Hi everyone, a few months ago I developed this way of thinking about top level RSG playing that I believe continues to be a useful lens to look at top level RSG through.
The only things that matter in top-level RSG is playtime, efficiency, and skill. The role of luck is greatly minimized long-term in the presence of these three things. Think of it like each player has a television set displaying white noise/static; the brighter the pixel, the faster the run, and our goal is to find the brightest pixel. The only way that we can increase our odds of doing this is by increasing the resolution of the screen (playtime), the fps of the screen (efficiency), and the brightness of the screen (skill). Where efficiency is the % of time spent playing runs with potential, and skill is quality lategame conversions.
Players that have the best balance of these three things are the most likely to get great runs, since they have the most opportunities to get good seeds, while being able to make said seeds work. Guidelines for good rsg habits need to target these three dimensions the most.
That’s about it. But whenever I’m thinking about how I can improve as a runner, this has served as a good framework of thinking about it. It’s deceptively simple; the more you think about it, the more you realize these things penetrate every aspect of playing, and how the dimensions interact with each other. When thinking about how to improve, it’s critical to keep these things in mind
Additional info here along with some other info dumps 3 Dimensions of RSG Master Doc - Google Docs