PDC Stats Analyst Christopher Kempf assesses the top ten PDC stars - based on their last 200 legs played - following last week's BetMGM Premier League action in Aberdeen.
#1 Averages - Luke Humphries
#1 OChE - Josh Rock
#1 Doubles - Jonny Clayton
#1 171-180 - Dirk van Duijvenbode
#1 99, 101+ Checkout - Niko Springer
A memorable quarter-final tie in Aberdeen between the two leading Lukes has restored Littler to the top ten in both averages and OChE rating, and made Humphries the PDC's number-one form player once again.
Littler's 116 average contributed to a 2.44 increase over his last 200 legs relative to the beginning of May, and the 0.65 increase in averages for Humphries pushed him above Josh Rock to claim top spot in the Form Guide.
While Rock remains the leader in winning efficiency, his withdrawal from Players Championship 15 and 16 casts doubt as to whether the 64.18 rating accurately reflects his current form.
Between Humphries and Littler there is very little daylight; only a difference of 0.03 in OChE rating (or 3 additional legs to be won for every 10,000 played against ProTour opponents) gives Humphries the advantage.
The two most recent World Champions are not guaranteed to do battle in this year's Premier League final, but their supremacy in the league table has created great expectations of an exciting clash at The O2.
If Ross Smith has not had a dramatic improvement in his position in the Form Guide, it is not for lack of legs won: he has not lost any of his last 24 legs.
This has bumped his OChE rating above 60, placing him within the top 10 - but his average actually declined after winning Players Championship 16.
Due to the rolling nature of the Form Guide, the new legs added to Smith's list of the 200 most recent legs he has played have excluded matches which he played in Players Championship 13 and 14, a pair of events in which Smith averaged more than 100 but did so with less dominance in terms of his match results.
However, if Smith is to continue that streak of legs won, he will be in an excellent position to replace some of the less impressive legs in his 200-leg interval, and in so doing will make a huge leap forward in the Form Guide.
The player benefitting the most in the Form Guide from his most recent ProTour results, unlike Ross Smith, is Danny Noppert.
Having achieved quarter-final finishes in his last three Players Championship events, Noppert improved his OChE rating by nearly five points and is now ahead of Michael van Gerwen in terms of both leg-winning efficiency and averages.
Moreover, while not resulting in his first PDC title of 2025, Noppert's improved form has given him 44% accuracy on his doubles, a figure exceeded among the Premier League contestants by only Chris Dobey.
His averages relative to the beginning of May have only increased by one point, but these improvements are winning him five additional legs against ProTour rivals for every 100 legs played.
The Players Championship circuit's return to Germany may not have resulted in the crowning of a German champion, but several German players achieved notable results as reflected by their Form Guide rankings.
Niko Springer now leads the PDC with 19 ton-plus checkouts, including five in the space of just 24 legs as the young player successfully qualified for the eighth European Tour event of 2025.
Dominik Gruellich followed up a runner-up finish in Players Championship 14 with a deciding-leg victory over Van Gerwen; his OChE rating has jumped by an astonishing 9.6 points in the space of just three weeks.
Meanwhile, Martin Schindler has already claimed two ProTour titles this year and has won his board final in five of his last seven Players Championship appearances, but ranks only third on the list of high-average Germans after a smattering of sub-90 averages.
Schindler and Gabriel Clemens remain among the most non-Dutch continental players, but their supremacy on the German darts scene is being challenged by talented newcomers.
*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