TLDR: Pistol rounds increases the chance of winning but does not guarantee it.

Every game always starts off with the pistol round. "GG go next. FF at 5" or "It's okay, it's only pistol round." may be some of the phrases heard if a team loses pistol. It is only one round so how much does it actually affect the match?

I chose to use data from VCT Champions 2022 because I wanted to minimize variables that may affect how rounds are played. Some of these variables would be skill level, mentality, and decisions. Games are played at the highest skill level with the focus of winning.

After winning the first pistol round, the winning team 94.59% of the time in round two. This can be seen as the losing team deciding to save while the winning team buys. The third round is usually the bonus round. The winning team keeps their guns from the previous round while the losing team are finally able to purchase stronger weapons. In terms of weapons, the winning team has the weaker load out which would likely result in them losing round three. This idea is maintained as the graph shows that the winning team only won 43.24% of the time. However, that is okay because the bonus round's goal is to break the enemies team economy while also maintaining their own. As seen in the next round, teams that won the first pistol round won round four 67.57% of the time. Not as high as round two but still significantly higher than round three. By then, other variables such as ultimate abilities may come into play which can change the results of the rounds.

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The graph above shows the scores at half with the rate of which side won the first pistol round. In addition, the size of the dot represents the frequency of the score. At a quick glance, the biggest frequent score at half (occurring 9 times) was 7-5 attackers leading. In addition, the second biggest scoreline (occurring 6 times) is the inverse 5-7 defenders leading. This means that the most frequent score of half is only a 2 round differential. Interestingly, defenders won the first pistol round more when attackers lead the half at 7-5. When defenders lead 7-5, they only won the first pistol round half the time. However, all the other scorelines (except 6-6 and 8-4 attackers) reveals that most team that lead by a large margin also mostly won the first pistol round.

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As the game heads into the second half, the state of the game changes. The second pistol round may matter even more than the first depending on how the first half ended. The round win rate dropped from 94.59% to 78.38%. Round 14 suggests that a losing teams are more likely to force if they lost the second pistol round. Coincidentally, round 15 and 16 have the same win rate as round 3 and 4 respect. Despite having the same win rate, how it happen may be different. The same scenario may repeat itself when the team that wins the second pistol round buys for next and the losing team saves. However the lower win rate at round 14 indicates that a few more teams lost the next round even though they won the second pistol round. As a result, they would have to save on round 15 as suggested in the low win rate.

The data below reveals that the win rates of round 3 and round 15 being identical are purely coincidences as the losses occurred in different matches.

Matches Where Team Wins First Pistol and Loses Round 3

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Matches Where Team Wins Second Pistol and Loses Round15

Similar data for round 4 and round 16.

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Matches Where Team Wins First Pistol and Loses Round 4

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Matches Where Team Wins Second Pistol and Loses Round 16

So the question still stands: how important are pistol rounds?

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A team that won both pistols won the match 71.43% of the time while losing both resulted in the match being won 28.57% of the time.

So yes, pistol rounds are important; however, it is only important when securing a large lead. Remember correlation does not equal causation so just because a team wins both pistol rounds does not mean they are guaranteed to win the match. At most it only increases the chance of winning.

Thanks for reading!