PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf assesses the top ten PDC stars - based on their last 200 legs played - following the World Series of Darts double-header Down Under.
#1 Averages - Luke Littler
#1 OChE - Luke Littler
#1 Doubles - Damon Heta
#1 171-180 - Luke Littler
#1 99, 101+ Checkout - Chris Dobey, Kevin Doets, Wesley Plaisier
At the age 18, having won all three of the biggest prizes in darts, not only is Luke Littler's objective clearly total conquest of the game, he appears to be making excellent progress toward achieving that.
Littler has recorded a 103.22 average over his last 200 legs and has thrown 100 maxima.
While these are not Littler's best figures, they are better than any recorded by almost any other player in the three-year history of the Form Guide.
The runner-up at the most recent World Championship - Michael van Gerwen - is running over 15 points behind him in OChE rating and only Rock remains within four points.
With Littler playing at a pace which would win 68% of legs on the ProTour, and Van Gerwen playing only slightly above the PDC average, any match-up between Littler and his rivals would be decided in the teenager's favour on recent form, and a repeat of the World Championship final might result not in a 7-3 win but a total blowout.
As the only remaining player in the PDC with a 20+ year continuous career in the organisation, James Wade has once more proven himself to be a top-ten player and exhibited some of the best performances of his career.
Wade is the #3 player on doubles and #7 on averages, outranking the majority of this year’s Premier League selections.
Four of Wade's highest averages in his 20 years of Blackpool magic were recorded just this year.
With only 51 maxima recorded over his last 200 legs, his performances were aided far more by superior accuracy on doubles and combination finishes than by power-scoring.
Overcoming Littler in the end was too much to ask (though 'The Machine' performed extremely well against an opponent averaging 107), but similar performances are clearly enough to take out most of the PDC's rising stars and established veterans alike.
Josh Rock - on the back of a semi-final appearance in the World Matchplay - decisively displaced Luke Humphries as the most likely rival to Littler.
His advantage of over four points in averages and over seven points in OChE rating indicates that while Humphries and Rock have not duelled each other on the PDC circuit of late, a potential match-up between the two would likely result in victory for the Northern Irishman.
Rock currently places third (behind Littler and Gerwyn Price) in terms of legs he would win in matches against the average ProTour opponent.
However, Rock, who memorably checked out from 164 to defeat Premier League veteran Price in the World Matchplay for one of 17 three-figure outshots of his last 200 legs, is now engaged in a tough rivalry with the former World Champion.
Price exacted some revenge by defeating him 6-5 in New Zealand after Rock missed a match dart.
There is little to separate them on the Form Guide, and if neither can take down Littler, these two can still produce fireworks on the oche as they duel for the #2 spot.
Sebastian Bialecki has experienced the largest one-week increase in OChE ever recorded in the Form Guide.
His Players Championship 22 victory, after six consecutive first-round losses, resulted in his leap from near-obscurity to PDC title glory and a place in the top half of PDC form players.
Bialecki's new OChE rating is 50.03, indicating him to be likely to win the majority of legs in his ProTour contests - but compare this figure to the one he recorded in mid-June - 37.38 - and the magnitude of his improvement becomes clear.
That equates to one additional leg won for every eight - and in a tournament in which he defeated Lukas Wenig 6-5, that improvement turned a seventh consecutive failure at the starting gate into a £15,000 cheque.
*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