Contest or Cede? State-Dependent Payoffs, Selection, and Behaviour in High-Rank League of Legends

Contest or Cede? State-Dependent Payoffs, Selection, and Behaviour in High-Rank League of Legends

Economics

Jack Fan

2025

Neutral objectives such as Drakes are pivotal in League of Legends. This paper asks whether teams fight more because payoffs are higher when ahead, or because they select into fights conditional on state. I analyze 200 high-rank EUW matches (balanced win/loss; ≥20 min). Contesting is modeled with logit and probit specifications, interacting contest with (i) turret difference (TD), visible to players, and (ii) a composite state index. Effects are interpreted on the probability scale via margins, and identification is probed with an instrumental-variables strategy using the Demolish rune. To connect econometric effects to choices, a 2×2 payoff matrix with a TD-specific behavioural term is calibrated. Results show contesting is positively associated with winning on average. The contest × TD interaction is significant, whereas the contest × state is not; yet pairwise contrasts of marginal effects across TD strata are statistically indistinguishable. IV results are consistent. The calibrated game implies higher-TD teams under-contest relative to payoff-maximising benchmarks, consistent with behavioural burdens when ahead. Overall, selection of when to enter appears more consequential than heterogeneous conditional payoffs

League of Legends
Loss aversion
Nash equilibrium