Is there a correlation between dropping a weapon for a teammate and winning a game? We analyzed over 4 Million Faceit rounds to find it

Weapon drops: we all do them out of boredom during warmup, in an effort to fix misbuys or, most importantly, to support our teammates - but do they really help sway the round result? We decided to run the numbers and examine deeper the potential correlation between weapon drops and players’ Faceit level.

As always, we used detailed data from over 160K of Faceit matches (meaning close to 4M rounds) played on all maps. Here is what the data says:

First of all, nearly everyone drops weapons with more or less similar frequency.

The number of drops per match fluctuates slightly between different levels of players, but it falls in the range between 0.30 and 0.39 per round for players with Faceit Levels from 1 to 9.

Level 10 is where things change significantly - the number of weapon drops notes a sharp increase. The average is close to doubled, rising all the way up to 0.68 per round per player. This could be seen as a proof of teamplay focus and the fact that more advanced players are also better synchronised. However, the significant difference between level 9 and 10 is still very interesting in this context.

But, back to the most important matter: do weapon drops change match results?

Well, to be perfectly honest, it doesn’t seem they do. There is extremely low correlation between the number of weapon drops in the match and winning it, and that stays consistent across all Faceit levels.

There is no data-based proof that weapon drops help your team win, but that does not have to mean they should just be discarded. If we look at weapon drop as an attempt to fix imbalances between teammates' economies or buying mistakes, the fact there is no positive nor negative correlation with wins could mean that after drop the rounds just resort to their, let’s say, default flow - which would mean the point of the drop was achieved. What do you think?