What is Mat Economy?

Resource management is a common element in many video games, and Fortnite is no exception. Though Fortnite players have to manage several different types of resources (think weapon ammo and health), when we talk about Mat Economy, we are specifically interested in the management of building materials.

The process of collecting materials (mats) isn’t particularly difficult in itself, especially during early game, when players are generally spread loosely throughout the map and focused on finding loot; on the other hand, harvesting mats is fairly time consuming and becomes increasingly challenging to do as the game goes on since:

• There are fewer mats to farm
• There are more enemies within attacking range
• Players need to focus their attention on other aspects of the game

How important is Mat Economy?

Anyone who has played Fortnite knows how vulnerable you are without any mats. This is especially true in high levels of competitive Fortnite, which often sees upwards of 50 players remaining on the map during Zones 4 and 5. At this point in competitive matches, there are tons of players within attacking distance who are more than happy to laser your health away, so constant protection is crucial.

It is nearly impossible to collect mats this late in the game other than through a refresh (eliminating a player and collecting his loot), and the movement of future zones means that you can’t just camp inside a single structure. This makes it all the more important that you collect sufficient mats early and maintain enough throughout the game in preparation of endgame/moving zones.

Though there are certain strategies that you can use to prolong survival in the absence of mats during endgame, your prospects are generally bleak; materials not only provide protection but also increase the range of tactics that you can use.

Okay, so how important is Mat Economy really? Well, I collected player Mat Economy data from the finals round of the NAE DreamHack Solo tournament on October 15th, 2020; the data tracks each player’s number of builds remaining at the start of each zone (when the storm begins to move).

The basic question I wanted to answer with this data was, “If a player has X number of builds remaining at the start of Zone Y, how does he normally perform through the rest of the game?” I found that the correlation between a player’s builds remaining and his final placement in that game does vary depending on the zone, but there is an undeniable correlation once you get past the early game zones.

Take, for example, Zone 4. If we separate all the players in each game remaining at the start of Zone 4 by how many builds they have in their inventories, we see a distinct trend related to their survival:

• Players w/ 50 builds or less: 50% of them survived to the start of Zone 5
• Players w/ between 51 and 100 builds: 76% survived to the start of Zone 5
• Players w/ more than 100 builds (max 150): 92.6% survived to the start of Zone 5

And the trend isn’t just limited to short term survival; here’s how those same players placed in their games overall:

• Players w/ 50 builds or less at start of Zone 4: Avg. placement = ~44th
• Players w/ between 51 and 100 builds: Avg. placement = ~35th
• Players w/ more than 100 builds (max 150): Avg. placement = ~22nd

These are some pretty big differences in survival and they don’t disappear at other points of the game; here are the same metrics for Zone 6:

• Players w/ 50 builds or less at start of Zone 6: 42.1% survived to Zone 7, avg. placement = ~26th
• Players w/ between 51 and 100 builds: 72.4% survived to Zone 7, avg. placement = ~19th
• Players w/ more than 100 builds (max 150): 85.7% survived to Zone 7, avg. placement = ~13th

Of course, there is variation that becomes more clear once you break out of the bins above. But this is to be expected. Any game with as many variables as Fortnite is certain to have a bunch of statistical noise. I’m not going to pretend that simply having full mats throughout a game will guarantee you a victory royale in FNCS Grand Finals if you currently struggle to hit the 6000 hype threshold to qualify for a Champion League Cash Cup. But you already knew that. Here’s a scatterplot showing the relationship between Placement and Builds Remaining at the start of Zone 4:

How do you know when your Mat Economy is good?

Now that we have seen the type of correlation Mat Economy has with survival/placement, we should consider what it looks like to manage your Mat Economy well. A good place to start is to look at the median Mat Economy for a player as the game progresses:

It’s clear that players generally harvest their mats early until they reach their peak Mat Economy level around Zone 2, and then gradually use the resources they stocked up on throughout the game with some heavy dropoff during moving zones.

If you are a competitive Fortnite player, you are probably aware of this general trend; however, these concrete numbers can serve as a great guide to help you at least keep pace with the rest of the lobby when it comes to Mat Economy. A useful exercise might be to pull up a bunch of solo tourney/scrim replays and track your own mat count at the start of each zone to compare. You might find that your mid-game aggressiveness is taking a big toll on your Mat Economy, leaving you woefully underprepared going into moving zones and frequently running out of builds by Zone 7 or 8. Or, maybe you’re particularly good at getting refreshes during endgame and maintain a solid mat count as the game comes to a close.

Before we move onto the final section, it’s worth looking at how players above the median mat count compare to players below the median in terms of survival:

Zone	Avg. Placement for Players Below Median Builds	Avg. Placement for Players Above Median Builds
1	48.22	39.57
2	44.28	34.73
3	41.20	28.28
4	38.08	23.90
5	30.07	19.35
6	24.43	16.22
7	14.73	11.42
8	9.28	4.78
9	4.40	3.80

Which players are good at managing their Mat Economies & What can we learn from them?

To cap off this deep dive, let’s take a look at who is good at Mat Economy management and try to get a glimpse at what makes them particularly good at it so we can improve our own gameplay. Below is a list of players that had the highest avg. builds remaining above median for each zone in the dataset (remember, this data is only from a subset of games in NAE DH Finals):

Zone	Top Player	Builds Above Median
1	Joji	49.3
2	XSET Av	24.7
3	JERM	24
4	Okis	31.3
5	vnsh bully iwnl	29.7
6	GABE	39.7
7	Degen	27.3
8	Degen	28.7
9	cN Simple YT	14.2

We can even take it one step further and aggregate builds above median across all zones and games to get an idea of which players are the best at all around Mat Economy management:

Player	Total Builds Above Median
XTRA Reet	532.0
vyx.	400.5
Gamma Th0masHD	360.0
Degen	346.5
TSM MackWood1x	342.0

Of course, this is a super unrefined stat that’s bound to have some issues, but it’s a good rough look at who may be worth learning from in this aspect of the game. XTRA Reet takes home the top spot, and if you VOD some of his gameplay, it’s pretty clear why.

After watching Reet’s first two games in DH Finals, I saw a number of things working in his advantage. First, he was essentially uncontested on his side of Stark Industries, giving him plenty of time and space to farm mats as well as a number of transportation options. He often used a car to rotate in the early zones to save mats while getting as close to center as possible, minimizing future rotates. For his midgame rotates, Reet always used movement items (bouncers, shockwaves, crash pads); this ensured that he didn’t waste any unnecessary mats before moving zones began.

Finally, the aspect of Reet’s play that most stuck out to me was his willingness and ability to get late-game refreshes. While many players, including elite ones, tend to get tunnel vision focusing on their rotates during moving zones, Reet was constantly looking to catch other players off-guard and use their loot to refill his materials. In the first two games alone, he had 10 eliminations from Zone 4 on. This elimination pace is definitely a bit unsustainable, but his knack for picking off enemies amidst the endgame chaos is undeniable.

Reet’s formula isn’t the only viable one, and I implore anyone struggling with Mat Economy management to seek out other top players’ gameplans. It’s fairly simple to figure out whether Mat Economy is handicapping your overall performance, and just a few tweaks to your strategy, such as changing what you carry in your inventory and adjusting your early game rotates can go a long way towards improving your ability to survive in Fortnite.

Questions? Need Help? Follow/DM me on Twitter @1UpAnalytics