

One other point worth noting is this:

During MIBR’s Champions Paris run, they played each of the top-3 teams - NRG, FNATIC, and DRX. Those were the only teams they lost to, each loss being 1-2. Every other game was a 2-0, including against Team Heretics who finished 5th-6th alongside MIBR.

Dropping these numbers against the best teams in the world. There’s no caveat of “opponent quality” (I’m looking at you Marteen at Masters Santiago).

Synopsis

Summarizing these findings, let’s look back at how Aspas compares with other international performances (150+ rounds):

Pools differ slightly: Masters Shanghai (no published ratings or KAST%) is excluded from VLR Rating and KAST% but counts toward K/D, KPR, and FIWR.

And my three favorite visualizations:

Aspas at Champions Paris wasn’t just the best, he’s the best we’ve ever seen by a large, large margin.