The Numbers Are In: PSP MAO Stat Review

On August 10th -12th, the best paintball players and teams in the world battled it out at the 4th stop on the PSP pro circuit, at OXCC in Chesapeake City MD. Paintball Access was there to catalog the fight and count the kills. The updated Player Rankings, across all metrics for each event and the overall season, are now available at PaintballAccess.com/player-stats/.

Though they rank 5th overall in the PSP as a team, Moscow Red Legion’s players dominate the top spots with 5 members in the Top 10. Marcello Margott retains his number 1 ranking, where he has sat for most of the season. Alexandr Berdnikov lands in 2nd, with their teammate Kirill Prikhidni in the 4th spot. Jason Wheeler, in his first year as a member of Red Legion, makes a huge move, up 42 spots, from 50th all the way to 8th. Though their numbers look great, Red Legion had a disappointing event at the MAO, placing 6th and getting knocked out of the Quarterfinals by Houston Heat, who went on to win the event.

Heat’s highest ranked player is still Sergey Solnyshkov, who dropped six spots to land at 11th overall. One of the most dramatic shifts on the Overall Rankings comes from Heat’s Nick Slowiak, who moves from 77th all the way to 43rd, on the strength of some stellar play and consequently solid stats throughout the event, on Heat’s road to their 2nd win of the season. Interestingly, Heat’s lowest ranked player is John Woodley, who is ranked 57th overall. You know your team is having a great year when half the league’s players are ranked below your lowest ranked player. The fact that every player on Houston Heat ranks in the top half of the Overall Player ranking is a telling statistic about how good this team really is, and how well their players are executing on the field.

Other notable moves in the Stat Rankings: Grayson Goff becomes San Antonio X-Factor’s highest ranked player, stepping up from 46th to 16th, Dynasty’s Ryan Greenspan gets knocked down ten spots from 2nd to 12th, and his teammate Yosh Rau tumbles out of the top 20 from 6th to 24th. Greg Siewers inches up a few spots from 20th to 14th, and stays Infamous’ highest ranked player. Also, Tampa Bay Damage’s Alex Spence makes a triumphant return after a two-year battle with cancer to clock in at 34th.

Check out the stats for the season and start drawing your own conclusions from the numbers. Paintball Access is breaking ground in our quest to crunch the hard data behind the best players in the world. There are lots of arguments and conversations waiting to happen once you start wrapping your head around these statistics.

For instance, many people are wondering why Dynasty is struggling to reach the later rounds in 2012. But you could point to their inconsistent snake side production, which is the lynch pin of success in the Pro Division– Zack Wake (22nd) is on the sidelines and may not return, Sean McDonald (102nd) retired again, and Alex Goldman is sitting at just 33rd overall. As a result, Dynasty’s second player to attack on the snake side, Alex Fraige, has tumbled down the rankings as the year has progressed, from 7th in Phoenix, to 67th after MAO, Fraige has been forced to ride a very high risk playing style in order to get any work done, since the players in front of him have been inconsistent. Fraige also had an uncharacteristically bad event at MAO. If Dynasty can fix their snake troubles then they will take heat off the other players on the team, put more points on the board, and place more consistently.

Make sure to mark your calendars now for the biggest and most important paintball event on the planet, the PSP World Cup, where the 2012 PSP World Cup champions will be crowned and the PBA Top Gun winner will be determined. Brought to you live and free by PaintballAccess.com, October 25th–28th.