ESL One New York MVP presented by Pizza Hut

Loda took it with 946 votes, nearly a third of the field, finishing 133 votes clear of black^ in second. Arteezy and PPD split the rest of the contention at 18.3% and 14.1%, while Bigdaddy, EternalEnvy and Bone7 combined for barely a tenth of the field.

This was a clean, uncontested result — Loda held the top spot from day 1 through day 2 without a single lead change. The country data backs it up: Loda topped the board in the US, Philippines, Sweden, UK and Malaysia alike, a genuinely global margin rather than a regional pocket.

• The gap · Loda beat black^ by 133 votes, 30.6% to 26.3%
• Global reach · Loda led in five of the top ten voting countries
• Long tail · Bottom three options drew just 10.6% of votes combined
• Near-total male turnout · 339 of 340 sampled votes came from men