| 22 December 2010
Stats of the match can be found in the stats section.
This was a really good match early on -- to be honest, not match-of-the-year worthy, but right up there -- as both competitors went back and forth. In the first four games, only six times in 18 rounds did someone win with more than 50 percent health remaining, that's fairly low. And it only happened twice after the match was tied 2-2. So while Sakonoko seemed to be pulling away, it wasn't as scarily bad as it seemed.
Also, nobody had a round win streak of more than three. Sakonoko had a win streak of three, and that was it. That streak, however, sparked a 6-of-8 run in which he closed out the match.
The one thing my mind got deceived on was how "fast" Sakonoko seemed to be working, especially in wins. However, check this out: the average time of match was 43.22 seconds. In every Sakonoko win, the average time of round was 45.27 seconds. And you're wondering, well, what about the last round where he got super'd and came back to win? Take out that round -- it was 67 seconds -- and Sakonoko's average time was 43.10 seconds. No matter how it's diced, Sakonoko's pace wasn't frantic, it was just ... there.
Finally, I want to mention combo rate, because this is the first time I've tracked combo rate and the loser had a better average. Here's the breakdown:
| Total combos | Combo Rate | Combo rate in wins |
Combo Rate in losses |
|
| Haneyama | 44 | 2.444 | 3.571 | 1.723 |
| Sakonoko | 41 | 2.278 | 2.727 | 1.375 |
Sakonoko won two rounds where he gave up more combos than did, one round was the opener, the other gave him a 2-1 lead that he didn't relinquish.
After the first two games, in which Sakonoko used Rose, Sakonoko held the combo advantage, 34-33 (2.429 to 2.357).
Video of the match, with commentary by Team Spooky, follows the jump ...
