# D&D.Sci 4th Edition: League of Defenders of the Storm

STORY (skippable)
=================

When you graduated top of your class from Data Science School, you didn't care where you ended up working, you just wanted to find the highest-paid job possible.  (Your student loans may have had an impact on this decision).

You were expecting a job on Wall Street, or perhaps some Silicon Valley firm.  You were not expecting for Goldman Sachs to be outbid at the last minute by a South Korean e-sports team, looking for a 'data specialist' to assist them in winning tournaments of the entirely original new game 'League of Defenders of the Storm©.'

Your new employers at Cloud Liquid Gaming seem friendly enough.  They show you their database of games, and tell you they're looking for assistance in selecting their team for an upcoming tournament.

Then you make the mistake of asking them how the game works.  All of them start talking at once:

"Okay, so the first thing you need to understand is that if your HK carry isn't able to scale to swamp fights you won't be able to contest Count Shorna's Curse-"

"No, first you need to explain how itemization works, and how ever since Mike's Malign Maul got nerfed to deal with the Grapeshot Gloom build it's been-"

"You have to start from the beginning!  You are all Callers, resolving your disputes by summoning spirits to do battle for-"

"Oh come on, why do we need to care about the lore, it's-"

Things do not get more useful from there.  Half an hour later, with very little new information and a gigantic headache, you excuse yourself to look at the data.  Perhaps you can get something useful out of that without having to listen to them explain every detail of the game.  Apparently they have an important game tomorrow they're looking for advice on, and you're interested to make a good impression on your new employers.

DATA & OBJECTIVES
=================

You've managed to learn a few basic things about how the game works:

*   Each team simultaneously selects 5 characters.
*   The same character **can** be selected by both teams.
*   The same character **cannot** be selected twice by the same team.
*   Your employers are confident they know which characters their opponents will play at their next game:
    *   Dire Druid
    *   Greenery Giant
    *   Phoenix Paladin
    *   Quartz Questant
    *   Tidehollow Tyrant
*   They would like you to help them pick out a set of 5 characters that maximizes their chances of winning against that enemy team.  You may select any 5 out of the 19 characters available:
    *   Arch-Alligator
    *   Blaze Boy
    *   Captain Canoe
    *   Dire Druid
    *   Earth Elemental
    *   Fire Fox
    *   Greenery Giant
    *   Inferno Imp
    *   Landslide Lord
    *   Maelstrom Mage
    *   Nullifying Nightmare
    *   Oil Ooze
    *   Phoenix Paladin
    *   Quartz Questant
    *   Rock-n-Roll Ranger
    *   Siren Sorceress
    *   Tidehollow Tyrant
    *   Volcano Villain
    *   Warrior of Winter
*   You have [data on past games played](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aphyer1992/dndsci-4e/main/hero_league_player_log.csv) (which characters were played on each team, and who won) to help you with this.
*   An alternative format for the data is available [here](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aphyer1992/dndsci-4e/main/hero_league_player_log_alt.csv), for those who prefer a different format and lack the tools to manipulate it easily.
*   You've been told that this data is all from games on 'the current patch': this means that the rules of the game won't have changed over the time of this dataset.

BONUS PVP OBJECTIVE
===================

You may also submit a PVP team.  I recommend sending it as a PM to me, but if you don't mind other people seeing it you can just put it in your answer.  The PVP team with the best overall record (sum of performances against all other submitted teams) will win ~~lots of money~~ ~~eternal glory~~ the right to specify the theme of an upcoming D&D.Sci scenario.  (Do you want something based on fantasy dungeon crawling adventurers?  Futuristic cyberpunk something-or-other?  Superheroes?  Harry Potter?  I can't guarantee success, but I will try to build a D&D.Sci scenario around whatever theme you are interested in).

I don't want the existence of a PVP objective to incentivize people too strongly against posting findings in the chat, so as an effort to reduce the risk of your findings being used against you: if multiple people submit the same PVP team, **I will break the tie in favor of whoever submits it earlier.**

I'll aim to post the ruleset and results in one week's time, on October 5th.  PVP teams should be submitted by October 4th to give me time to evaluate them.  If you find yourself wanting extra time, comment below and I can push these deadlines back.

Edited to add: Working together is allowed, but for the sake of anyone who wants to work alone, please spoiler parts of your answers that contain information about the dataset.