PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf assesses the top ten PDC stars - based on their last 200 legs played - following last weekend's Players Championship Finals in Minehead.
#1 Averages - Luke Littler
#1 OChE - Luke Littler
#1 Doubles - Luke Littler
#1 171-180 - Luke Littler
#1 99, 101+ Checkout - Luke Littler
If Luke Littler was determined to intimidate his rivals in preparation for the 2025 World Championship, he could not have done so more emphatically or with a more impressive and comprehensive statistical display.
Littler's last 200 legs have broken so many Form Guide records that it is perhaps most appropriate to note that 'The Nuke' is the first player to lead all five statistical categories tracked in the Form Guide simultaneously.
In many cases, his leads are tremendous: Littler's OChE rating of 73 puts him close to a pace that would win three-quarters of legs played on the ProTour: his nearest rival is 10 points behind.
18 players currently hold an average between 95 and 100; Littler soars above them all with the highest average yet recorded in the Form Guide, 104.22.
Littler even saw fit to break the ton-plus checkout record in style, completing 24 ton-plus finishes in 200 legs and 14 in the Players Championship Finals alone.
Only his loss in the final to Luke Humphries spoiled his preparation for the World Championship, but on this form the only appropriate comparison is to Phil Taylor or Michael van Gerwen at their historical best.
Humphries has been the only player able to stop Littler in the teenager's last 13 matches, and though his recent statistics pale in comparison to his younger rival, the elder Luke managed an OChE rating of 66 in the final.
The world number one allowed a Littler break of throw in only one of the nine legs in which he threw first, and completed eight out of 13 legs in 15 darts or fewer.
The two 2024 World Championship finalists have traded places frequently this past year at the top of the Form Guide, and Humphries' title defence in Minehead restored his #2 OChE ranking on a 3.6-point increase from the end of the Grand Slam.
Yet Humphries is now well aware that Littler, a more unknown quantity in their clash on January 3, is a heavy favourite on form, and he cannot count on the Premier League champion averaging even as low as 100.
The events of the past year have totally swept aside the remaining World Champions seeking a return to former glories at Alexandra Palace.
Rob Cross - the 2018 champion - is ranked 30th in averages and was brutally whitewashed by Littler in Minehead.
Michael van Gerwen and Gerwyn Price have had their least successful years in ranking TV events in a decade and look less competitive, on recent form, than young talents like Josh Rock and Wessel Nijman.
Michael Smith has the 83rd highest doubles percentage of the 128 Tour Card Holders, and Peter Wright has the 94th highest.
Only Gary Anderson has emerged from the 2024 season looking like a contender for a third world title; his seasonal average of 99.66 is the highest this year, even besting Littler's 99.06.
All of these players (except Price) have won titles in 2024, and could conceivably do so again this coming month, but the 'revo-Luke-tion' seems to have caught them by surprise, even to the point of rendering these once potent players almost obsolete.
*OChE (Ordinal Checkout Efficiency) explained:
OChE is a metric designed to evaluate the efficiency at which players convert their averages into legs won.
The statistic is the % of legs a player would expect to win on the ProTour, calculated from a weighted average of 4,5, 6 & 7 visit checkout rates.
Follow Christopher on Twitter @ochepedia