I ve checked the mean ghost ranking for all teams and groups and here are the results:

LONDON 348
PACIFIC COAST 302
TORONTO 245
AUSTRALIA 245
MIDWEST MONSTERS 233
CANADA 230
IBERIA 227
TEXAS 216
AUSTRALIA II 212
ENGLAND 202
WEST EUROPE 179
LOW COUNTRIES 176
EAST COAST 166
ASIA 158
SOUTHEAST 154
SOUTH AMERICA 154
SOUTHERN EUROPE 132
SAN DIEGO 121
MIDWEST WARRIORS 113
OKLAHOMA 99
CALIFORNIA 89

GROUP C 184
GROUP A 157
GROUP B 230

I think the groups need some balancing...

* toronto team stat calculated with guy~~~ in place of Geofram.
* players with no ghost rank were valued with 100
* Iberia team featured a Silverwolf player. Is he the highly ranked Silver Wolf or some other unranked dude?

suggestion for group balancing
GROUP A
LONDON
CANADA
AUSTRALIA II
LOW COUNTRIES
EAST COAST
SAN DIEGO
MIDWEST WARRIORS
mean ghost rating: 195

group B
PACIFIC COAST
MIDWEST MONSTERS
TEXAS
WEST EUROPE
ASIA
SOUTHERN EUROPE
OKLAHOMA
mean ghost rating: 188

group c
TORONTO
AUSTRALIA
IBERIA
ENGLAND
SOUTHEAST
SOUTH AMERICA
CALIFORNIA
mean ghost rating: 188

if groups remain unbalanced as they currently are here are the teams along with their mean ghost rating and their chance of moving to the final:

LONDON 348 50%
PACIFIC COAST 302 44%
TORONTO 245 44%
AUSTRALIA 245 44%
MIDWEST MONSTERS 233 34%
CANADA 230 33%
IBERIA 227 41%
TEXAS 216 39%
AUSTRALIA II 212 31%
ENGLAND 202 43%
WEST EUROPE 179 38%
LOW COUNTRIES 176 37%
EAST COAST 166 35%
ASIA 158 34%
SOUTHEAST 154 22%
SOUTH AMERICA 154 28%
SOUTHERN EUROPE 132 19%
SAN DIEGO 121 26%
MIDWEST WARRIORS 113 20%
OKLAHOMA 99 21%
CALIFORNIA 89 16%

the unbalance is clear here

NOOOO!!!! Please don't change the groups. I want Pacific Coast to stay where they are!

yes, that is the highly ranked Silver Wolf

ok I thought so and used his stats for Iberia

Well, I'm in favor for a group change since for example my team, Southern Europe, although 16th in mean ghost ratings, only has 19% in proceeding to the final round, 19% being the 19th best chance. while San Diego has 7% more chances than us.

*in favor OF

in case you are worried how the chance to move to the final was calculated:
I have no idea of maths but here is how I did it
1/3 of teams will move on to the final
that's 33% chance for equal teams.
if a teams is lets say twice as strong as the average of it's group then it has 66% chances

example:
group c mean ghost rating is 184
toronto has a mean ghost rating of 245
so it's chances to move to the final is 245/184 x 33.33%=44%

oh and here are some other interesting stats:
player biggest ghost rating: 587
player lowest ghost rating: 45
average ghost rating of players: 191
that's quite high so that should be a tough tournament

em, tough luck? also twice the ghost rating doesn't neccsarily mean twice the likelyhood of winning a given game.

Besides the fact that ghost-ratings are approximate and only represent true skill of a player after infinite games have been played. (so the more games played the better it is, come to think of it the ghost rating may improve in accuracy faster than linearly with number of games played, cause it's a good rating system...)

Still the usual idea of a world cup is to have a team from a region and have them compete against multiple other regions - dip not being a team game by nature (7 player, not really everyman for themselves, but everyman for the win, or collectively against the win..) The point is not to make it even first, it is to compare the performance of different regions </rant> as i'm not playing it doesn't really affect me, just sharing my opinion.

My proposed groups also take the geo factor into account, as well as the ghost ranking factor, so I don't see why a chance is not possible, since nothing has started yet.

even the soccer world cups take into account some king of ranking. groups are not based solely on geographical dispersion.

* kind, not king...

good to see my team has a 38% of going to the finals!

Look, I'll put my dice into solitary confinement, but the plan was always to split up similar locations, and then to do it by chance. It could have been seeded, yes, but ultimately to win you have to beat the best people either way.

I don't agree that we should change the groups.

Soccer world cups seed so that 1 team in 4 is seeded. We didn't. Tough for you.

Also, I might add that your % chances are woeful abuses of statistics that are totally meaningless.

I won't insist on group changing but I disagree about the stats abuse statement.

stats say that London team has 12 more chances of winning the cup than California.
that sounds just right...

a) someone has waaaaaay too much time on their hands.
b) the best way to adjust this is not by rebalancing... but rather for certain members of Southern Europe team to improve their Ghost Rating

So rather than perform sophisticated statistical analyses....

JOIN MY LIVE GAME!!!

(couldn't resist)

39% chance of victory for Texas, says hellalt. Well I'll take those odds, you ask me! haha

seriously though i think it's fine how it is i'm not too concerned with this, just a bit of fun. get to test my states mettle against the rest of the globe, you know?

lies, damn lies & .... statistics !

i don't even remember which midwest team i'm on, last i heard we were going to be the cow tippers, but yeah.

39% chances of advancing to the final round, not of winning.
Wait for another thread for some victory chances statistics.
coming up shortly.

akilies; you're on the Monsters. They wanted to ensure that the team name included the geographical location within it.

I personally think we have a great chance to get to the next round if we all get 18 SCs in our respective games.

Na, LanGaidin, its all down to your GR. Even if your the best team in the world you wont progress BECAUSE THE STATISTICS :P

Hell, these were done randomly. I know that because Ghost had a quick chat with me at the time about which teams were geographically the same and I quizzed him on it.
Also, average rating won't have much effect. One great solo player can probably take his team through...

the groups are how they are. tough luck. it was random. better draw next time =)